Pershing Lecture Series: Leadership and the French Mutinies of 1917 - Ethan Rafuse

[@drizer4real]

I'm no Francophile but I never understood the arrogant looking down of the British on the French. The French army took a brutal beating during WWI at places like Verdun and the Marne and lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers, survived mutiny and near collapse, almost 18% of the French army was killed, enough to create a demographic bottleneck coupled with a already declining birth rate that plagued them well up to WWII. Only Germany and Russia lost more men. They were certainly no surrender monkeys.

[@Ross-zs4zt]

It's historical rivalry waaay predating WW1, a lot of cultural differences over the years that still exist today. More recently the joke tends to be founded in WW2 and the collapse suffered, albeit that's a bit unfair since we had a channel to retreat across and they didn't

[@whtalt92]

Cheese eating surrender monkeys is a term coined by a Simpsons writer and significantly boosted by certain US journalists during the 2003 Iraq war.

[@watching99134]

Napoleon was *not* simply defeated by the British at Waterloo; there were two Allied armies that day that second one was entirely Prussian (led Bluecher, it turned the tide at the end of the day). Also the British Army was more properly Anglo-Dutch, and it consisted of Scots, Irish, Welsh, Dutch, proto-Belgians and Germans as much as English.

[@paddy864]

"Also the British Army was more properly Anglo-Dutch, and it consisted of Scots, Irish, Welsh," Yes, those are all constituent parts of the UK, hence the BRITISH Army? The didn't fight as separate national contingents you know? They were fully integrated into the army and line of battle.

[@h.e.hazelhorst9838]

It’s interesting to think of what would have happened if someone had leaked details of the mutinies to the germans at that time (beginning of May, 1917). Had they launched an offensive? Would they have a breakthrough? If the French line had collapsed, the Allies had to negotiate a peace with Germany. War may have ended before the October revolution.

[@docholiday7975]

Check out the other lecture on this channel by André Loez, he answers this directly. Contrary to long held thought, the German intelligence was aware. It was decided to not try to press anything due to exhaustion of men, reserves and material following the Nivelle offensive as well as Ludendorff being aware of similar revolutionary feelings brewing within his own army that would only be exacerbated or outright brought to boiling by contact with the French.

[@davidchardon1303]

Were the French really the spearhead of the allied offensive ? On the Western Front, the 1 November 1918 : French Army : - 102 infantry divisions, 6 cavalry divisions - 2,659,084 men , 630,440 horses and 80,000 trucks. - 5,578 heavy guns and 1,626 trench guns - 50,700 chauchats and 30,664 heavy MG's - 1,272 tanks - 3,609 planes British Army : - 60 infantry divisions and 3 cavalry divisions - 1,721,890 men, 388,00 horses and 19,000 trucks. - 2,197 heavy guns and 2,570 trench guns - 20,000 lewis and 4,632 heavy MG's - 611 tanks - 1,678 planes (!!!) American Army : - 31 infantry divisions and no cavalry division - 1,821,449 men and 151,250 horses - 746 trench guns and 406 heavy guns - 18,465 light MG's (most of them being chauchat CSRG 1918 and the rest being BAR's) and 6,239 heavy MG's - 91 tanks (lol) - 2,032 planes

[@whazzat8015]

You neglect the AEF's capacity for self congratulation.

[@remittanceman4685]

Sorry, if you are basing your opinion on Blackadder, you've blown your credibility. Haig was forced to fight at the Somme by Lloyd George because Llyod George deferred to the Grench. He was also forced to fight Paschendaele by Lloyd George and only managed to chose the location over French objections. Lloyd George also probably made the impact of the Kaiserslacht offensive greater because he withheld huge numbers of replacements for the BEF In late 1917 and early 1918 while simultaneously agreeing with the French to increase the length of front assigned to the British and Dominion forces. Vis a vis innovation, Haig oversaw the growth of an army from a couple of hundred thousand to three million; an army that learned to fight a totally new kind of war. Fe was keen on aircraft and on being shown the first task was reported to have said "order a thousand". Ge also oversaw the introduction of civilians into the BEF organisation to administer logistics (the railways) and mining. Finally, Haig led the BEF during the Hundred Days Campaign that arguably did more to defeat the Germans in 1918 than the combined efforts of the French, Americans, Belgium and Italians. Ludendorff himself called the Battle of Amiens "the Black Day of the German Army" Oh. And his army never mutinied.

[@mjinnh2112]

Absolutely agree. Lecturer is a Civil War specialist and betrayed a lack of preparation when discussing Haig, which does not do US scholarship proud.

[@davidchardon1303]

The BEF wasn't the only actor nor the spearhead of the 100 days offensive. Please stop reinventing history

[@paddy864]

Excellent!

[@JustMe00257]

How foolish chauvinism can lead one to be.

[@alganhar1]

@@davidchardon1303 No, it was not. However it DID capture more POW's, more artillery and more machineguns than the French, Americans and Belgian's combined. Those captures are a good metric to use when judging Operational Tempo and effectiveness of the military in question. So while there were other Actors in the latter half of 1918, it can be convincingly argued that the British Army of the 100 Days period was the most active and most effective Allied Army on the Western Front.

[@bolo4104]

11:20 is when they actually start talking about anything you want to listen to.

[@deka0014]

Thank you

[@gandydancer9710]

And even then the illumination never gets better than a dim (and dubious) recitation of events.

[@alganhar1]

Issues: Haig being the product of the Upper Class? He was not, his father was a Distiller, and while a successful one he was very much middle, not upper class. Haig was not a member of the aristocracy, neither was the Chief of the Imperial General Staff at the time, Field Marshal Sir William Robertson. The latter was in fact *lower* class, his father being a tailor/Postmaster. Robertson was also the only man in the history of the British Army to rise from Private right the way up to Field Marshal. While Haig made many mistakes, he continued the Third Battle of Ypres far longer than he should have for example, he also was the man responsible for turning the British Army into a modern fighting force. The Somme, despite many comments I have seen, was not in fact a defeat, but a victory, as it did force the German Army to fall back to a secondary line of pre-prepared defensive positions. It was a bloody victory true, but a victory nonetheless. He recognised the potential of the tank, ordering 400 immediately, wanting to use them on the Somme. True, he did not know how to use tanks effectively in 1916, but then *no one* did. Haig is a good deal more complex than just Good or Bad, how would you feel if I stated that Pershing was abominable simply because of the way he mishandled the initial phases of the Meuse -Argonne Offensive? Which he did by the way, badly. The AEF took far heavier casualties in that battle than they should have done, and a great deal of the blame for that can be laid right at the feet of Pershing..... How about the battle of Amiens? When Haig faced down Foch who wanted the inital success to be followed up despite the stiffening of German resistance? How about the way Haig handled the BEF during the 100 Days Offensives? Something that is conveniently forgotten by all to many people vilifying him. Yes, he made mistakes, no he was no tactical genius. He was not however the bumbling idiot so many portray him to be, things tend to be a lot more complex than people like. Rommel for example is considered a military Genius, yet there is plenty of evidence to indicate he was logistically unrealistic at best, inept at worst, evidence that is generally ignored by his many admirers....

[@ianmoore9846]

@alganhar1 exactly . Kinda spoiled the lecture when he starts taking about Blackadder…

[@whazzat8015]

He was just doing like they did before. Oh right, there was no before.

[@gandydancer9710]

I see that you're a Donkey. IAW Wikipedia: "Casualties and losses British Empire c. 420,000[3][4][5] French Third Republic c. 200,000[6][7][5] German Empire 434,000-445,000[8][5][7]" In return for ground amounting to nothing important. With "victories" like that, it's a good thing the British Navy could execute a blockade.

[@paddy864]

Excellent post, thank you for that. I would only add that no less a person than Gen. John J. Pershing, commenting on the way Haig was being vilified by lesser men after the war said: "How can they treat the man who won the war in that way?".

[@wuffothewonderdog]

It was not Haig who turned the British army into a modern fighting force. That was done by Horace Smith-Dorrien when he took over the Aldershot Command, where he ordered the cavalry, beloved of Generals French and Haig, to abandon knee to knee lance and sabre charges and concentrate on musketry, to such an extent that a lancer later won the King's Prize for shooting. He created a modern mobile army that would not break under the hammer blows of the Schleiffen Plan, indeed Smith-Dorrien in command of half the BEF fought a fighting retreat which prevented the other half under Haig being overwhelmed. Haig connived with the BEF C-in-C, French, to get Smith-Dorriwn sacked because both felt threatened by him. Not the action of gentlemen. The British casualties in WW1 would have been far less if Smith-Dorrien had been in command from day one.

[@pupwizard3888]

He would have been more effective in his description of French demographic problems if he had detailed the manpower losses experienced during the Napoleonic Wars. The manpower drain got so bad that Napoleon started recruiting 14 year olds in 1814. France lost the cream of its manhood during the Napoleonic and Revolutionary wars. This had a horrible impact on France demographically in the 19th century. Think about it, what happens to the next generations when your best and brightest are wiped out? Now throw WW1's losses into the equation and forward to today......

[@steveswitzer4353]

i rather enjoyed this

[@pancakes3250]

Guys, i like this kinds of videos, more pls.

[@Videokeizah]

All very well, but were the much more urbanised Germans not corrupted by the pleasures of cosmopolitan life?

[@bernie4268]

Kind of weird calling these the Pershing series when he led men to their deaths on 11/11/18

[@whazzat8015]

"Between Mutiny and Obedience" good read You don't win wars with defense. Still French doctrine was problematic and their society fractured. Good thing we learned all that

[@raymondmay2136]

The Doug Haig troup was un historical. Black Adder is drawing from the same mind set you seem to draw from. Who won 1918? not the French, not L George. It was Canadians, Australian and British troops under Haig.

[@Skanzool]

I don't think some American historians understand the political aspect of the mutinies. The mutinies were purely political in nature and were started by worker-soldiers who wanted to emulate what was going on in Russia where soldiers had begun the mutiny which would become the Russian Revolution. French soldiers were very well informed because hundreds of soldier newspapers were printed on the front and read by these soldiers. These papers had various ideological leanings and many of them supported what was going on in Russia (February Revolution) .

[@willnill7946]

Skanzool o they know

[@whazzat8015]

Check out "Between Mutiny and Obedience" It's not like Russia invented Revolutions

[@connorm4145]

@@whazzat8015wrong, everything I don’t agree with is a plot of nefarious Muscovite communists

[@PJ-pj8lr]

not even the PM Loyd George trusted Gn Haig, much less the foot slogger

[@paddy864]

You seem to know as little about Haig as the speaker. If you do your research you'll find that LG was an extremely dubious character and behaved appallingly towards Haig who was trying to win a war that Politicians like and including LG, had landed him with. Douglas Haig was five times the man in terms of honesty, integrity and decency than that Welsh chancer.

[@booradley6832]

The speaker knows about Haig he's just trying to think on the spot of how to convey the eccentric levels of dullness to that woman who doesnt know about one of the wars big infamous characters. Lloyd George was instrumental in quickly starting the wheels turning to solving the shell crisis as well as getting other things done in a wartime Britain that more conventional politicians could and did not. Got women in the workplace to pick up tons of manufacturing labor. Played hardball with factory owners who wouldnt support the war effort during the first ever total war, but then was good to them when they relented. Haig felt every bit the lifelong bureaucrat, aristocrat and beneficiary of nepotism. Just the fact that his tactics didnt work, his men did not particularly care for him but he could not even be shifted around to give someone else's methods a try make him a natural villain. The war losses of Britain are by default his burden because he refused to change or be changed. As the king was the stake holding the whole old boys club tent down, the men who got hurt, the families who lost loved ones and the people who hated the destruction had good reason to dislike him. His fingerprints were somewhere behind every bad command decision, either holding the bad officer in place or writing them himself.

[@randyschaff8939]

Did they execute a whole regiment by shellfire?

[@gandydancer9710]

No.

[@calimero7538]

who is Henri Pétain ? The name of the french commander is Philippe Pétain.

[@johnferguson7235]

Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain, generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain, was a French general officer who reached the distinction of Marshal of France,

[@whazzat8015]

​@@johnferguson7235peut-être Went by Phil , to his friends.

[@paddy864]

I found this moderately interesting while he was speaking about the French, not a subject I have any real, detailed knowledge of I have to admit. All was going well until that question came about Haig, from a lady in the audience who know nothing of him and queried the comment about Lloyd George's issues with him. In reply the speaker then showed us that he has something in common with the questioner in that he knows virtually nothing about Douglas Haig either. He parroted what was essentially a series of long-discredited - by serious military historians - lies and myths about Haig's personality, abilities, intelligence, professionalism and leadership during the three and a half years in which he commanded the largest British Army in history in the main theatre of operations against the main enemy. Words like "Somme" and "Passchendaele" were thrown about pejoratively with little thought or explanation as if their mere mention was all that was required to prove a point. He even descended to the very depths of argument by citing more or less as a source, a hugely popular TV comedy series set during WW1, as evidence of Haig's problems. All I can suggest is that this chap sticks to talking about the French and possibly the Americans, because he quite obviously knows little or nothing about the British Army of the time or it's commanders. Incidentally, some years ago a poll was held among very senior British officers and many of the more notable British historians, as to their top ten British commanders in history. Haig featured highly in all replies, right up there with Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, Slim and Montgomery.

[@Keshet59]

Michael Neiburg is actually a WW1 historian; his videos are worth checking out because he speaks about his own field of research and scholarship. This video is interesting, but mainly in the differences with other historians.

[@johnwhite2576]

Hangs record is, to say t least , mixed, but no denying he was the star of the 100 days campaign.

[@steveswitzer4353]

Talking utter bollox about haig though im afraid

[@davidpnewton]

And the lecturer conveniently forgets about the 100 Days offensive in 1918. The British Army achieved what the other Allied armies could not and broke through on an operational level. Haig was responsible for that offensive. The French Army was too damaged from its casualties and was still recovering from the 1917 mutinies. The US Army in 1918 was still too small to achieve the main breakthrough. The Italian Army was in much the same condition as the French Army. The Belgian Army was irrelevant because of its tiny size. The Russian Army wasn't even fighting due to surrender by that time. Haig can be justly criticised in many instances, but to wheel out the old lions v donkeys trope shows a very prejudiced, parochial view of Haig. The lecturer's American cultural prejudices against aristocracy are shining through and need to be checked at the door. Lloyd George was also hardly a paragon of leadership, and he can be criticised as much as Haig can be. In short Dr Rafuse needs to read more modern scholarship about Haig and needs to temper his inate cultural prejudices to gain a more balanced view of the situation.

[@RemzofFrance]

2nd Battle of the Marne. 15 days before the "100 days offensive". At the cost of several dozens of thousand casualties the French American and British (yes, British, 2 divisions if my recollection is correct) stopped the German offensive towards Paris and achieved the first breakthrough with 300 tanks. Why ignore it?

[@mjinnh2112]

Absolutely agree! Rafuse was very poorly prepared on his answer to the Haig question and mostly trotted out tired stereotypes. To say he had a "stupid face"; it doesn't get much more lame than that! In addition, recent scholarship has cast doubt on that Ludendorff Christmas directive about bleeding France white. No one has actually found it. Perhaps he should stick with the Civil War.

[@andreaslundberg2978]

You mean von Falkenhayn, right? Not Ludendorff.

[@lebverderben]

You are aware of what von Hindenburg said won the war for the Allied and Associated Powers, correct? He said "american infantry in the Argonne."

[@7macfly2]

David Newton 100 days offensive 2,5 million french 1,9 million british and american

[@larrymistler6014]

Balfour declaration.

[@gandydancer9710]

... Just something to proclaim when Jerusalem was captured, not intended to amount to much.

[@Keshet59]

Not according to Churchill.

[@rosesprog1722]

Revenge? It is the French who attacked the Germans in 1870, how can they talk of revenge and anyway, Alsace was originally French but Lorraine was German but these are a strange people, after WW2, the first thing they did after celebrating the liberation from the occupier, is go back and occupy Vietnam!!!!

[@mharley3791]

No one saying that the French were rational

[@davelowe3577]

I’m afraid his comments on Haig show a fundamental or wilful misunderstanding of the evolution of Haig and the BEF and not a small amount of prejudice. Lost all credibility with that answer

[@gandydancer9710]

Pray inform us. Signs of any evolution in Haig elude me.

[@JustMe00257]

Haig obviously was a military genius whose brightness went unnoticed 😁 Typical British chauvinistic reaction.