Huns ''Afraid'' of the bayonet!

[Wolfgang]

That accounts for the war lasting only a few weeks and the total absence of British casualties

[CRMichaelis]

And it's written by a British officer - the pinnacle of an objective and unbiased source...

[RMLI_SGT]

Feb 15, 2009 21:00:44 GMT -8 CRMichaelis said:

And it's written by a British officer - the pinnacle of an objective and unbiased source...

Then it must be TRUE! ;D

Bob

[rmli]

It is TRUE!!!

[Wolfgang]

Why should Germans be afraid of British bayonets? The Brits don't even bother to put Belgium babies on them!

[Wolfgang]

I suppose I should put a little more effort into the 'historical research.' When Austro-Prussian forces occupied Holstein and invaded Schleswig in February 1864, the Danes resisted, largely because of a mistaken hope of English help, which Bismarck reportedly assessed with the comment, "If Lord Palmerston sends the British army to Germany, I shall have the police arrest them."

Similarly, Kaiser Wilhelm II supposedly wrote to the commander of the German First Army Alexander von Kluck early in the war: "It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your energies for the immediate present upon one single purpose, and that is that you address your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate the treacherous English, and walk over (British General) French’s contemptibly small army." Nothing about poor German marksmanship or irrational fear of British bayonets, on or off their rifles.

[rmli]

And that "contempable little army" ripped "cousin Willie" a new one!

[CRMichaelis]

Please! Four plus years later and only after Uncle Sam came over to bail them out!

Seriously, they didn't call it "stalemate" for nothing. All of the Euro's were pretty much spent by the time the US got involved and THAT was the ONLY thing that tipped it in the Allies' favor. Without the US joining the war the Germans would not have spent themselves on the Spring Offensives of 1918, Britain and France would have cracked and opened negotiations and you would have had a German led EU about 80 years sooner!!!

The problem with the Brits is they believe their own propaganda!!! ;D They really do believe they won the war all by themselves!!!

[CRMichaelis]

To change the subject again, this time to some actual history of the Old Contemptibles... I quote in some length Barbara Tuchman from The Guns of August. Per a British correspondent, one Arthur Moore writing after the retreat from Le Cateau (yes, those sausage eaters did actually shift the British army somewhat... but don't let history get in the way ), I quote:


He wrote of a "retreating and broken army" after the series of engagements "which may be called the action of Mons,"...of the "immediate, relentless, unresting" German pursuit and its "irresistible vehemence,"... In spite of everything the men (Brits) were still "steady and cheerful" but "forced backwards, ever backwards." ... Britain, he concluded, must face the fact that the "first great German effort has succeeded" and the investment of Paris cannot be banished from the field of possibility. [That Paris did not fall was due to the tenacity of the French, not the British. Sir John was preoccupied with saving what little he had left of the British army and pretty much left Joffre to defend Paris.]

Again from Tuchman:

When in summarizing the need for reinforcements, he (Moore) spoke of the BEF which "bore the weight of the blow," he laid the foundations of a myth. It was as if the French Army had been an adjunct somewhere in the offing. In fact the BEF was never at any time in the first month in contact with more than three German corps out of a total of over thirty, but the idea that it "bore the weight of the blow" was perpetuated in all subsequent British accounts of Mons and the "Glorious Retreat." It succeeded in planting in the British mind the conviction that the BEF in the gallant and terrible days of its first month of battle saved France, saved Europe, saved Western civilization or as one British writer unabashedly put it "Mons. In that single word will be summed up the liberation of the World." [Sheesh, talk about cheek!! Got their butts spanked and retreated, and then crowed that they alone saved the world!!]

Speaking of the British press in the first weeks:

The fighting had been presented to the British - as to the French - as a series of German defeats in which the enemy unaccountably moved from Belgium to France and appeared each day on the map at places farther forward.

I could go on and on, but you get the drift. Brits get spanked, Sir John loses his nerve, propaganda machine kicks in and the BEF saved the world. Once the US pulled their chestnuts out of the fire British historians rewrite history to over compensate for their lack of success. Now I am not disparaging the fighting qualities of the British soldier - they were well respected by the Germans and I give them the same respect I give all combatants of that war. Except maybe the Serbs (just kidding!). BUT I do have an issue with their commanders, especially Sir John French and Douglas Haig. And I have a huge issue with the way they've rewritten history. It is typical for the victors to write the history, and Germany is further tainted by losing two world wars, and especially by their conduct in the Second. But as I have at various times portrayed and researched a German, American and French impression, one gains an view vastly different than that presented by British historians. All the crowing about winning the war in spite of the French (who actually did bear the weight of the blows on the Western Front), and the interference of those pesky Yanks (who did not receive the credit due them from either the Brits or French) makes me want to discount the contributions that I know the British actually did make.

Please note that the above did not include any name calling of British soldiers, British commanders or the general British public. I offer the above as a contribution to a serious debate on the performance of the British army in the opening days of WWI. Note that the critique was quoted from a British correspondent, not a German source. Later I'll have to dig out Pershing's memoirs and give you the opinion of an associate power on the British conduct of the war!!

[rmli]

Has anyone asked the French for thier take on this? I'm sure they will say that they won the war single handedly. That the Brits were just an irritant (Seph?). And the Yanks were a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies.