This is a review I put up on Amazon about the book by Corrigan on the First World War that fairly comprehensivley dismantles what the 1970's schoolboys were taught to think about this conflict...
Who can forget `O What A Lovely War' with the officers sliding down the helter skelter to read out how many thousands have died to gain a few more millimetres of mud in Flanders? The play sums up what my generation have been taught to believe about the First World War: an unnecessary barbaric affair that killed a generation directed by behind the line upper class donkeys who made their soldiers live in rat infested trenches before ordering them to walk into no man's land to either be mown down by machine guns or strung up on barbed wire which they stupidly thought would have been cut by shrapnel. And if any soldier demurred, he was summarily shot at dawn after a kangaroo court.
This book is a robust and entirely refreshing rejection of this version of events, backed up by endless facts. The war was necessary as Britain had to have freedom of the channel and so could not have enemies controlling its ports; huge numbers were killed, but there was no lost generation; the trenches were challenging, but crucially no soldier spent more than a few days there and behind the lines great effort was made to lift morale; the officers were very much with their men, and the generals were constantly inspecting the front line. They made mistakes, but they learned from them, and despite constant meddling from amateur politicians, especially Lloyd George, they understood the main theatre was the Western Front and despite Britain not having a large land army at all, managed to mobilise the needed numbers to win there. There were no kangaroo courts, discipline procedures were thorough and in this author's opinion all the executions were fair.
Corrigan is very good dealing with the Somme, which claimed 20,000 English lives on the first day. Despite its appalling cost, this attack drew German troops away from Verdun and this literally saved the French army. On its own terms the Somme was a vital victory. There was one aspect of his account though that I felt was opaque, and this is why I have not given the book five stars. For there are videos of survivors explaining how they were told that on the first day of the attack there was no need to run to the enemy trenches as the constant bombing by the artillery would have destroyed everything there. It was to be a `stroll in the park'. But in fact it was a race between the attackers getting across no man's land, and the German machine gunners getting from their dug outs to their trenches. Speed was the essence. However Corrigan only says that the soldiers had to walk to keep order. I was hoping there would be a more vigorous defence regarding this, or a straightforward acceptance that this was a terrible mistake.
However it was a mistake the generals learned from and this is the big picture the author gets completely right: that in a completely new war situation, without enough men or arms, the army rose to the challenge and conducted a war that was forced on England in a thoroughly professional manner. And they won.
Who can forget `O What A Lovely War' with the officers sliding down the helter skelter to read out how many thousands have died to gain a few more millimetres of mud in Flanders? The play sums up what my generation have been taught to believe about the First World War: an unnecessary barbaric affair that killed a generation directed by behind the line upper class donkeys who made their soldiers live in rat infested trenches before ordering them to walk into no man's land to either be mown down by machine guns or strung up on barbed wire which they stupidly thought would have been cut by shrapnel. And if any soldier demurred, he was summarily shot at dawn after a kangaroo court.
This book is a robust and entirely refreshing rejection of this version of events, backed up by endless facts. The war was necessary as Britain had to have freedom of the channel and so could not have enemies controlling its ports; huge numbers were killed, but there was no lost generation; the trenches were challenging, but crucially no soldier spent more than a few days there and behind the lines great effort was made to lift morale; the officers were very much with their men, and the generals were constantly inspecting the front line. They made mistakes, but they learned from them, and despite constant meddling from amateur politicians, especially Lloyd George, they understood the main theatre was the Western Front and despite Britain not having a large land army at all, managed to mobilise the needed numbers to win there. There were no kangaroo courts, discipline procedures were thorough and in this author's opinion all the executions were fair.
Corrigan is very good dealing with the Somme, which claimed 20,000 English lives on the first day. Despite its appalling cost, this attack drew German troops away from Verdun and this literally saved the French army. On its own terms the Somme was a vital victory. There was one aspect of his account though that I felt was opaque, and this is why I have not given the book five stars. For there are videos of survivors explaining how they were told that on the first day of the attack there was no need to run to the enemy trenches as the constant bombing by the artillery would have destroyed everything there. It was to be a `stroll in the park'. But in fact it was a race between the attackers getting across no man's land, and the German machine gunners getting from their dug outs to their trenches. Speed was the essence. However Corrigan only says that the soldiers had to walk to keep order. I was hoping there would be a more vigorous defence regarding this, or a straightforward acceptance that this was a terrible mistake.
However it was a mistake the generals learned from and this is the big picture the author gets completely right: that in a completely new war situation, without enough men or arms, the army rose to the challenge and conducted a war that was forced on England in a thoroughly professional manner. And they won.
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