Political Crossfire Forums

[thundertaker]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5083196.stm

It is coming up to the anniversary of the bloodiest offensive in British military history. My Great-Grandfather was there, along with more than a million others, in July 1916 in what was hoped to be the big push that would break through German lines and win the war for the allies.
In the event, over 600,000 troops, most of them British, became casualties and they advanced no further than 5 miles for the loss of approximately half a million German soldiers.
19,000 tommies lost their lives in the first day of the battle. Bravely laying down their lives in the face of inadequate tactics by the generals at the top.
What are your thoughts?

[bob.appleyard]

I don't think it was simply incompetence. The two sides were pretty evenly matched, and the strategic concepts that both sides clung to (in particular, trench warfare, and then wait for the cavalry to burst through) hadn't kept up with developments in technology.

That said, Hague was a rubbish field marshall who embodied the outdated mindset of warfare at the time to a tee. Could have done a lot better there.

The rank and file, and the officers on the ground, did the best they could with the poor hand they were dealt. I envy their bravery and solidarity in such trying times.

Those were grim days for Europe.

[DSwain]

I think the WWI general staff get unfair treatment. They did make some appalling mistakes that resulted in great loss of life. However, WWI witnessed a greater leap of conventional weapon technology, arguably, than any war before it or indeed since. The British Army went from being a constabulary to maintain order throughout the Empire to a battle-winning force with organic transport, armour and air support. The Army didn't reach this stage by accident or through lifting doctrine wholesale from others - rather it was through bloody experience. It was the General Staff, and men such as Haig (with others - Rawlinson, the Australian General Monash), who got the Army there. They adapted new tactics and new weapons. The British Army that suffered so heavily in 1916-1917 had learnt how to fight a modern war effectively by 1918.

[eynon]

both my mum's grandfathers were there, serve with Alberta Line regiments, went over the top, got gassed, whole 9 yards......the Mormon church told them it was their duty to go fight the Huns, I'm still baffled at what the Mormon church had against Germany.

[thundertaker]

Eynon81 wrote: both my mum's grandfathers were there, serve with Alberta Line regiments, went over the top, got gassed, whole 9 yards......the Mormon church told them it was their duty to go fight the Huns, I'm still baffled at what the Mormon church had against Germany.

It happened with almost every denomenation. Clergymen were not immune from patriotism, and they often fused that with religion to justify it.
Then again, maybe they agreed with all that ridiculous propoganda about German soldiers bayoneting children and boiling their bodies to make oil to grease their machines......

[Eton]

A timely reminder that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundral.

One good thing to come from WW1 is that it destroyed the culture of deference that existed in Europe. Never again will we listen to our 'betters' in such an obediant manner.

Destroy nations and destroy religion!

[Pearse]

I would also like to pay homage to the 3,500 Irish who died at the Battle of the Somme. They were fighting for Britain as a good will gesture as Britain had finally agreed to grant Ireland a degree of independance.....only to stab us in the back.

[Boneman]

http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-ireland
Read that, tell me where it says we stabbed Ireland in the back after the first world war. And the irish that fought at the somme were mostly conscripts, so it can't really be seen as a good will gesture. Still, gratitude was deserved and you got it, in the form of independance for southern ireland in 1922. It happened in 1922 because the north and the south were fighting about the terms, if everyone had wanted independace im sure it would have happened pretty much as the war finished.

[Eton]

Irish working class boys and English working class boys were all stabbed in the back by the elites.

Break free of social constructs like nationality!

[melchizedek22]

Most people don't know that France and Britian had bigger losses
in "The Great War than in WW2

[thundertaker]

[quote= "Pearse"]I would also like to pay homage to the 3,500 Irish who died at the Battle of the Somme. They were fighting for Britain as a good will gesture as Britain had finally agreed to grant Ireland a degree of independance.....only to stab us in the back.[/quote]

The protestants of the Ulster division considered that they were fighting for a very different cause, proving their loyalty to the British so that they would not be 'abandoned' to their fate in a majority-catholic Home Rule Ireland.
I fail however, to see were this 'stab in the back' came from. The Easter Rebels tried to declare unilateral independence from Britain, rather than wait for the war to conclude and accept home rule.
In fact it was the Irish government who stabbed the veterans in the back for offering no recognition whatsoever for the sacrifice of the the Irish soldiers of the British army in standing up for the rights of smaller nations (Belgium).

Boneman wrote: http://www.answers.com/topic/history-of-ireland
Read that, tell me where it says we stabbed Ireland in the back after the first world war. And the irish that fought at the somme were mostly conscripts, so it can't really be seen as a good will gesture. Still, gratitude was deserved and you got it, in the form of independance for southern ireland in 1922. It happened in 1922 because the north and the south were fighting about the terms, if everyone had wanted independace im sure it would have happened pretty much as the war finished.

Actually, none of the Irish soldiers who fought were conscripts. Conscription was never extended to Ireland......

[Simon De Montfort]

Eton wrote:
Destroy nations and destroy religion!


You know a group of people tried that and it worked out real well. They only killed 100 million people in the last century.

[Eton]

Well actually nations and religion destroyed millions of people's lives, so I say to hell with nations and religion.

[thundertaker]

Eton wrote: Well actually nations and religion destroyed millions of people's lives, so I say to hell with nations and religion.

Nations and Religions constitute social bonds Eton, the lack of which has the potential to cause more harm than good.
Christianity in the form of the church helped act as a check upon the power of kings, as there would otherwise have been nothing to stop said kings from declaring themselves gods and acting accordingly as happened with Kings in ancient pre-christian times.
And things like nationalism inspire people to work for the common good. As the human race is tribal and needs to feel a sense of belonging, nationalism or some level of tribalist loyalty is inevitable....

[Eton]

They are not the only bonds. How about tribal loyalty to your fellow humans. Nationalism is exclusive not inclusive.

[eynon]

Eton wrote: They are not the only bonds. How about tribal loyalty to your fellow humans. Nationalism is exclusive not inclusive.

yeah, they tried that already, and as Simon said it killed 100,000,000 people last century.........the best system to secure peace is loyalty to oneself and to your family.

[thundertaker]

This has actually got me thinking. Could today's generation have taken such an ordeal as those lads born in the 1880s-1890s who ended up fighting in the trenches back then?
They grew up in harsh, imporverished enviroments were death was probably no stranger to them as they grew up in an age were infant mortality was high. In an enviroment were (especially in Britain) the class system instilled a sense of deference toward's ones social 'superiors' (their future officers), and were failure in the classrooms meant being caned as a child. Both of which would have prepared them for the harshness of military discipline, and the poor conditions of life would have prepared them in some way to enable most of them to cope with the sheer terror of being under constant atillery bombardment for days on end huddled in a filthy dugout, and then ordered to perform near-suicidal attacks on enemy postions, all the while watching lifelong friends and even family dying before their eyes in a haze of bullets and explosions.
Would today's generation be able to stand it and keep going for 3-4 years of hell? I've met a couple of victorians relatives in my family when I was younger, and it is true to say they were a different breed to today's generation. Most of them were a lot tougher in the face of arduous circumstances, it is fair to say. They had to be......

[eynon]

thundertaker wrote: This has actually got me thinking. Could today's generation have taken such an ordeal as those lads born in the 1880s-1890s who ended up fighting in the trenches back then?
They grew up in harsh, imporverished enviroments were death was probably no stranger to them as they grew up in an age were infant mortality was high. In an enviroment were (especially in Britain) the class system instilled a sense of deference toward's ones social 'superiors' (their future officers), and were failure in the classrooms meant being caned as a child. Both of which would have prepared them for the harshness of military discipline, and the poor conditions of life would have prepared them in some way to enable most of them to cope with the sheer horror of being under constant atillery bombardment for days on end huddled in a filthy dugout, and then ordered to perform near-suicidal attacks on enemy postions.
Would today's generation be able to stand it? I've met a couple of victorians relatives in my family when I was younger, and it is true to say they were a different breed to today's generation. Most of them were a lot tougher in the face of arduous circumstances, it is fair to say.......

good thought :)

that question you ask as applied to world-war 2 has been asked of veterans and historians over and over "Could today's youth storm the beaches of Normandy or Iwo Jima?" the answer is always a resonding "yes"....

Some experts have suggested that due to the media todays youths are more enured to death then the generations leading up to them.....(read "On Killing" for more on that subject).

I think it's pretty obvious we're not as physically though as those guys were, for example many of the Canadian kids during that war had grown up sleeping in ice filled drainage ditches during the hard work and long days of spring planting.

Nor is there the culture of deference........which leads to an interesting question, much of the waste of human life during that war was due to the ridgity and stupidity of the hierarchy......in todays' culture of personal intative and cynism would many of those mistakes not have happened?

for example I couldn't see a bunch of modern 20-somethings walking into machinguns, running yes, but not walking. Nor do I think they'd be caught up in the same elan de corps that had the French wearing flashy uniforms the first year of the war.

But I could also see the war getting far crueler, far faster, no christmas truce, far more war crimes and act of mutilation, etc. I think we're, in particular the youths of Britain and Germany, far more emmotional then our forebarers, in the sense of their culture said "suck it up" and ours says "express your feelings".

[thundertaker]

Quote: But I could also see the war getting far crueler, far faster, no christmas truce, far more war crimes and act of mutilation, etc. I think we're, in particular the youths of Britain and Germany, far more emmotional then our forebarers, in the sense of their culture said "suck it up" and ours says "express your feelings".

That christmas truce only happened the one year, whilst people still had delusions that a war amongst the European powers would be 'civilised' and 'honourable'. That changed quite a bit after 12 months of carnage and atrocity destroyed any positive feelings either side might have once felt for the other.
It's difficult to tell how today's soldiers would react, because the types of enemies troops are fighting today are derided as scum and cowards for being insurgents or terrorists. They're not exactly fighting someone who is the same as them but for being of a different nationality....

As for whether today's generation would have stormed the beaches of Normandy or Iwo Jima, I don't think that is so much the question. I can sort of imagine me and my generation being able to engage in something as horrific as that for a short period of time if properly psyched up on adrenaline. But the trenches were different. The ordeal was seemingly never-ending. Constant bombardments that lasted for days, knowing that the next one could be the one that scores a direct hit on your dugout and kills you. Surprise gas attacks, sleeping waste-deep in a flooded trench, while rats the size of cats, having engorged themselves on the rotting human flesh of your dead comrades, attack you in your sleep.
Could our generation cope with such a nightmare happening over such a long period of time and still keep it together? War has probably never been as ghastly for soldiers on the ground as it was in the trenches of WWI. You could not have survived those conditions on adrenaline alone...

[Eton]

Eynon81 wrote: Eton wrote: They are not the only bonds. How about tribal loyalty to your fellow humans. Nationalism is exclusive not inclusive.

yeah, they tried that already, and as Simon said it killed 100,000,000 people last century.........the best system to secure peace is loyalty to oneself and to your family.

What the hell are you talking about?
Nationalism and religious hatred killed millions of people not the love of our fellow man.

I'll never understand people's attachment to nationalism in the face of the untold misery it has brought.