Their voices have not been heard since the First World War. With some help from a lipreader.
on 03/31/2009 at 07:47 AM
20,000 dead and nearly another 40,000 wounded. On the very first day. And that’s just the English loses.
You would have thought that the generals would have known better than to set off the mines early, which served to alert the surviving Germans that an attack was coming, and give them plenty of time to set up several hundred Maxim guns.
You would have thought that the generals wouldn’t require the troops to march uphill across a long open field carrying heavy packs and all their gear.
But both happened at Somme. And had happened in earlier battles. And continued to happen. For years. This was the Butcher’s War. I think it’s a miracle that afterwords the nations didn’t hang all their generals for their arrogant stupidity. They should have.
One and a half million casualties for a 12 mile long strip of mud. Insanity.
20,000 dead and nearly another 40,000 wounded. On the very first day. And that’s just the English loses.
Close but no cigar, but you have the general idea right. Those were the “British British” losses, IE those from the “Home Islands” and not from the Dominions and the colonies.
It gets uglier when you take those and the Franco-Belgians into account, and to that you have to add a charming dollup of the poor guys that we’ve never found and weren’t accounted for.
You would have thought that the generals wouldn’t require the troops to march uphill across a long open field carrying heavy packs and all their gear.
In defence, there really wasn’t a whole lot HQ could do about that. Fort Donamount had just fallen to the Reichwehr and the French were starting to shout for help to prevent the Germans from taking the rest of the Verdun sector. And with the Russo-Serb-Montinegrins having been pretty much neutralized on the East in 1915 (Montinegro surrendered, Serbia fell back into Greece as the homeland was occupied, and the Russian military on the East pretty much ceased to exist for a couple months and only later managed to coalesce enoguh to launch a few offensives- the Lake Naroch Offensives- that make the First Day of the Somme look like a stellar example of Allied leadership), there wasn’t really too many options to turn to or places they could attack.
Half the problem with the Western Allies on the Somme- well, those problems excepting the whole “No-efficient communication with HQ, difficulty with manoeuvrability, problems with coordination” boondoble that lasted pretty much throughout the war- was that the BEF (Which was THE driving force on the Somme) had been planning for action in Ypres at a slightly later date when the necessity to bail out the French forced them to pack up everything near the Channel and move hundreds of miles inland and to the East. Needless to say, even today our logistics would have hell with doing this in such a short period of time, and back then it would have been an absolute nightmare.
The other half was simply that the Western Allies pretty much mishandled their arty and infantry in the initial assault, and once the forces were actually in combat, Fog of War was hellish- the Forward Staging posts really couldn’t tell where units less then a mile from them were at any given time, and this only got worse as Sitreps had to go from the Front to the Forward Areas to HQ, and orders had to go from HQ to the Forward Areas to- if the runners were lucky- the units that were intended to receive them on the front. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the WA seriously overestimated the effects of their guns on the German line while also tipping the OHL off. Simply not a nice picture however you look at it.
You would have thought that the generals would have known better than to set off the mines early, which served to alert the surviving Germans that an attack was coming, and give them plenty of time to set up several hundred Maxim guns.
Perhaps, but notsomuch as having the artillery bombard the attack area for WEEKS beforehand, which tipped the Germans off like hell. However, even this wasn’t a fatal mistake: that was in how they used the Artillery.
Problem #1. They spread the “love” a little bit too thin over the German line, so that rather then having the entire German line be pretty much intact save for a tiny area that was literally pulverized, they had the entire line be moderately dazed.
Problem #2: They tried to launch the initial attack as a broad wave attacking the entire German front in the area, which- coupled with the failure to prioritize the target areas- meant that (except for in the South) they pretty much failed everywhere.
Problem #3: They had severe issues not only where they were shelling, but also with what they were shelling them with. Simply put, there were too many duds (an infamous fact which triggered the “Shell Crisis” shortly afterward) but- less well known but likely almost as decisive- they had very little HE and a lot of Shrapnel. The former is what you need when you want to destroy/suppress/cripple solid defensive structures and works like those on the Somme, which the later burst over the Germans, came down, shot around the trenches and killed a few people, but overall did not really do much to the trenches themselves.
Problem #4: Throughout the entirety of the preparatory barrage, the Western Allies failed to give their “due” to the barbed wire outside the trenches. Simply put, this was a fiasco.
Problem #5: When all is said and done, perhaps the most devastating mistake about the barrage was that they cut it off just as the assault was starting, which- like you said- allowed the Germans who had been sitting in their dugouts the entire time to come up and set up their MGs well ahead of the attackers.
But both happened at Somme. And had happened in earlier battles. And continued to happen. For years.
Welcome to high-intensity warfare in the modern era. Say what you will, but it ain’t a pretty sight.
This was the Butcher’s War.
Yes, but as opposed to WWII (where Soviet and Chinese leadership was VASTLY more destructive and less effective then those of the WWI Western Allies), the Crimean War (less gains per capita of casualties), or the Mongol conquests (’nuff said)?
I think it’s a miracle that afterwards the nations didn’t hang all their generals for their arrogant stupidity. They should have.
While I certainly agree that a few nations (Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia) should have either hung a good deal of their military command or had it done for them, only the Russians, Romanians, and Austro-Hungarians would have had anything to do with their competence, and even then mostly it would be due to the ridiculous amount of war crimes that those nations piled up.
However, simply put, the military commands of the War are far less incompetent then they appear though the distortions of today. The Germans are the most-ballyhooed in this area today (if only because it would not fit with Littlewood and Co’s storyline of “Poor Tommy Atkins and his friends are all massacred for no reason whatsoever” if the Germans were portrayed as incompetent buffoons incapable of firing their weapons) and not without reason, but you are overlooking the sad that that WWI marked a period where each nation had to adjust to the rigors of total war on a massive scale. The British in particular had a nasty go of it, because they had to bring their peacetime strength of 400,000-600,000 total to over 1.5 million in the West in the ARMY alone (not counting the Navy, the Balkans, the RFC, the Middle East, the units raised for colonial defense, etc).
The simple fact is that those who went to over the top at “Zero Hour” on July 1st 1916 were Green, and commanded by a High Command that itself was trying to get itself together and navigate the problems with waging a modern war. In a perfect world, the troops would have had enough time to train with the correct tactics, with all the weapons they were about to use, and with enough vigor so that they were “ready” to go in.
Unfortunately, when Haig and Lloyd George were woken up in Late May by an increasingly desperate French army trying to hold the line against a numerically superior enemy, that was simply not possible.
One and a half million casualties for a 12 mile long strip of mud. Insanity.
Perhaps, but insanity is nothing if not part of the human condition. And it was not merely for that “12 mile long strip” but also for Verdun and France as a whole, something that the West and its Democratic heritage probably could not have survived without.
Also, you must keep in mind that those “Arrogant” and “Stupid” “Donkeys” who are largely blamed (and not entirely unjustly) for the failures of the Somme and Verdun would help create our modern military as it exists today (Pop quiz: Who was the Tank’s largest battlefield proponent during WWI?) and for eventually managed to win the War. Keep in mind that, at the cost of several months and hundreds of thousands of lives, these “Donkeys” were able to push the Germans from their third position and greatly streamline their military performance on both fronts. Indeed, the Germans- who certainly would have taken notice if the Western Allies were fighting ineptly- cut the Verdun offensive for this reason and BEGGED Berlin to go into action in the East while leaving the West for later.
It is also worth noting that these “Donkeys”, for all their flaws, would eventually Destroy Ottoman Turkey, Overrun Bulgaria, and managed to attack the full force of Germany and Austria-Hungary- fueled by a conquered Eastern Europe- and systematically destroy both almost simultaneously.
Honestly, say what you will about those “Donkeys”, but they are neither as incompetent or as arrogant as has been claimed by the Worst Generation in their narcissistic and foolish death spiral. For, in spite of all their problems, those “Donkeys” freed the Middle East from three tyrannical and very powerful regimes (Germany, Turkey, Austria-Hungary) while giving Eastern and Central Europe the chance to become truly free- a chance they would sadly squander. Something that the Worst Generation cannot compare to.
Ultimately, the bottom line is that I would prefer to have the governments of all the Western Allied nations today be swapped for a random pick of Western Allied leaders from their respective countries*.
I honestly believe that we would be better off with Haig, Joffre, Diaz, Clemenceau, and- dare I say it- Wilson and Petain then with the current batch we have now, tech gap and all.
Because honestly, ask yourself:
Would you rather trust people with honor and a spine such as Clemenceau, Haig, Diaz, Foch, Pershing, Currie, Monash, etc to somehow surmount the 90+ tech gap between 1918 and 2009?
Or would you trust those familiar with the technology but without spines such as Obama, Brown, and their ilk to learn how to put aside or forsake popularity to do what MUST be done in a high-intensity war?
Somehow, I think you will see the issue differently.
God help us if the Chinese, Russians, or NorKs get cocky enough to do something rash.
* To clarify, offer not valid for Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Turkey, both for humanitarian and obvious(ie, better stupid than evil) reasons.
Posted by Turtler
04/04/2009 at 07:38 PM
