Were We Wrong About WW1 Generals? (WW1 Documentary)

When it comes to the First World War there is no more controversial character, or subject of debate than the infamous Generals - the men who were ultimately responsible for leading some of the most bloody and costly fighting in history in places like The Somme, Passchendaele and Verdun.

A century after the guns fell silent, the popular image of the Generals in WW1 is of an old, out of touch and frankly incompetent aristocrat sitting miles behind a front line, safely drinking wine in a chateau whilst sending thousands of men, walking, to their deaths - and then repeating the whole process day after day with no regard for the consequences.

Creating these videos is a lot of work, and it would be possible without your support. If you like our work, you can help us with a regular or one • time payment:

Newsletter:
If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of what the team at Battle Guide have been getting up to, why not sign up to

Links:

[johnlow]

One WW1 general, later field marshal, started out as a private soldier. William Robertson. He served in every single rank in the army. Interesting story, worth looking up.

[CH-qwgb]

My Grandad served as a private infantryman from 1916 to the end of the war.. He worked as a runner for his unit. He refused all offers of promotion including regular offers of being sent to England to be trained as a lieutenant. To his dying day in his 80s, he felt that he had done the right thing fighting for his country. My brother has his diaries, medals and a German belt and soft cap that Grandad brought home with him. I have his field glasses. I wish I had asked him more questions. The stories he told me as a child he made to sound humorous but as an adult, I can understand the horror of what he and his friends went through

[gryph]

General Arthur Currie was respected by the Canadian Corps. He had the uncanny ability to accurately predict losses before an attack.

[paulclarke]

WWI was unique in that it was the first war in which a general couldn't see the majority of the battlefield by sitting atop his horse on a hill, and the last in which frontline troops lacked access to reliable long-range communications. The resultant information gap forced generals to rely on intricate prepared battle plans, which were often based on out-of-date intelligence, and which were difficult to adapt to changing events. An example of the effect of this information gap was that it wasn't until the early afternoon on 1st July 1916 that British GHQ came to realise that the first day of the Somme offensive had been so disastrous. Until then, they had felt the fighting that day - the most bloody in the British Army's history - had been going according to plan.

[rodintoulouse]

Everyone critizes their superiors… until they get promoted and finally understand what their superiors do all day… and then it all starts again until tge next time they are promoted

[philipambler]

Here in Australia, nobody seems to know or care about the identity of the bloke on the $100 bank note.
Despite having a University named after him, John Monash, the General who broke the back of the German Army in 1918, on August 8th.
Over the last 10 years, more than 150 bank tellers havent known when asked, the name of the man on the 100 note.worse still, no tellers either knew or cared.

[PiperXX]

My grandfather was a British soldier during WW1 and was injured by shell fire and stuck in no man’s land for 48 hours before he was rescued. He had lost one leg then in a field hospital in France gangrene set in his other leg where they were forced to remove his other to save his life. His mother fought to get him home as she’d had word that if he doesn’t get back to the U.K. to get proper medical help he’ll succumb to his injuries. She managed to get the Salvation Army along with the Red Cross involved they managed between them to get him back to the U.K.
He survived and spent the rest of his life driving trams in Newcastle upon Tyne while using crutches and two false legs, he would rub paraffin oil into his stumps as they would always get sore. He died young at the age of 56 due to a heart attack. I never knew him but I have all his military papers which I as an ex British soldier myself find moving but fascinating at the same time.
But what he always said about the war is that Kitchener and Hague other top brass should have been put against a wall and shot for sending thousands of men to their deaths, walking towards the enemy and sending wave after wave of men to their deaths which he saw first hand and like so many who survived also witnessed and had the visions of such slaughter for the rest of their lives.
But the bravery of those men is something we need to always remember, and take time to just think what they were thinking before that whistle blew, many knew they weren’t coming home and by the grace of god some did and they are the ones who had the nightmares the horrid memories ptsd etc, some would say they weren’t the lucky ones the lucky ones are those who lay at rest for them it’s all over.
Lest we forget.

[polygonalfortress]

I can't imagine how devastating it must've been for many getting staggering reports of casualties even after successful military operations

[jiva]

My father worked in the Army Pay Office at the RMA Sandhurst as a Civil Servant in the the early 1970s. I remember once when he took me there I watched new cadet officers on the drill square. An RSM was informing these new cadets the chain of command protocol, he barked loudly, "When I call you sir I don't mean it but when you call me sir you do..!"

[tomperkins]

While stationed in Germany I visited Verdun twice. I would take a van full of soldiers laughing and joking all the way and then not a word on the way back. No words for the horror and slaughter of good men, both sides, thrown into an absolute holocaust. You can double check this but I believe the first day of the beginning of that one year travesty, one million artillary shells were fired on the first day, to the point it was just a mixing bowl of long dead soldiers and animals. There are still fenced off areas where you cannot walk because of unexploded ordinance. Tall vibrant green and trees stop and then several miles of scrub brush where the salt of exploded shells have permanently stunted any plant growth.

[hardroaddavey]

The Battle of Hamel in July 1918 was the Australian General, John Monash's masterpiece. His detailed planning and briefing of the allied troops was the main reason for its success.

[tillabalquidder]

An underated aspect I think to some extent is 'the price of freedom'. The British, Commonwealth and US forces had to quickly adapt from being small professional battalions to massive armies from a generally untrained population against a foe based on a militaristic society. Blunders, unsuitable officers and ignorance are all part of this price...but the achievement in a war environment driving the acceleration of lethal technology was initself remarkable.

[NK]

My great great grandfather was born in 1889, he was a First Lieutenant in the BEF in the First Battle of the Somme, he never talked about it to anyone. The only thing he ever told my grandmother is about how he walked around a trench with his captain after a raid and his captain was crying because of the amount of men that had died that day

[s]

Posthumous and battlefield promotions explain the high mortality rate among officers. Also artillery used to strike command posts and observation posts where higher ranks usually observed the battle since those were static positions and well defined.

[JS-hhxk]

I feel like a general who can have some blame onto him is Luigi Cadorna since he had some poor tactics that got a lot of his men killed

[KE]

The Battle of the Somme and the Generals who came up with the plans is much more complicated than most people realise. Firstly the Somme wasn’t a battle that was ready to be fought so soon. It came about as a result of the French army losing the battle of Verdun. The French army was meant to reinforce the British forces at the Somme as a joint operation to push back the German lines and hopefully make Germany sue for peace. But the French got caught up in a losing battle at Verdun and withdrew the majority of its forces from the Somme in order to reinforce their forces at Verdun. On top of this they demanded that the British army begin the Somme offensive immediately to alleviate pressure on the French as Germany would need to withdraw some of its troops to reinforce the Somme thereby alleviating the situation in Verdun. Verdun wasn’t even a vitally significant area of concern for or the allied army, and it’s loss, although humiliating for the French wouldn’t have been a big deal in the grand scheme of things. However the French insisted that Verdun held great political and personal value to the people of France, and a major defeat there would lead to political unrest amongst the people and mass desertion from the French army. It became a ‘hot potato’ issue for the French forces, leaving the British Generals with no option other than to continue the Somme offensive without the majority of French support and with plans not yet finalised. The war was far from over, and if the French army was unable to hold Verdun, leading to a dramatic decline in public support for the war, alongside mass desertions, then what could the British Generals do ??? They had no choice but to continue the fight alone and allow the French army to take its troops to reinforce Verdun or risk losing French support altogether. So the Somme went ahead with massive losses within the first half an hour… So we can’t really blame our Generals for something that wasn’t their fault and circumstances they had little control over…. I know it’s not a popular opinion but it’s historically accurate and I prefer accuracy to popularity when it comes to history..

[davidlindsey]

The best commanders during ww2 were generally ones who fought at least part time from the front. It’s not just about courage. It’s about perspective, observing the terrain and fighting positions, and getting to know the soldiers and sharing their perspective etc.

[neilrobinson]

My grandfather fought with the Canadian army, and survived, for 11 months in 1917/18 at Passchendaele. His company was initially sent willy nilly into (yet another) frontal assault and nearly wiped out. He had NOTHING good to say about his superiors and he agreed heartily with Alan Clarke about the donkey analogy. When I was in my teens, he warned me against joining the army because he said it didn't care about the ordinary soldier. My great uncle died fighting for the Kaiser on the opposite side of the same battle.

[kennethwaight]

Certainly John Monash deserves to be recognized as the creative and innovative leader he was. All the time dealing with the multiple prejudices of (1) Being Jewish; an engineer; a reservist (I.e. not a ‘true professional’). Art Currie as well although it wasn’t until well on that his real capabilities became more more apparent. All in all the “colonial’ officers were fighting an uphill battle because, perhaps less was expected of them. Prejudice existed on both sides; Prussians regarded Bavarians in much the same way. But Siegfried Sassoon’s “Donkeys” these leaders for the most part, weren’t.

whilst blackadder is a series on every soldiers laptop, it did portray a rather inaccurate view of events that some have taken to be fact. It should be remembered, Haig's son was killed on the front, so Haig new very well the cost. There were incompetents in senior ranks, but they were very quickly removed from their posts.
The reality is that innovation and imagination were used widely to try and end the stalemate. Things such as the rolling barrage, tanks, aircraft, tunnels etc etc etc
I find the modern zetgeist of viewing the men who fought as victims a great insult to their incredible bravery and tenacity.