Were We Wrong About WW1 Generals? (WW1 Documentary)

when it comes to the first world war there is perhaps no more controversial character or subject of debate than the infamous generals The Men Who ultimately were responsible for leading some of the most bloody and costly fighting in history in places like the Somme paschendale and Verdun a century after the guns fell silent the popular image of the first award General was of an old out of touch and frankly incompetent Aristocrat sitting miles behind a front line safely drinking wine in a chateau while sending thousands of men walking to their deaths and then repeating the whole process day after day with no regard for the consequences sound familiar well stay with us as in this video we'll look at both the myths and the reality behind those claims [Music] first off what is a general this might sound self-evident actually understanding what a general was and the role that they played in The Great War is vital to understanding the story we can do this by looking at ranks taking the British army of the first award as an example but in truth this applies to all major combatant Nations from 1914 to 1918 the British army numbered a staggering 8.7 million men 5.4 million of whom would go and see service on the Western Front with close to a million making the ultimate sacrifice horrific numbers they came from all walks of life and each had a specific role often determined by their rank the basic and most numerous individual taking the Infantry as an example was the private Soldier usually a working-class man he was paid at a basic rate had an average age of 26 and an average height of 5'5 his personal responsibility was very limited himself of course when it came to an attack it was the private soldier who did most of the fighting and dying in the first World War private soldiers showing some promise would often get promoted earning a stripe or Chevron to be worn on the upper sleeve denoting a lance corporal this role came with a little more responsibility and so a little more pay well-performing Lance Corp rules after gaining a small amount of experience might be promoted earning a second stripe a corporal responsible for eight private soldiers a Corporal in his section were a close-knit group who lived and fought together one rank up was the key individual the sergeant typically responsible for discipline and Welfare of a platoon they were usually experienced possibly even a pre-war professional Soldier a Sergeant's direct Superior was the company sergeant major an awe-inspiring character for the young private a CSM was in effect responsible for the day-to-day running of an infantry company of up to around 200 non-commissioned men or other ranks with an average age of around 30 they were always highly experienced and had proved themselves in battle when Years Gone by the highest of all non-commissioned or other ranks in the first world war was the regimental Sergeant Major a frankly terrifying individual to all below him the RSM was at the Pinnacle will of an enlisted man's career a veteran of usually some 20 years standing often with medals for gallantry in action he was responsible for the welfare and discipline of entire Battalion of men four companies of around 200 men each next we reached the officer or commissioned ranks usually but not always consisting of more educated men from the middle and upper classes each officer was allowed a personal servant or Batman to look after their needs they were paid more typically carried a revolver rather than a rifle but also carried more responsibility and risk than other ranks the most Junior was the second Lieutenant usually around 20 years old the job of a young officer was to listen and learn nominally superior to the RSM and the CSM it would take a brave or perhaps foolish second Lieutenant to talk back to a senior non-commissioned officer after a while he may earn a second pip receiving promotion to the rank of lieutenant usually in command of a platoon of 30 men he would be aided by a sergeant along with his corporals large corporals and so on in Years Gone by he would have been mounted on Horseback but during trench warfare the main concession to his rank would have been use of a company Dugout for officers one rank up was the captain usually commanding an infantry company of up to 200 men again a little more experienced the captain often in his mid to late 20s earned more money had more responsibility and ran a great risk when going into action the captain's job was to lead a subtle but important distinction should be made here the idea of officers at this level sending men to their deaths is simply not true it wasn't go on boys off you go it was come on Boys Follow Me proportionally the rank of Captain was the most deadly one to hold in the first World War his immediate Superior was a major normally there were two majors for each Battalion of a thousand men or so one acting as the Battalion second in command and the other is the senior company Commander their job was to assist the Battalion commanding officer with the day-to-day running of his unit to deal with various administrative roles and liaise with the RSM to look after the welfare of the men perhaps the key appointment though certainly as far as the Infantry going the first award is the lieutenant colonel a battalion Commander this officer was a highly regarded individual in command of a battalion numbering on paper 1 000 men made up of four infantry companies at Battalion headquarters and transport section he was at the top of the Battalion structure he was also about the most senior officer to be found habitually in Frontline trenches some Lieutenant Colonels were as young as their mid-20s particularly later in the war this wasn't due to lack of men rather it was on Merit here lies an important Point officers particularly senior officers were in their role based on performance a lieutenant colonel holds his rank because before that he was an excellent major and a promising captain he knows the role of the men below him because he's done it himself and he relies on them to do their job the same applies as we continue up the chain the next rank is the first of the infamous General officer ranks in this case a brigadier general his responsibilities are in fact huge He commands a brigade in the British army that's usually four battalions of military each led by a lieutenant colonel with his thousand men all told around 4 000 men rely on the Brigadier making the right choices again it's a position based on Merit it should be said that the famous Lions led by donkey's idea incompetent generals making stupid decisions if it happened at all was very rare early in the war no doubt there were some peacetime officers who when it came to a global war proved not up to the task the proverbial donkey but by 1918 quite simply it's untrue they were long gone replaced by men who had proved themselves in battle who knew absolutely had the welfare of their men at heart age wasn't so much of a factor either the average age of a divisional Commander dropped by 10 years between 1914 and 1918 and the youngest Brigadier in the first war was just 25 years old and a holder of the Victoria Cross when he was killed in late 1917. which raises another Point casualties especially among senior officers of the 1257 British general officers to serve at some point on the Western Front 224 were killed or wounded that's 17.8 percent as a proportion a general was almost as likely to become a casualty in the first world war as a private Soldier doesn't fit the popular narrative does it well let's explore a little bit further with the next most senior rank a major general commanding a division that's three or four brigades comprising three or four battalions the bayonet strength of a British division was in theory around twelve thousand that's twelve thousand men living or dying based on one man's good or bad decisions and what about General spending all their time in Shadows well if we look closer that makes sense too the major General's 12 battalions would be spread over a very wide area the role of the general was of course to maintain an overview of his entire Division and to do so information was key so picking a central location evenly spaced behind his leading units was the most practical and efficient chateaus were perfect Not only would he have an easily located headquarters but also enough room for his sizable staff and importantly often had existing landlines which were vital for communications with the various units under his command also we should consider the value a general would have had in the front lines a senior officer represented a huge amount of experience acquired over Decades of military service there was a good argument that major generals and above with all their years of training should be nowhere near the front line This is especially true in battle if they get themselves killed then the rest of the division has to be restructured usually with a considerable loss in efficiency which in turn meant more casualties and whilst major generals and above did make visits to the front lines to meet their Brigade and Battalion commanders and their men and got killed whilst doing so they usually relied on their Colonel's Mages and captains to provide that information but even major generals have a boss in this case a lieutenant general and a quick point on this a lieutenant is Junior to a major so why is a lieutenant general senior to a major general well long before the first war the rank was actually that of Sergeant Major General which was dropped later with the positioning state so a lieutenant general commanded a core which was made up usually of three divisions and typically numbered around 30 to 50 000 men including artillery formations Engineers Pioneers ammunition columns and much more it was a huge organization requiring huge amounts of administration remember Lieutenant generals didn't just materialize out of thin air they were there because they'd been excellent captains Majors Colonels and brigadiers one rank higher was the full General commanding an army of somewhere upwards of one hundred thousand men including at least two Lieutenant generals six major generals 24 brigadies and 92 Lieutenant Colonels each with their own complement of around 1 000 men plus various attached specialist troops it was a mammoth task their war was fought from behind a desk and for good reasons they relied on the junior ranks to provide information they formulated strategy and the guys on the grounds implemented it of course generals are often criticized for repeatedly doing the same thing sending their troops mindlessly into hopeless attacks the truth is this simply didn't happen if strategies were formulated new tactics tried and constantly developed new weapons introduced in theories tested all the time even repeat attacks over the same ground on subsequent days were never the same something always changed usually quite a lot often today we hear erroneous stories and say well why did they do the same things again and expect a different result or the short answer is they didn't people 100 years ago especially highly experienced officers whose entire careers have been spent in the study of their field were not regardless of what popular culture tells us unintelligent or Worse simply sadistic they knew that nothing changes if nothing changes they also didn't want to throw their men's lives away needlessly the problem was that the guys on the ground were the betting pieces in the famous great game when things went wrong it was they who paid the price but to say that generals were unaware or uncaring of their soldiers lives would be a gross oversimplification many had Sons on the fighting front and all had friends and they were certainly not unaffected by the loss of their men the Crux of the problem was this the first award was a massive technological Watershed fought with numbers of soldiers the world had never seen before using cutting-edge weapon refiring literally billions of rounds of ammunition and fought against an enemy whose own weapons and tactics were evolving on a daily basis there was no rule book to follow lessons had to be learned all the time and tragically the cost of those lessons was counted in lives that said lessons were learned the army of 1914 was a completely different Beast to the army of 1918 with tanks fighter aircraft flamethrowers and infamously gas all taken to the battlefield during that time in an attempt to break the stalemate of trench warfare of course when things went wrong they often went very wrong but it's sometimes too easy to only remember the failures the opening days of the battle of the Somme were the closing stages of passchendale but should we not remember the successes too many of the veterans of the Great War certainly did and they were proud of the part they played in the Battle of amio in 1918 for example was arguably the greatest success in the history of the British army a result of the many hard-earned lessons of three years on the Western Front these successes which ultimately led to Allied Victory were not by pure chance it was the evolving strategy of senior officers and the experience of Junior ranks which carried them out and so finally we have the most senior rank of the entire British Army commanding every single man of the entire bef that's a total of 5.4 million men in World War one was the field Marshal of which there were only two on the Western Front Sir John French from 1914 to 1915 and Sir Douglas Hague from 1915 to 1918. both were at the Pinnacle of their careers and had vast experience in all the ranks from Lieutenant upwards in all truth they had no right to be anywhere near a front line they had others more suitable for that whose job it was and quite frankly being in the front line would have been irresponsible and a danger to those around them not only did Hague have to fight a war against arguably the most powerful enemy in the history of warfare to that point but he also had to sustain the largest British Army in history in the field in northern France and Belgium to put that into perspective if his armies were in the UK at the time it would be the second largest population kind only London and he had to keep all those men women animals and equipment in fighting condition that meant finding a way to provide millions of breakfasts lunches dinner animal fodder ammunition shoelaces dental care and any number of things every single day for four years all the while with a few million men on the other side of the same Fields trying everything possible to disrupt him it was a task on a scale that had never before been attempted and likely will never be repeated to be clear this video isn't about trying to whitewash the stories of the generals of the Great War but we do hope it can provide a little perspective on the reality of the time of course things were not always done well and sometimes they were done criminally badly but rarely through incompetence and never through lack of care of the men in their charge the famous moniker Lions led by donkeys was first popularized in the 1960s more than 50 years after the first World War and let's be fair it's catchy and so it's stuck but it doesn't reflect the feelings of the men on the ground at the time they knew the challenges and was no doubt their frustrations at the staff were many and often generally it was acknowledged that the right people were in the right positions it's an often overlooked fact that the death of Sir Douglas Haye just a few years after the war his State funeral was attended by hundreds of thousands of people many of them Veterans of the Great War now that certainly doesn't mean that all veterans were in favor of the staff and no doubt many of you watching this will have had relatives who felt differently but the passage of time desire to find somewhere to place the blame for the horrific number of losses and change in popular narrative in the years after the war certainly played a major part in how people feel today the Allies were of course victorious in 1918 largely thanks to those Lessons Learned earlier in the war there would a much higher cost than anyone had hoped for the countless Graves across the old front line and the thousands of War memorials found in towns and villages in France Germany Britain Russia and many other places around the world stand Testament to that and whilst the argument about why the war was fought in the first place is a much bigger one that we won't go into here we can at least acknowledge the dedication of those men and women across all ranks who fought it

Channel: Battle Guide

Views: 490,740

Keywords: first world war, world war i, wwi, western front, trench warfare, haig, 1917, great war, all quiet on the western front, lions and donkeys, generals, british army, douglas haig, lions led by donkeys, ww1 discussion, military history, world war one, the great war, talking history, war history, military history discussion

Id: zmPUKg3QcTI

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 18 2022