A suggestion to those who enjoy bashing the French Army...

[Gibbs505]

That's likely b/c they hated Sir John French even more, as well, brigade and corps generals were often blamed by the troops when fault laid farther up the line

When you stop to think about it, they really had no choice!

Communications were the pits! The ###'s had to be in a position where they could get the info they needed, usually by telephone, otherwise by courier/runner. Therefore he had to be in one spot so that he could be found, gather information, and then confirm orders already laid out or issue new orders. They really did not have much choice you know! No cell phones then!! Gathering information from just a few miles away sometimes took hours!

Even just 20 years later in WW2 it was a lot different! And even then, sudden shifts by the HQ of the French 9th Army had a disastrous effect!

Oh and I would like to add, that, amongst others, Joffe had the habit of suddenly turning up at army HQ's in order to assess the situation, and the ###, himself. Not at al chateau bound was he! Lastly Haig often visited his Generals himself! At very short notice!

 

[Ognat]

JFK and Guns of August

I had read somewhere that at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Guns of August was the book that JFK was reading. Very timely.

It seems to me --its been a while since I read this book and I may be mixing it up with another -- that one of the most interesting things was how many generals on both sides were sacked in the first days of the war. If I had a chance to re-read it I'd keep a slip of paper on the side and keep score.

There was another book by the same author, The March of Folly, from Troy to VietNam that makes very provocative reading also.

As someone above has said, Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer is also a story that you will re-read and not forget.

Tim

 

[Claven2]

Joffre's chauffeur was a Grand Prix race car driver he had drafted just for the purpose. He had a souped up car for the day and got driven everywhere at 70mph. The result though was that he was not often to be found at critical moments - sometimes with disastrous results such as the losses to the 5th French Army and the abandonment of the BEF's right flank at Mons.

Moltke, on the German side at the advent of war, considered himself a "modern day Alexander" (his words) sitting at his desk and directing the battle with little markers on a huge map. Sadly for him, he didn't count on the French using the Eiffel Tower to jam the German Army radio frequencies. The closer the German Armies got to Paris, the more garbled transmissions became to the point commenders often tried repeatdly for sometimes over 10 hours to send coded transmissions back anf forward from GHQ!!

 

[Gibbs505]

All of which contributed to the "Fog of War!"

 

[Anvil]

Who would have thought that possible?!


The concept of Haig as a butcher or irresponsible general was a later interpretation. His men did not regard him that way.

I don't know when he came to the conclusion, but my great Uncle ( a survivor of the war) hated Haig, to the point where he wouldn't allow Haig whisky in his house. He was far from a tea totaller.

 

[John Sukey]

Then there was that cute British term "wastage" In other words, when there was no "big push" on a number of the PBI still bought it in the trenches!

Nichts neue, All stille im westen.

 

[Gibbs505]

Yes, from snipers early on but from artillery mostly!

Mind you the same applied to the germans and the french! Nothing to do with the brit generals directly!

 

[Unsub]

Great thread! I just saw path to glory and it made me want to learn more about WW!. It seems that most of the french army bashing comes from the US which interestingly has a terrible record for losing wars. The Chauchaut was a decent design but the quality of material and construction were terrible. Even the Lebel was noteable because of the round it chambered.