Top Five of World War I (Full Version)

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Erik Rutins -> Top Five of World War I (6/23/2006 9:26:46 PM)

World War I is generally discussed by many wargamers in the context of the "worst" generals, due to the many incredibly wasteful battles that had no real result beyond attrition. However, the "best" commanders are less often discussed. WWI is an interest of mine and I'd love to hear your thoughts on these categories in WWI. I expect this forum has a few folks who could expand my horizons on these questions:

1. Top Five Army Commanders

2. Top Five Corps or Division Commanders

3. Top Five Front Line Combat Leaders

Regards,

- Erik




Terminus -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/23/2006 9:37:27 PM)

Well, Byng was a good commander. General Hermann von Francois, the field commander of German forces at Tannenberg, did quite well.

Think I'd be hard pressed to put together a Top Five, though, considering how badly most bungled it.




anarchyintheuk -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/24/2006 12:41:08 AM)

Agreed. Finding a top five (in a good way) commander in anything related to WW1 is hard.

Army: von Below, Brusilov, Allenby, Foch, Ludendorff (before he went crazy)
Corps: von Sanders (hard to tell where he belongs, army or corps), Mustafa Kemal (ditto except corps or front-line), French (before the BEF grew), Byng and Francois (Terminus is right on both)
Front-line: Lettow-Vorbeck, Monash, Currie (for Vimy Ridge)

Honorable mention: von Mackensen for his ability, for having the coolest helmet/headress of ww1 and for looking like my crazy great-grandfather.




JamesM -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/24/2006 2:11:09 AM)

You also have to include Petain for how held the French army together at Verdun and rebuilding it after the mutiny of 1917,

Monash did some of his best work as a corps commander.

Allenby for his campaign in the middle east.




sol_invictus -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/24/2006 3:19:10 AM)

I agree completely with Anarchyintheuk's list with the edition of Hutier as a very good German Army Commander. His accomplishments at Riga and during the Peace Offensive were very impressive. Hindenburg of course needs a mention. Von Seeckt was also a masterful staff officer and later rebuilt the post war German Army. Bruchmueller was the war's best Artillery officer at the Army level. It was said amoung the Germans that any fire plan that he was responsible for was sure to succeed.




Terminus -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/24/2006 3:25:29 AM)

Oh yeah, definitely Hutier... Forgot about him...




CSSS -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/25/2006 4:29:57 AM)

Top five army Commanders? Max Hoffman , Von Mackesen,Conrad,Joffre,Brusilov
Top corps?VonHutier,Putnik,Kemal, Allenby, Monash.
Front line Von Lettow, Murta,Scheer,Von Richtofen, and last but not least Nungesser.




Moltke71 -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/25/2006 3:45:30 PM)

Is this now a Euro-board or have all Americans forgotten Pershing?  Kept the AEF intact; initiated Meuse-Argonne over intial resistance from allies.




Rob Brennan UK -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/25/2006 4:06:46 PM)

Laurence of Arabia ! .. of its an irregular force .. and no idea if its even modelled within the game but it would be great if he/they were involved somehow .







sol_invictus -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/25/2006 4:15:13 PM)

I agree, Pershing should be included in the list. Marshall as well since he was the Chief of Operations for the First American Army. Very strange, I am American but didn't even think of the American's initially. I always think of WWI as mainly a European affair with America simply tipping the balance decisively toward the end.




TheBlackhorse -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/25/2006 8:40:20 PM)

Here a just a few.

Corps Commanders:
BEF IX Corps: Maj-Gen. Sir Walter Pipon Braithwaite

BEF XIII Corps: Sir Walter Norris “Squibs” Congreve, VC (Victoria Cross On 15th December, 1899 at the Battle of Colenso, South Africa. On 15th December, 1899 at the Battle of Colenso, South Africa, Captain Congreve with several others, tried to save the guns of the 14th and 66 th Batteries, Royal Field Artillery, when the detachment serving the guns had all become casualties or been driven from their guns. Some of the horses and drivers were sheltering in a Donga about 500 yards behind the guns and the intervening space was swept with shell and rifle fire. Captain Congreve, with two other officers* helped to hook a team into a limber and then to limber up a gun. Although wounded himself, seeing one of the officers fall, he went out with an RAMC Major* and brought him in. (Was the father of Major W. la. Touche Congreve, who earned the Victoria Cross on 20 July 1916 at Longueval, France - posthumously))

BEF XIV Corps: Frederick Rudolf Lambart “Fatty” Earl of Cavan
 
Front Line Commanders:

BEF 36th Ulster Division: MG Clifford Coffin, VC (Victoria Cross on 31st July, 1917 at Westhock, Belgium, when his command was held up in attack owing to heavy machine-gun and rifle fire. Brigadier-General Coffin went forward and made an inspection of his front posts. Although under the heaviest fire from both machine-guns and rifles and in full view of the enemy, he showed an utter disregard of personal danger, walking quietly from shell-hole to shell-hole giving advice and cheering his men by his presence. His gallant conduct had the greatest effect on all ranks and it was largely owing to his personal courage and example that the shell-hole line was held.)

BEF 38th Welsh Division: BG E. Alexander, VC (Victoria Cross on 24 August 1914 at Elouges, Belgium, when the flank guard was attacked by a German corps, Major Alexander handled his battery against overwhelming odds with such conspicuous success that all his guns were saved notwithstanding that they had to be withdrawn by hand by himself and volunteers led by a Captain of the 9th Lancers (see F.O. Grenfell Reg. No. 492). This enabled the retirement of the 5th Division to be carried out without serious loss. Subsequently, Major Alexander rescued a wounded man under heavy fire.)

BEF 46th Division: MG Gerald 'Gerry' Farrell Boyd: ( ‘The ranker general’, entered the army as a private soldier in the Devonshire Regiment in 1895. He fought in the South African War as a sergeant and was awarded the DCM. He was commissioned in the field as a Second Lieutenant in the East Yorkshire Regiment in May 1900. In 1904 he was promoted Captain in the Leinster Regiment, the rank he held on the outbreak of war. He began the Great War as Brigade Major in Hunter-Weston’s 11th Brigade. In March 1915 he was promoted GSO2, 1st Division, then under the command of Richard Haking. He also received his majority in the Royal Irish Regiment. In July 1915 he was promoted GSO1, 6th Division (Major-General Charles Ross). He held this post for a year before being promoted BGGS V Corps. He was chief of staff of V Corps for two years before being given his own command, 170th (2/1st North Lancashire) Brigade, 57th (2nd West Lancashire) Division, TF, in July 1918. On 4 September he was promoted GOC 46th (North Midland) Division in succession to Major-General William Thwaites. He was 40. Twenty-five days later the division broke the Hindenburg Line at Bellenglise, one of the outstanding divisional performances of the war. Boyd embodied the ‘can-do’ spirit of the army of 1918. His Confidential Report at the end of the war spoke of his being ‘a disciplinarian, a tremendous worker, at all times cheerful and optimistic ... and he can, and does, breathe his own indomitable spirit into his men’. ‘Major-General G F Boyd had a most attractive personality,’ recalled the historian of 1/4th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment. ‘He was young. He was handsome… He had a smile for everyone. He had a brain like lightning and an imagination as vivid … When the 46th Division was placed in his hands he seized it as an expert swordsman seizes a priceless blade. This was just the weapon he had been looking for. He would wield it as it had never been wielded before. He would breathe his luck upon it; with it he would leap to victory.’ Major-General Gerry Boyd died young, while Military Secretary at the War Office.)
 
 




EUBanana -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/26/2006 1:50:38 AM)

I think Pershing was pretty average really.  Can't think of much exceptional he did.  I suppose 'average' can be considered good given the state of most Brit/French generals though!

Can't think of a top 5 really but names I can think of I don't see mentioned...

Herbert Plumer
Edmund Allenby - he tore up the Ottoman Empire pretty well!
Henri Gouraud  (not sure as to his military competence but he was certainly inspiring!)

I think two names who really shine bright would be Hutier and Monash but they have already been mentioned.



...for the naval war I would controversially say John Jellicoe, who was, after all, eventually proven right (ie the blockade ruined Germany).




Bossy573 -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/27/2006 2:03:38 AM)

I'm hard pressed to think of 5 commanders (or politicians) in this war who shouldn't have been shot out of hand for gross incompetence and murder.




sol_invictus -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/27/2006 6:26:13 AM)

I don't think there was all that much difference in the amount of political miscalculation or military incompetence in WWI and the vast majority of other wars. It was just that the scale had grown so vast, that those mistakes now led to the death of numbers unimagined.




kylenapoleon -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/28/2006 8:25:05 AM)

I have such a hard time coming up with any generals who are worthy of note from WWI. Most of them had no idea how to conduct a battle. Just send 4 waves of soldiers against a defensive position hoping there would be enough left in the 4th line to take the position. Hardly a plan of an accomplished general.

That being said, I would like to name the General of the Canadian Corps, Sir Arthur Currie. The Canadian Corps was one force that the Germans avoided. It was also to be in the forefront of the BEF's efforts to win the war. Such as Third Ypres and the Hundred Days in 1918.

Sadly, the Canadian contribution to the Great War has gone unappreciated for far too long. The commitment the Canadians made to King and Empire were beyond reproach and should be noted as a significant force behind the defeat of Germany.

I think of Napoleon's remark that Generals win the glory while the soldiers win the battles.





7th Somersets -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/28/2006 11:09:55 AM)

British/Commonwealth Corps commanders: Currie, Monash and Maxse.




Bossy573 -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/28/2006 2:21:54 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: kylenapoleon
Sadly, the Canadian contribution to the Great War has gone unappreciated for far too long.


Canada's contribution in both World Wars in unappreciated.

It is difficult to remove the combatants from their times but the blatant disregard for the value of human life in the face of the predominance of rapidly industrialized warfare is almost unimaginable. Morons like Haig, Falkenhayn, Joffre, etc., cannot, IMHO, be sheilded.




7th Somersets -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/28/2006 4:21:18 PM)

quote:

I have such a hard time coming up with any generals who are worry of note from WWI. Most of them had no idea how to conduct a battle. Just send 4 waves of soldiers against a defensive position hoping there would be enough left in the 4th line to take the position. Hardly a plan of an accomplished general.


That is true at the start of the war - but tactics on all sides evolved considerably - by August 1917 the British, for example, were using the platoon as the basic combat unit and integrating trench mortars with the platoon's inherent firepower of Lewis light-machineguns, rifle grenades and rifle sections. The tactics (see for example the 38th Division Orders for Attack in August 1917 - G484) included bypassing enemy strongpoints and attacking them from the rear.

Another example of British/Commonwealth tactical evolution is the tank attack at Cambrai where, for example, the 7th Somersets - supporting tanks - managed to capture a strong point (the village of La Vacquerie) that was the front line of the Hindenburg line by frontal assault - losing 6 dead and 34 wounded out of a battalion of about 800.

There were significant tactical advances (both offensive and defensive) by all sides of the war. These were brought about by intelligent officers both learning from mistakes and by training others. These officers were at all levels of the forces involved.

What must be remembered though is how much technology advanced in the war - changes in artillery techniques on all sides were immense, aircraft were used for the first time in large numbers for combat, tanks were invented, light machineguns were deployed for the first time, flame throwers and gas were developed into usable combat tools. All of these changes were implemented by the military on all sides of the conflict by men who had the vision to see their capabilities. They then had to be tried out, refined and retried until tactics were evolved to use them properly.





EUBanana -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/29/2006 3:28:18 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bossy573

I'm hard pressed to think of 5 commanders (or politicians) in this war who shouldn't have been shot out of hand for gross incompetence and murder.


I dunno, its hard to say. Consider Rawlinson, commander of "The First Day on the Somme". An incompetent butcher? Looking at the Somme it would appear so. But he also commanded at Amiens in 1918, "the black day of the German army".




EUBanana -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/29/2006 3:29:58 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: 7th Somersets

quote:

I have such a hard time coming up with any generals who are worry of note from WWI. Most of them had no idea how to conduct a battle. Just send 4 waves of soldiers against a defensive position hoping there would be enough left in the 4th line to take the position. Hardly a plan of an accomplished general.


That is true at the start of the war - but tactics on all sides evolved considerably - by August 1917 the British, for example, were using the platoon as the basic combat unit and integrating trench mortars with the platoon's inherent firepower of Lewis light-machineguns, rifle grenades and rifle sections. The tactics (see for example the 38th Division Orders for Attack in August 1917 - G484) included bypassing enemy strongpoints and attacking them from the rear.

Another example of British/Commonwealth tactical evolution is the tank attack at Cambrai where, for example, the 7th Somersets - supporting tanks - managed to capture a strong point (the village of La Vacquerie) that was the front line of the Hindenburg line by frontal assault - losing 6 dead and 34 wounded out of a battalion of about 800.

There were significant tactical advances (both offensive and defensive) by all sides of the war. These were brought about by intelligent officers both learning from mistakes and by training others. These officers were at all levels of the forces involved.

What must be remembered though is how much technology advanced in the war - changes in artillery techniques on all sides were immense, aircraft were used for the first time in large numbers for combat, tanks were invented, light machineguns were deployed for the first time, flame throwers and gas were developed into usable combat tools. All of these changes were implemented by the military on all sides of the conflict by men who had the vision to see their capabilities. They then had to be tried out, refined and retried until tactics were evolved to use them properly.




I agree, really, WW1 was a hotbed of innovation, more so than WW2 even. I think in WW2 they refined a lot of things, but really, the first modern war was WW1. The way in which war was fought was revolutionised between 1914 and 1918.




CSL -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/29/2006 4:57:17 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bossy573
It is difficult to remove the combatants from their times but the blatant disregard for the value of human life in the face of the predominance of rapidly industrialized warfare is almost unimaginable. Morons like Haig, Falkenhayn, Joffre, etc., cannot, IMHO, be sheilded.


Ugh. Still seventy-five years after David Lloyd George began to butcher the good name of men like Douglas Haig, this stupid and ill-informed mindset still continues. We can look back upon the First World War and its horrible losses with a jaded hindsight, knowing full well the mistakes that were made, not so for those commanders. It took a certain kind of man to lead and command in that war, hard men that we thankfully need few of these days. To say men like Haig didn't value human life is preposterous, his personal journal from the war is riddled with statements that will quickly back my point up. (I unforuntely do not have the journal with me anymore, but do have several choice quotes that I used in a paper this year)

Haig, Joffre, etc. needed to conduct offensives throughout the war that were sure to cause thousands of casualites, first in order to eat up the enemies reserves and then launch what would hopefully be a decisive strike elsewhere in the line. The fact that this didn't manage to happen until 1918 is not the fault of the generals, but the equal stature of the combatants as well as the technology of the time grossly favouring the defense instead of the offensive, particularly in the form of communications, etc. I would suggest you stop reading the false and patently untrue books which kowtow the regular "lions led by donkeys" line, and start reading some more objective tombs.




Bossy573 -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/29/2006 2:39:43 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: CSL
Haig, Joffre, etc. needed to conduct offensives throughout the war that were sure to cause thousands of casualites, first in order to eat up the enemies reserves and then launch what would hopefully be a decisive strike elsewhere in the line.


This is the line which fed to the public after the catastrophies that were the Somme, Paschendale, Loos, etc., etc. These were designed to be war winning offensives, not a giant Verdun on Germany. Haig continued his offensives long after they had been stopped cold and essentially sent his men to die with no hope whatsoever of acheiving his initial planned breakthrough. He did this, IMHO, out of a simple refusal to admit failure, not through any long range plan to bleed Germany white. And the numbers are clear: the human toll simply did not figure into his thinking.
On the other hand, and this is, IMHO, even more despicable, this is exactly what Falkenhayn attempted to do at Verdun. His logic, taken to its conclusion, would have been "we have 1 soldier left, you have none. We win." How is this at all defendable, even in the context of his times?




sol_invictus -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/29/2006 6:10:20 PM)

I think many historians have misinterpreted Falkenhayn's strategy for the Battle of Verdun. He did not simply mean to trade lives in an effort to bleed France white first; his plan was to threaten an objective that France would be compelled to defend. After the initial German advance, the plan was to let France bleed herself white trying to take back the lost territory in order to diminish the threat to Verdun. As it turned out though, once the initial German advance got going, it continued through the momentum of the attack. It seems that it was very difficult to stop some German Generals making a successful advance. This just wasn't the mindset that had been established in the German military officer corps. Thus the battle degenerated into a bloody attrition. Through poor communication with his own forces, Falkenhayn failed to impose his will on his own forces an thus lost controll of the battle. Also, the Generals from all countries, didn't opperate in a political vacum. Their decisions were heavily influenced by the the political considerations of their own nations, which was as it should have been.

I certainly agree that many costly mistakes were made by all political and military leaders from all belligerents, but other than the scale of casualties, which the modern industrial economies made possible, WWI was not much different than most other wars.

Much like the American Civil War, technology had to catch up to make decisive offensive action a reasonable proposition. Given time, the tactical and operational problems were solved to a large degree, but as long as there was no way in which to exploit a breech in the line that was any faster than the speed of marching Infantry, the breech could always be sealed before any significant rupture of the front could take place.

Also, the density of forces on the Western Front compounded the already difficult problems for any offensive. On all other fronts, there was much operational maneuver with decisive results, even using the pre-war tactics.




CSL -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/30/2006 7:18:00 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bossy573

quote:

ORIGINAL: CSL
Haig, Joffre, etc. needed to conduct offensives throughout the war that were sure to cause thousands of casualites, first in order to eat up the enemies reserves and then launch what would hopefully be a decisive strike elsewhere in the line.


This is the line which fed to the public after the catastrophies that were the Somme, Paschendale, Loos, etc., etc. These were designed to be war winning offensives, not a giant Verdun on Germany. Haig continued his offensives long after they had been stopped cold and essentially sent his men to die with no hope whatsoever of acheiving his initial planned breakthrough. He did this, IMHO, out of a simple refusal to admit failure, not through any long range plan to bleed Germany white. And the numbers are clear: the human toll simply did not figure into his thinking.
On the other hand, and this is, IMHO, even more despicable, this is exactly what Falkenhayn attempted to do at Verdun. His logic, taken to its conclusion, would have been "we have 1 soldier left, you have none. We win." How is this at all defendable, even in the context of his times?


And you are a fool if you believe the Somme was ever meant to truely be an offensive designed to breakthrough to the German rear. It was designed to be a wearing out of German reserves, along with the added benefit of shifting German divisions away from Flanders where Haig wanted to conduct his real offensive in 1916. Due to Verdun Haig had to place extra forces along the Somme while also conducting it with a fraction of the troops Joffre had promised him. The fact that the offensive lasted so long was mainly due to the fact that French pressure demanded the British conduct a large offensive to take slack off their forces in Verdun.

Plus, one must also place a large portion of the blame not upon Haig alone, but upon the fact that the British Army, had expanded to numerous times its previous size, therefore having a lack of regular officers, staff officers, and any number of other important pieces of the military puzzle. The fact that the regular army took such a beating in 1914 didn't do anything to help this. And in regards to the wave tactics which were imployed, I will quote Gordon Corrigan from his book Mud, Blood, and Poppycock in length:

Critics of the Somme make much of what they see as insistence on parade ground precision, with men being ordered to walk and keep in line. This had nothing to do with ceremonial parades, but was a perfectly sensible rule to ensure that control was not lost, that men were not shot by their own side, and that they all arrived on the objective together and in a fit state to engage the enemy. Scorn is also poured on the need for the attacking infantry to carry packs weighing sixty pounds. This is one of the enduring myths of the First World War, and derives from an imperfect reading of Field Service Regulations. In fact, it was everything that the man carried and wore that weighed sixty pounds: the uniform he stood up in, the boots on his feet, his weapon and its ammunition. In the attack large packs were left behind, and the small pack contained only the essentials for the operation. That said, each man still had to carry his entrenching tool, extra rations, two gas helmets, wire cutters, 220 rounds of ammunition, two grenades and two sandbags, while ten picks and fifty shovels were taken by each leading company." This was no light burden, and the follow up troops, coming immediately after those who carried out the actual assault, carried a great deal more. It is one thing to capture ground, quite another to hold it. Once into a German position the objective had to be consolidated and held against the inevitable counter attack. This meant that the existing defence works had to be turned round to face the other way, wire obstacles had to be constructed and communications had to be established. Ammunition, grenades and digging implements had to be there, to say nothing of signals cable, water and food, and there was no other way of making all this immediately available to the infantry than by having them carry it with them.




Bossy573 -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/30/2006 2:49:01 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: CSL
And you are a fool if you believe the Somme was ever meant to truely be an offensive designed to breakthrough to the German rear.

Easy on the personal jibes there friend. [:)]

There is no question that the British battle-plan at the Somme was, in part, designed to relieve some of the pressure on the French at Verdun. However, the original idea was a joint British-French attack to tear open the German lines, roll it up and set cavalry free into the German rear. Haig did plan on a war winning offensive. It is only after the plan had clearly failed in its objective that an attrirional spin was put on it.
Defending battle tactics in the face of 60,000 casualties in one day doesn't seem viable IMHO.





EUBanana -> RE: Top Five of World War I (6/30/2006 2:53:14 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bossy573

quote:

ORIGINAL: CSL
And you are a fool if you believe the Somme was ever meant to truely be an offensive designed to breakthrough to the German rear.

Easy on the personal jibes there friend. [:)]

There is no question that the British battle-plan at the Somme was, in part, designed to relieve some of the pressure on the French at Verdun. However, the original idea was a joint British-French attack to tear open the German lines, roll it up and set cavalry free into the German rear. Haig did plan on a war winning offensive. It is only after the plan had clearly failed in its objective that an attrirional spin was put on it.
Defending battle tactics in the face of 60,000 casualties in one day doesn't seem viable IMHO.



Wikipedia!

quote:


nfantry tactics

Prior to the battle Rawlinson's staff published the Fourth Army Tactical Notes, an instruction pamphlet setting out the recommended assault tactics to be used by the infantry. The notes specified that battalions should advance in waves with two platoons per wave on a 400 yard front which left about 5 yards between each soldier. A battalion would therefore advance in eight waves (two per company) plus additional waves for the battalion HQ and stretcher bearers. The advance would be carried out at a steady walking pace of 50 yards per minute.

Soldiers in the leading waves were required to carry about 70 lb (32 kg) of equipment; rifle, bayonet, ammunition, two grenades, entrenching tool, empty sandbags, wire cutters, flares, etc. The later waves would also be burdened with the necessary paraphernalia for consolidating the captured trenches such as barbed wire & stakes.

Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, these tactics were clearly misjudged. The reasoning behind them was that the intense artillery bombardment was expected to destroy the German garrison so that all that was required of the infantry was to walk over and take possession of the objectives.

Many commanders approached the battle with great optimism. The pre-battle speech delivered to the 8th Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry — which would suffer 539 casualties on the first day — included:

"When you go over the top, you can slope arms, light up your pipes and cigarettes, and march all the way to Pozières before meeting any live Germans."

Though these flawed tactics have been blamed for the failures of the first day, they were not universally adhered to by the attacking divisions. It was left to the individual commanders to decide on the method to be used. Many units moved out into no man's land before zero hour so that they could rush the German trenches as soon as the barrage lifted. Whether a particular unit's attack succeeded or failed depended not so much on the infantry tactics but on how well the wire had been cut, the intensity of the German defensive barrage in no man's land and whether or not the defenders could swiftly bring their machine guns into action.




CSL -> RE: Top Five of World War I (7/1/2006 12:18:44 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: Bossy573
There is no question that the British battle-plan at the Somme was, in part, designed to relieve some of the pressure on the French at Verdun. However, the original idea was a joint British-French attack to tear open the German lines, roll it up and set cavalry free into the German rear. Haig did plan on a war winning offensive. It is only after the plan had clearly failed in its objective that an attrirional spin was put on it.
Defending battle tactics in the face of 60,000 casualties in one day doesn't seem viable IMHO.


Yes, Haig did want a war winning offensive during 1916, but it was NOT to be at the Somme. It was to be in Flanders, as he was to do in 1917. Any sort of potential breakthrough at the Somme was to be made largely with French troops, something that largely was forgotten as Verdun started. And the "attritional spin" as you call it, was not placed after the battle was begun. By mid-June the battle around Verdun had forced Haig to abandon any pretense of a breakthrough, writing to his Commander of the Fourth Army : "The Third And Fourth Armies will undertake offensive operations on the front Maricourt to Gommecourt in conjuction with the French Sixth Army astride the Somme, with the object of relieving pressure on the French at Verdun and inflicting losses on the enemy..." Clearly no aims of a war winning offensive there, weeks before the first infantry went forward.

Moreover, the British forces COULD NOT by any means preform more than the simpliest battle tactics at the time, its organization was still shot from the horrendous losses taken earlier in the war in open warfare. While these officers and men had been replaced in body, their professionalism was still sorely lacking, as Corrigan states, "With only two or three officers and perhaps half a dozen NCOs with any experience in a battalion of 1,000 men, only the simplest of tactics could be deployed - the battalions were just too inexperienced for anything more complex. " The loss of twenty-thousand dead, and another fourty-thousand injured was not the result of incompetance on the first day, or the mindless shuffling forward of British forces. If anything, the losses suffered on the first day were the result of a variety of factors, including the aforementioned lack of officers, as well as the lack of heavier shells (something that British industry could still not make enough of), and the most importantly a lack of communication between units which did not allow the generals in charge to conduct the battle as they saw fit. With both a lack of control from above, along with the extreme inexperience of junior officers and NCOs, it is not a question of battle tactics, but a pure inevitability that such losses would be suffered.




Bossy573 -> RE: Top Five of World War I (7/1/2006 2:23:03 AM)

"There is little doubt that Haig’s ambitious strategy on the Somme was impracticable from the outset. It involved a wide front of attack (20 miles), and deep penetration to the third line of defences – up to 5,000 yards -and a possible ‘breakthrough’. Haig over-ruled the more realistic tactics of the Fourth Army commander, General Henry Rawlinson, who proposed the less ambitious. but more likely efficacious, ‘Bite and Hold’ tactic. Haig’s persistent attempts, egged on by Joffre, at making his faulty proposition work by his literally ‘At all Costs’ approach was, ultimately, the genesis of the unsatisfactory climax. This emerged from months of intense and costly fighting for, at best, a seven-mile advance. His claim, when the fighting finally died down, that he had ‘relieved Verdun and worn down the German Army’ was not convincing then and, perhaps, is even less so now."



George Coppard was a machine-gunner at the Battle of the Somme. In his book With A Machine Gun to Cambrai, he described what he saw on the 2nd July, 1916.

"The next morning we gunners surveyed the dreadful scene in front of our trench. There was a pair of binoculars in the kit, and, under the brazen light of a hot mid-summer's day, everything revealed itself stark and clear. The terrain was rather like the Sussex downland, with gentle swelling hills, folds and valleys, making it difficult at first to pinpoint all the enemy trenches as they curled and twisted on the slopes.

It eventually became clear that the German line followed points of eminence, always giving a commanding view of No Man's Land. Immediately in front, and spreading left and right until hidden from view, was clear evidence that the attack had been brutally repulsed. Hundreds of dead, many of the 37th Brigade, were strung out like wreckage washed up to a high-water mark. Quite as many died on the enemy wire as on the ground, like fish caught in the net. They hung there in grotesque postures. Some looked as though they were praying; they had died on their knees and the wire had prevented their fall. From the way the dead were equally spread out, whether on the wire or lying in front of it, it was clear that there were no gaps in the wire at the time of the attack.

Concentrated machine gun fire from sufficient guns to command every inch of the wire, had done its terrible work. The Germans must have been reinforcing the wire for months. It was so dense that daylight could barely be seen through it. Through the glasses it looked a black mass. The German faith in massed wire had paid off.

How did our planners imagine that Tommies, having survived all other hazards - and there were plenty in crossing No Man's Land - would get through the German wire? Had they studied the black density of it through their powerful binoculars? Who told them that artillery fire would pound such wire to pieces, making it possible to get through? Any Tommy could have told them that shell fire lifts wire up and drops it down, often in a worse tangle than before."






The study of this struggle is just like an accident investigation. The only certainty is the car was in perfect operating condition until the moment of impact and that it is now a mangled wreck. Everything else is the subject of reasoned investigation, and, ultimately, educated speculation. Good History is almost always story telling buttressed by "evidence." The only certainty is the event itself.
When this bad boy hits the shelves, CSL, I hope you will engage in a PBEM game. [;)]




EUBanana -> RE: Top Five of World War I (7/1/2006 3:18:12 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bossy573
When this bad boy hits the shelves, CSL, I hope you will engage in a PBEM game. [;)]


If he doesn't, I will. [:D]

I'm very curious as to what casualty figures will be like in the game with various strategies. There is so much maligning of Haig, be interesting to see if the game models Haig as being a dumbass or if seven figure casualties are the way it goes.

I hope the casualty figures are reasonable and not a bit of fluff tacked on for a laugh! I wanna see how I match up with Rawlinson and Haig when it comes to my deep and abiding respect for human life. [:D]




TheBlackhorse -> RE: Top Five of World War I (7/1/2006 3:26:45 AM)

Operation Iceberg. Anyone ever hear of it? Anyone have any ideas as to its relationship to the direction this thread has taken?

Allow me.

Operation Iceberg was the US invasion of Okinawa. You know, the last great battle of WWII...
Anyway, by the time we landed on Okinawa we had learned significant amounts about modern warfare,  and island-hopping and fighting and how to defeat our foes with overwhelming firepower. We had utter air dominance, un-parallelled fire-support (to include battleships in direct fire mode), and technology on our side. 

Despite this, Okinawa degenerated into nothing more than a battle of frontal assaults against prepared positions.

What the hell??? Our generals must have been idiots! They had not a clue! They didn't value the lives of their men! Donkeys leading lions!

So, why did this happen? (It may shed some light onto what bleeding happened in the Great War).


http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/okinawa/default.aspx

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/wwii/okinawa/index.htm#contents




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