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The First World War is often remembered as a
futile waste of life. A pointless slugging match
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that saw uncaring commanders send thousands of
young men to their untimely deaths. Lions led by
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donkeys. In Britain in particular it's the mud
soaked trenches of Passchendale which capture
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public imagination, while Field Marshal Sir
Douglas Haig is remembered as 'the butcher of the
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Somme'. But were British soldiers really lions led
by donkeys? Or are we looking at the First World
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War in the wrong way? Well to find out we first
need to understand where this idea comes from.
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So the idea of lions led by donkeys is really
popular right up until today. But up until 1928
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when he died, Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig was
held in high regard across Britain and the empire.
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But after his death his reputation started to go
downhill. Firstly in the 1930s he was attacked
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in Lloyd George's war memoir. Lloyd George was a
great adversary of of Haig during the First World
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War. He was joined in that attack on Haig by Basil
Liddell Hart the populist military strategist who
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wrote in newspapers and books. And then after
the Second World War there were growing social
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movements that attacked the establishment and
we have the play and film Oh! What a Lovely War
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which castigates the Western Front tactics in
general. And then after the 1960s the lions led
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by donkeys idea comes into popular culture
and in 1989 we have Blackadder Goes Forth.
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Fantastic comedy, but not great First World War
history. But today, historians are challenging
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this idea of lions led by donkeys and looking
anew at Haig and his commanders to produce
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a more nuanced view of of their command
and generalship in the First World War.
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There is no disputing that the First World
War was a bloodbath of epic proportions.
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Over 16 million people lost their lives in
a total war unlike any that had come before
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it. But the roots of those losses go way
back before the conflict had even begun.
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The armies that went to war in 1914 were
trained to fight a totally different
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war. An old-fashioned style classical war of
maneuver, infantry assaults, cavalry charges,
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direct firing artillery. This is all pretty
old-school stuff. In the lead up to the First
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World War we've had the Boer War at the turn of
the 20th century and then the Russo-Japanese war
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in 1904/05. Various commanders took different
lessons from those wars. Most armies took the
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idea tha,t as long as you had enough firepower
support and your infantry had good enough morale,
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you could still put in a successful infantry
assault. But we know now that they drew the wrong
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lessons and after 1914 that was to have serious,
tragic consequences for the armies of Europe.
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When the First World War arrived in 1914,
new weapons like modern magazine fed rifles,
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machine guns, and artillery ran up against
tactics from a century before. Unprepared
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generals on all sides made catastrophic errors in
an environment they had not trained for. In the
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east an entire Russian army was outmaneuvered
and destroyed at the Battle of Tannenburg,
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in Galicia four Austro-Hungarian armies were
routed by the Russians with hundreds of thousands
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of casualties, and in Alsace and Lorraine French
infantry charged headlong at German machine guns
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with little artillery support. Within six
weeks the 1.5 million strong French army had
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taken 25 casualties. In the face of these huge
losses, the armies of Europe went underground.
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So by the end of 1914 we've got trench deadlock,
especially on the Western Front. Everybody's
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underground and then it becomes an artillery
war. This six-inch Howitzer in 1914 was one of
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the biggest pieces of artillery with the British
army. But by 1916 it was dwarfed by larger guns
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of bigger caliber and much longer range. This
was going to be a war where the advantage was
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very much with the defender and attackers had
to find new ways of breaking that deadlock.
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As 1915 began on the Western Front the imperative
was with the Allies to try and win back some of
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the territory they'd lost to Germany the
year before. There were some successful
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attacks which proved that trench defenses
could be overcome. But commanders struggled
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to exploit their successes. At the Battle of
loos for instance British and French forces
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were able to break into German positions,
but the reserves were held too far from
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the front line to enable a breakout. The only
rapid movement force available was cavalry,
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who were far too vulnerable to machine
gun and artillery fire. On top of that,
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communication problems made command
and control extremely difficult.
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So we're here in one of the conservation labs at
IWM Duxford and this is where we care from some
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of our many thousands of objects we hold in the
collection, such as this Austro-Hungarian field
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telephone. So you can just imagine trying to be
a commander in the First World War you're relying
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on on officers at the front sending through
information on rudimentary field telephones
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like this. And the information not coming
through or coming through late or garbled
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messages coming through and it led to poor
decision-making. Successes aren't reinforced,
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quite often you know troops are going
to the wrong area, heavy casualties are
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resulting. A lot of it wasn't their fault
they didn't have the information to hand.
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After the failure at Loos the British army
received a new commander in the form of
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Sir Douglas Haig, a former cavalryman
with an eye for detail and a devotion
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to duty. The old professional British Army had
essentially been wiped out by the end of 1914,
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with Indian Army, territorial units and
some Kitchener volunteers used to make
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up the numbers. As such the British had
only played a bit part on the Western
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Front so far. But thanks to mounting
French losses, 1916 would see Haig's
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forces take a central role for the first
time - whether they were prepared or not.
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In 1914 the British Army's tiny compared to
other European armies, it's about 220,000
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men in total. But by 1916-1917, it's grown to
about 2 million men. And the big problem for
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the British Army is they do not have enough
officers, trained staff officers to actually
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control this army and to actually get it into
the field and to use it. So everybody has to
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learn and unfortunately trying to learn in the
middle of a world war means learning on the job
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and that means there are going to be mistakes
made and there are going to be heavy casualties.
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Just like Russia Austria-Hungary and France before
them, it was now Britain's turn to learn some
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tough lessons as the mass army was deployed for
the first time at the Battle of the Somme. Haig
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wanted to attack further north in Flanders and
give himself more time to train his inexperienced
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army, but he was overruled on both counts by
the French. When the preceding six-day artillery
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bombardment failed to penetrate the deep German
dugouts, their machine gunners mowed down the
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advancing British soldiers in their thousands. It
was the bloodiest day in British military history.
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Although it's been seen as a a
tragic defeat for the British Army,
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mainly based on people looking at just
the first day. If you look at it in in the
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strategy of the First World War it was vital,
it had to go on after the first day because
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the pressure had to be taken off the French
at Verdun. And of course the Germans really,
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really suffer on the Somme and along Verdun
as well. When it gets to 1917 the Germans
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are taking more and more desperate strategic
gambles to avoid another battle like the Somme.
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Another charge leveled at Haig and his commanders
was that they were so-called 'chateau generals'
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who stayed miles behind the front line drinking
and feasting without a care for the men under
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their command. But Haig was not oblivious
to the loss of life on the Somme, in fact
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he visited casualty clearing stations during
the battle. He was also deeply concerned for
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the suffering of ex-servicemen and would go on to
help found the Royal British Legion after the war.
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We've got a few objects here relating to
Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig. Firstly
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there's a British Union Flag, this was actually
carried by his cavalry bodyguard. And then we
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have his his saddle set, the leather box
for containing it, silver sandwich box,
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and a drinks flask. Haig would be out
almost daily going towards the front line,
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chatting with officers, seeing what the problems
were, what improvements could be made. And if
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he went out before lunch he quite often just
stopped by the side of the road have a quick
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sandwich and a drink and this is what he was
using for those visits. So these objects show
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that Haig wasn't really the 'chateau general'.
He was moving around, meeting his troops,
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meeting his army, and actually finding out
what was going on towards the front line.
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As the war continued, all sides were constantly
experimenting with new tactics and technologies
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to try and break the trench deadlock. One
of these was the tank which made its debut
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on the Somme in 1916. Although the 50
or so tanks deployed saw mixed results,
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Haig saw their potential and immediately
ordered another thousand to boost his offensive
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capabilities. This experimentation
was happening in the skies as well.
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Behind me is the Bristol Fighter which
is a great representative example of new
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technology in the air war of the First World
War. Although this is a two-seat aircraft,
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it could be flown like a single-seat
fighter. It could also be used as a bomber,
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a reconnaissance aircraft, a photo recce
aircraft, and could do ground attack. So
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it really brought flexibility to British air
power in the First World War. But air power
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wasn't the only thing that was was increasing and
improving during the First World War. People tried
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mining to undermine defenses, they tried gas
warfare, they tried heavier artillery pieces,
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and new forms of infantry assault tactics as
well. Everything was trial and error and it was
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really an arms race between the offensive side
of warfare and the defensive side of warfare.
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By 1918 the Allies believed they finally
had the offensive advantage they needed
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to bring back mobile warfare. After
containing the German spring offensive,
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the Allies went on an attack of their own
incorporating all they had learned over
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the previous years of war. They brought all
their new technologies and tactics together
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in what we now call combined arms or the
all-arms battle. It was extremely effective.
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So the all-arms battle would unfold not
with a long bombardment of four, five,
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six days. It would be a short hurricane
bombardment onto key enemy positions using
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a mixture of high explosive and gas to dislocate
and disorientate. What would then happen is that a
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creeping barrage would be put down, but when that
barrage lifts out of the front line Allied troops
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are there immediately behind. The infantryman
is not advancing in a line, he's a specialist
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who's either a specialist rifleman, he was a light
machine gunner, or a specialist grenade thrower,
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or rifle grenade man. Alongside the Infantry are
lots and lots of tanks to crush the barbed wire
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and then to take on key strong points held
by German infantry. Above them are aircraft,
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the aircraft are going forward, they're knocking
out German anti-tank guns to make sure the tanks
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go forward, and ground strafing German reserves
that are moving up so the German ability to fight
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back and launch counter attacks is degraded
before it even gets near the front line.
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Well we did all the right things for a
change. We'd learned to hide our attacks,
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moving at night from one place to
another, then going right through.
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I was commanding a section of tanks.
We had then the experience of Cambrai,
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we knew that we were going to do it properly
and we would also be supported by adequate
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forces of the other arms and the thing
was immense success from the start.
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The tanks were going forward and
taking position after position,
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the infantry following up behind. You could
feel a hair pickling up your spine with
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excitement because we knew that that was
going to be the end of the end of the war.
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So the ultimate result of that all arms
battle was the defeat of the German army
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in the main theater of war the Western
Front in 1918. And of course if we're
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going to look at the generals and blame them
for many of the defeats in say 1916/1917. We
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should also look at 1918 and the Hundred Days
Offensive and give credit where credit is due.
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While the lions led by donkey's myth
is an understandable one given the
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huge casualties suffered on the Western Front,
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it's not the true story of the British army
during the First World War. Upon re-examination,
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we can see that the army had to learn how to
fight in the middle of a world war and that,
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despite the losses, it helped delivered the
killing blow against the Germans in 1918.
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If you compare the First World War to the Second
World War the main theater of war in the Second
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World War is the Eastern Front with the Russian
forces against the Germans. And it's the Russians
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that are really wearing down the German army in
the same way that the French and the British had
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to wear down the German army in the First World
War before victory could be achieved. But that's
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not to excuse poor generalship and there was
poor generalship on on on all sides of course.
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But one thing you could level against Haig was
that he was often very over optimistic in what
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he expected his army to be able to do. Many of
these attacks were carried on well past the point
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of diminishing returns. But by 1918 the British
army had come a long way. It had commanders in
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place who knew how to fight a modern war.
And while Haig and his commanders may not
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have reached the heights of lions themselves,
they were far from the donkeys of popular myth.
