1917 - Men, Materials, Mutinies and Mud

[@neilpk70]

"You've destroyed everything in front of you, and worn out everything behind you". WW1 had so many Catch 22s.

[@rangerbobcat]

Brilliant in its clarity. And the first historian I have ever heard who put the finger on 'Lacks in engineering' for a weakness of the UK forces. Bravo!

[@squeeth2895]

It's a mistake to treat the methods of Gough as inferior to those of Plumer; the Second Army had an extra 650 medium and heavy guns - the dry period and more of the same did the business not a fundamentally different form of attack.

[@patrickHayes-bq1ry]

though Gough is the architypal donkey . reactionary , bigoted, old fashioned uncaring for men and subordinates

[@Doug3575]

Great talk!

[@glennholmes7247]

Omitted the word madness in title

[@midlandgeordie]

Thorough and detailed account

[@kennymilne6125]

Really interesting talk

[@RasheedahNizam]

Does the WFA still have in-person lectures? I looked on the site and I see lectures scheduled but it is unclear if they are via video and live or in a lecture hall. I would like to become a member if I can go to lectures.

[@WesternFrontAssoc]

@rms of Yes, we do have monthly events at many of our branches (50 branches in the UK alone). If you contact us, we can tell you which the nearest branch(es) are to where you live so you can find out when they meet and if the meetings are 'live' (in person) or virtual. Either contact us by email ([e-mail]) or by phone [phone]

[@RasheedahNizam]

@@WesternFrontAssoc thank you! I live in the US but prior to covid I visited a lot. Also my children live in Wales.

[@jcmontecarlo6123]

In memory of all heroes of wwi

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

What was Lloyd George thinking, that he listened to Nivelle? Hypothesis - Nivelle's grandiose promise offered LG what we today would call an "exit strategy", a quick and cheap way out. The result, we know. One wonders how Passchendaele might have gone if it had started a few months earlier, with Plumer's methodical blasting-through strategy completed before the wet weather wrecked everything. Of course the problem with NOT throwing almost nuclear levels of destruction at limited features is that history pillories you forever for not giving a damn about the lives of your own soldiers. It is a surprise that Lloyd George did not suffer severe consequences for his misrepresentations - he is what some today might term a "Karma Houdini".

[@squeeth2895]

Plumer's methods weren't all that different to Gough's, the dry period of September and artillery reinforcements made more difference.

[@unitedstatesofanime222]

Battlefield 1 Likes 2,000,000 WOW!!! :)

[@davidchardon1303]

Was the BEF, really the spearhead of the 100 days offensive ? On the Western Front, the 1 November 1918 : French Army : - 102 infantry divisions, 6 cavalry divisions - 2,659,084 men and 630,440 horses - 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 and 388,00 horses - 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

[@laurentdrozin812]

Don't forget most of the equipment the US had was provided by the French and to a less extent the British

[@johnpeate4544]

In the final 100 days of the Great War *the BEF engaged, and defeated, 99 of the 197 German Divisions in the West.* Between July 18 and the end of the war, the French, American and Belgian armies combined captured 196,700 prisoners-of-war and 3,775 guns, while British forces, with a smaller army than the French, engaged the main mass of the German Army and captured 188,700 prisoners and 2,840 guns. Let me repeat that: the French, American and Belgian armies combined captured 196,700 prisoners-of-war and 3,775 guns, *while British forces captured 188,700 prisoners and 2,840 guns.* *British forces captured only 8,000 fewer prisoners and 935 less guns than the other allies combined* *In other words the British Army took just under 50% of the prisoners and just over 40% of the guns.* Historian John Terraine: _’The toughest assignment in modern British military history (i.e. since the creation of our first real Regular Army, the New Model) has been high command in war against the main body of a main continental enemy. Three British officers have undertaken such a task and brought it to a successful conclusion: the Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Wellington and Field-Marshal Lord Haig._ _And in that Final Offensive, which ended with a German delegation crossing the lines with a white flag to ask for an armistice, the British Armies under Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig captured 188,700 prisoners and 2840 guns. All the other Allies together, French, Americans, Belgians, captured 196,500 prisoners and 3775 guns. In other words, the British took just under 50% of all the prisoners and just over 40% of all the guns._ _That was the achievement of the British Citizen Army; I have called it, more than once, the 'finest hour' of the British Army. There has never been anything like that '100 Days' Campaign' of continuous victory in the whole of our military history. In the words of one who served from 1916 to 1918 and died only recently, Professor C. E. Carrington:_ _In our thousand years of national history there has been one short period (1916-1918) when Britain possessed the most effective army in the world, and used it to win decisive victory._ _The most sinister of all the delusions within the trauma was to lose sight of that._ _What was the position of Haig's army on that day? It amounted to nearly two million men of the British Empire - the largest land force in the Empire's history. And they had just reached the end of a 'Hundred Days' Campaign' as glorious and decisive as that of 1815 which concluded the Battle of Waterloo - but infinitely less known._ _It was, in fact an unparalleled achievement in the history of the British Army, revealed by the stark statistics. And this was done in nine successive victories which were largely instrumental in bringing the war to an end in 1918 - and a consummation that Haig was determined to bring about._ _These victories should be as famous as Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet or Talavera, Salamanca, Vittoria and Waterloo. Instead, they are forgotten and unknown, so I will list them now:_ _The Battle of Amiens, 8 August 1918 ('the black day of the German Army');_ _The Battle of Albert, 21 August (the day on which Haig told Churchill 'we ought to do our utmost to get a decision this autumn');_ *_The Battle of the Scarpe, 26 August;_ _The Battles of Havrincourt and Epehy, 12 September (the approaches to the HindenburgLine);_ _The Breaking of the Hindenburg Line, 27 September - 5 October (35,000 prisoners & 380 guns taken, the British Army's greatest feat of arms in all its history);_ _The Battle of Flanders, 28 September;_ _The Second Battle of Le Cateau, 6 October;_ _The Battle of the Selle, 17 October;_ _The Battle of the Sambre, 1-11 November._ _These were Haig's victories, handsomely acknowledged by Marshal Foch:_ _Never at any time in history has the British Army achieved greater results in attack than in this unbroken offensive .... The victory was indeed complete, thanks to the Commanders of Armies, Corps and Divisions, thanks above all to the unselfishness, to the wise, loyal and energetic policy of their Commander-in-Chief, who made easy a great combination and sanctioned a prolonged and gigantic effort.’_

[@davidchardon1303]

@@johnpeate4544 Yes, the British took more German deserteurs, but they remained to a secondary role in the last offensive since they attacked only with 30-35 divisions when the French were using 60-65 divisions. They also suffered a far bigger rate of casualties than the French for the same results ...

[@johnpeate4544]

@@davidchardon1303 Could you provide some sources that the captured Germans were deserters and also that the British suffered more casualties. It’s hardly a shock that the French had a larger army, Britain being a sea power and the war being fought on French not British soil. And if they suffered more casualties that’s hardly surprising as I wrote the British engaged 99 of the 197 German divisions in the west. Yet looking at the results it would appear the British were doing more with less.

[@davidchardon1303]

@@johnpeate4544 The British suffered more casualties by proportion of their involment in the last offensive. 60-65 French divisions vs 30-35 divisions. The 13,000 soldiers of the 8 August were deserteurs, at Mons they took 40,000 deserteurs, at Lille 30,000 to. In Bruxelle, they took one entire mutinied division. The main force was the French and no the British didn't do more except taking more deserteurs than the French.. Also, all the logistics, the tanks, 80 % of the airplanes, guns, guns shells and MG's of the American were provided by the French. So, we should add what the American did in the French war effort since they couldn't have do their offensives without this huge French supply.

[@WychardNL]

Worse audio than usual. Too bad...

[@asnieres32]

You might need to get new speakers because it's fine for me.

[@bandwagon22]

There is another truth must be mentioned: land warfare in WW2 was not much more advanced than that in WW1. What really was game changer was growing importance of air power 25 years later. Especially ability to destroy war production before it reached battle zone. And about land warfare itself: the endless hype of "decisive breakthrough" is so strongly adopted by top level generals of WW1 and WW2 that it's really remarkable example of high fantasy.

[@Ensign_Cthulhu]

"Land warfare in WW2 was not much more advanced..." Oh what bullshit. The evolution of the mechanised arm, mechanised logistics (foremost in the British Army), and advances in command and control brought about by the proliferation of portable voice radio changed EVERYTHING. The decisive breakthrough is high fantasy? Really? Tell that to the men of Fifth Army on 21 March 1918 (the only thing indecisive about that was the glittering distraction of Paris, or Ludendorff might have achieved what he'd originally intended to do), or the French Army in 1940.

[@baboon9er]

Amiens, 8 August 1918 was the decisive breakthrough in WW1.

[@squeeth2895]

No army "broke through" in the Great War.

[@arrow-lo7jf]

The Canadians did ! do your home work...

[@HotPinkst17]

@@squeeth2895 The decisive break throughs in WW1 were on the Eastern front and in the middle east. Germany fully occupied from Ukraine to the Baltic states and Britain conquered Israel after extensive campaigns seeing the capture of Baghdad. There were significant break throughs is ww1 you see, just not really on the western front. Mechanized armor, air power and combined arms tactics significantly changed land warfare by ww2.

[@wuffothewonderdog]

Jeepers! Why can't those bloody coughers go outside. This speaker was fighting to be heard all the way through.

[@MrRobertbyers]

My Canadians , under our general, had great ideas and thus accomplished great things. It was probably more the general then the men. JUst better ideas in war fighting.

[@kennymilne6125]

What an arrogant comment ,

[@arrow-lo7jf]

What a TRUE comment ! Canada had the best army and General during that mess, and that is a fact, no bull shit, best record of any Army of WW1, this is all common knowledge to people that do their research ! they took Vimy , Passchendaele, and Cambrai, I rest my case, truth is truth.

[@giovannipierre5309]

Robert Byers “......a closer examination of the situation tends to indicate that while the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Divisions fought well in the Hundred Days, so did as many - or more British Divisions, in spite of their manpower handicaps and the mailings they had suffered in the earlier 1918 fighting. All but seven of the fifty British divisions involved in the Hundred Days had been heavily engaged in the Michael offensive or the Georgette attack on the Lys; seventeen had been involved in both, and five had been involved in the Blucher offensive on the Aisne. This level of commitment to battle continued until the very end of the war; fourteen British divisions each suffered casualties of over 2,500 men in the last six weeks of the war alone....and yet the British offensive did not grind t a halt. It should also be remembered that the Canadian Corps had hardly been engaged at all in the great battles in the spring of 1918, and its divisions were therefore intact and relatively fresh when the great Allied began on 8 August. Peter Simkins Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum In London, said as much in a paper presented at a History Conference held at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, in September 1993, and parts of his address lay out the situation clearly. ‘Many Australian soldiers were critical of the quality of British troops on the Western Front in 1918 and derogatory comments about the morale, the fighting ability or the command of the ‘Tommies’ are by no means difficult to find....even so, y the splendid tactical achievements by Australian soldiers have become somewhat distorted , helping to create the myth of the ‘colonial superman’. As a consequence the contribution of the British soldier to the ultimate victory has been overshadowed. Simkins goes on to analyze the fighting during the Hundred Days and compares the performance of Australian, British, Canadian and (the single) New Zealand Divisions In opposed attacks; his detailed investigations throw up some interesting statistics. For example, the successful opposed-attack record of the nine British divisions in Rawlinson’s Fourth Army during the Hundred Days was 70.7 per cent - exactly the same as in the five Australian Divisions, and only slightly lower than that of the four, much larger Canadian divisions (72.5 per cent) and well above that of the New Zealand Division (64.5 per cent). Moreover two British divisions - the 19th (Western) and 66th - had success rates of 100 per cent and the 9th (Scottish) Division had a success rate of 93 per cent, this last averaged out over fourteen separate attacks. The 24th Division racked up an 85 per cent success rate and the 16th (Irish) Division 80 per cent. The evidence hardly accords with the popular Dominion opinion that all the British divisions were useless. There is more, however. Simkins points out that six Dominion divisions (1st, 2nd and 5th Australian and 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian) achieved a success rate of between 70 and 80 per cent in opposed attacks, but so, quite apart, from the divisions mentioned above, did five more British Divisions (Guards, 18th [Eastern], 24th, 34, and 38th [Welsh]). From this it is possible to infer that ten British divisions did as well, or better, than the six crack Dominion divisions. Simkins gives many more examples, and continues. ‘If one then considers the number of attacks carried out by British and Dominion divisions and also the “ battle days” on which each division saw meaningful action, the British units again stand up well in comparison with the Dominion divisions’. In fact, a comparison of successful attacks and ‘battle days’ reveals that during the Hundred Days, most British divisions, ‘in spite of the crisis they experienced earlier in the year, actually made a very weighty contribution to the Allied victory.’ This conclusion would seem to be both accurate and fair, and is reached, not in any attempt to downgrade the reputation of the Dominion divisions, but to point out, yet again, the often-overlooked fact that the British divisions also played a decisive part, whatever is now maintained in Ottawa, Canberra or Wellington. This view is certain to be challenged and all statistical evidence is subject to the accusation that ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics.’ Before tat old canard is trotted out to refute Peter Simkin’s arguments, it should be pointed out yet again that he presented them, not in the UK, but in a speech to an audience of Australian soldiers and historians In Canberra, where it was received with tolerance and respect.” Robin Neillands - Great War Generals on the Western Front

[@giovannipierre5309]

arrow64 64 “.......a closer examination of the situation tends to indicate that while the Australian, Canadian and New Zealand Divisions fought well in the Hundred Days, so did as many - or more British Divisions, in spite of their manpower handicaps and the mailings they had suffered in the earlier 1918 fighting. All but seven of the fifty British divisions involved in the Hundred Days had been heavily engaged in the Michael offensive or the Georgette attack on the Lys; seventeen had been involved in both, and five had been involved in the Blucher offensive on the Aisne. This level of commitment to battle continued until the very end of the war; fourteen British divisions each suffered casualties of over 2,500 men in the last six weeks of the war alone....and yet the British offensive did not grind t a halt. It should also be remembered that the Canadian Corps had hardly been engaged at all in the great battles in the spring of 1918, and its divisions were therefore intact and relatively fresh when the great Allied began on 8 August. Peter Simkins Senior Historian at the Imperial War Museum In London, said as much in a paper presented at a History Conference held at the Australian Defence Force Academy, Canberra, in September 1993, and parts of his address lay out the situation clearly. ‘Many Australian soldiers were critical of the quality of British troops on the Western Front in 1918 and derogatory comments about the morale, the fighting ability or the command of the ‘Tommies’ are by no means difficult to find....even so, y the splendid tactical achievements by Australian soldiers have become somewhat distorted , helping to create the myth of the ‘colonial superman’. As a consequence the contribution of the British soldier to the ultimate victory has been overshadowed. Simkins goes on to analyze the fighting during the Hundred Days and compares the performance of Australian, British, Canadian and (the single) New Zealand Divisions In opposed attacks; his detailed investigations throw up some interesting statistics. For example, the successful opposed-attack record of the nine British divisions in Rawlinson’s Fourth Army during the Hundred Days was 70.7 per cent - exactly the same as in the five Australian Divisions, and only slightly lower than that of the four, much larger Canadian divisions (72.5 per cent) and well above that of the New Zealand Division (64.5 per cent). Moreover two British divisions - the 19th (Western) and 66th - had success rates of 100 per cent and the 9th (Scottish) Division had a success rate of 93 per cent, this last averaged out over fourteen separate attacks. The 24th Division racked up an 85 per cent success rate and the 16th (Irish) Division 80 per cent. The evidence hardly accords with the popular Dominion opinion that all the British divisions were useless. There is more, however. Simkins points out that six Dominion divisions (1st, 2nd and 5th Australian and 1st, 2nd and 3rd Canadian) achieved a success rate of between 70 and 80 per cent in opposed attacks, but so, quite apart, from the divisions mentioned above, did five more British Divisions (Guards, 18th [Eastern], 24th, 34, and 38th [Welsh]). From this it is possible to infer that ten British divisions did as well, or better, than the six crack Dominion divisions. Simkins gives many more examples, and continues. ‘If one then considers the number of attacks carried out by British and Dominion divisions and also the “ battle days” on which each division saw meaningful action, the British units again stand up well in comparison with the Dominion divisions’. In fact, a comparison of successful attacks and ‘battle days’ reveals that during the Hundred Days, most British divisions, ‘in spite of the crisis they experienced earlier in the year, actually made a very weighty contribution to the Allied victory.’ This conclusion would seem to be both accurate and fair, and is reached, not in any attempt to downgrade the reputation of the Dominion divisions, but to point out, yet again, the often-overlooked fact that the British divisions also played a decisive part, whatever is now maintained in Ottawa, Canberra or Wellington. This view is certain to be challenged and all statistical evidence is subject to the accusation that ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics.’ Before tat old canard is trotted out to refute Peter Simkin’s arguments, it should be pointed out yet again that he presented them, not in the UK, but in a speech to an audience of Australian soldiers and historians In Canberra, where it was received with tolerance and respect.” Robin a Neillands Great War Generals on the Western Front.

[@giovannipierre5309]

Robert Byers Byng was British.

[@DangRockets]

In discussing the Great War, "we" and "us" should no longer be used.

[@slightlyconfused876]

Why? Are you suggesting the Germans and Austro-Hungarians were allies of Britain and France?

[@DangRockets]

@@slightlyconfused876 No. The "we" and "us" usage are meaningless with regard to historical events.

[@michael7324]

I disagree