BS: Jingoism or Commemoration

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:27 PM

Keith
**** Paxman - **** your historians
You claim to have "made a life-long study of WW1
If that is true If you claim the war was well led - YOU EXPLAIN SEBASTAPOL, LOOS, THE FIRST DAY OF THE SOMME, THE AMMUNITION COCK-UP
you have persistently hidden behind historians you have nott red by misquoting or only partially quoting them
When this is pointed out to you, yo ignore it, go on with your claims, the claim that nobody else had given proof you have lied.
You are the most dishonest and shameless contributor to this forum
If you have "made a lifelong study of th war, explain the aboove, and tell us why the war was well led and not the simple bu#tcchery of sending men to be slaughtered as fast as they could get them under their command - where are the tactics that made it a "well conducted war" as you pair of clowns claim?
Failure to answer these points - not a mythical historian - YOU - will confirm what we already know - that the pair of you are mindless jingoists
By the way - which one of you is General Melchett and which Darling?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 12:54 PM

Many historians conclude that the generals were incompetent in many ways, including a callous disregard for the safety and welfare of those in their charge. Dereliction of duty, as Sheffield, a historian, noted.

If Keith A of Hertford repeats his mantra enough times, he thinks others might believe him. The evidence, fields of the fucking things, says otherwise. The hours of carving on thousands of war memorials say otherwise. The evocative words "lest we forget" says otherwise.

Incompetent military thinking goes back as long as you can think. From bad planning by the French at Agincourt, our less well known fuck ups of the time, through to the Crimea, via Galipoli and the whole of the western front, via small fishing boats rescuing the soldiers poorly led and planned in WW2 to Suez, Cyprus and NI, all the way to poor planning and inadequate equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's before we look at military incompetence at MoD in learning to spell the word "budget." Any chance of recruit training without coroner fucking inquests?

So... Why, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, should anyone believe that military top brass just happened to become competent for four years out of a few hundred? Especially four years when all over Europe, a whole generation were butchered and damned, to coin the phrase.

It's funny to read the bullshit and aggressive bollocks of Teribus and Keith A of Hertford, but their silly point scoring and cap doffing attitude is displayed here on a very serious subject. And displays rather poor taste. Some here actually know what they are talking about. A pity they are derided by ignorance.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:15 PM

This is exactly what I was referring to when I said I may not know much about history, but I do know about humanity. Haig and Co. may have been the best generals in the world, with the backing of historians and the adulation of the press but they still callously sent thousands of men to their deaths. OK, call them the heroes that won the war but don't forget the cost.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 01:46 PM

"only idiots like you believe everything that you read.

Some of us read, digest, consider, read other authors, digest, consider and then come to a reasoned conclusion based on ALL the evidence we have digested, not just the evidence that suits our preconceptions.

You have shown time and time again you are incapable of such reasoned analysis."

Do we believe everything that we read? I don't believe much of what A.J.P. Taylor wrote about the First World War. I certainly do not believe or agree with the conclusions drawn by many of the 1929/1969 "revisionists" (Especially the likes of Alan Clark who like Jom just "Made Up Shit") Why? Because others followed who studied and researched the period armed with far better knowledge and new and far better information from a far greater, varied and wider range of sources - and their conclusions were vastly different from the idiotic likes of "Donkeys", "Blackadder Goes Forth" and "Oh What A Lovely War" (I know the latter was dear to the heart of someone once married to Ewan MacColl - which means that Jom has swallowed all that shit ""hook-line-and-sinker). Would those be the sources that some of you (For some read "The Musktwats", Raggytush, The Rotund Balding Gnome and Steve Shaw) "read, digest, consider, read other authors, digest, consider and then come" up with a load of complete and utter bollocks that doesn't even withstand the most cursory challenge. All in all it seems a bit strange because to date we have:

1: Dave the rotund gnome
2: Ragged Arse
3: Steve Shaw

All professing that they all know very little about the First World War, yet here we have Ragged Arse stating that he believes that they have "read, digest, consider, read other authors, digest, consider and then come to a reasoned conclusion based on ALL the evidence we have digested" Well I would have said having considered and digested that information that over the course of the last 18 odd months we've been discussing this subject that by know if indeed you had done as you have stated you have done, you would ,or should by now know a great deal about the subject - and yet you don't, in fact you are as clueless today as you were when all this started as an attempt to bully and drive Keith A from this forum - an attempt that I am pleased to say has failed spectacularly.

As for the bit about just believing the evidence that suits your preconceptions - that is precisely what you have done throughout. Do you actually want me to detail the stuff that you have claimed as being true yet cannot provide a single shred of evidence to back up your statements. Not once have you been able to challenge a single thing stated by either myself, Keith A, Lighter, GUEST# and others. All you have succeeded in doing is to make yourselves out to be complete and utter fools.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:05 PM

Well, apart from, once again, I have never disputed any historical facts, I don't carry on arguing with someone who I have already stated adds nothing to the discussion do I teribumkins?

Who's the fool now?

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST,Harry Forest - if you must know
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:18 PM

The person behind the anonymous moniker Teribus appears to be someone who should restrict their internet usage if they can't get beyond dismissing anyone who doesn't share his personality disorder.

Regarding the original post, I feel it is jingoism these days on the back of what was commemoration of those the original cenotaph standers actually knew.

Old men who cannot come to terms with not being heroes in the eyes of those who see as as abhorrent coupled with politicians and clergy for whom war is convenient. Look at how we are forgetting welfare, NHS, social care and equitable spending in the last week because the government, thankful as ever to ISIS, are taking the opportunity to spend what they have on boosting their ability to control people, security and yes, irrelevant military spending that is neither designed nor competent to deal with disillusioned communities and countries we fuck with.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:30 PM

Rag,
And only idiots like you believe everything that you read.

I believe the historians when they all say the same thing.
Only an idiot would imagine that they knew more about history than they do!

Jim,
If that is true If you claim the war was well led -

I am not an historian and make no claims about history.
I do claim that all the historians say our leadership was competent, and they do know about all those issues you listed.

Guest,
Dereliction of duty, as Sheffield, a historian, noted.

No he did not.
You made that up. A silly lie from a silly man ashamed of his identity (Musket.)

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:38 PM

What Sheffield really says,

"One undeniable fact is that Britain and its allies, not Germany, won the First World War. Moreover, Haig's army played the leading role in defeating the German forces in the crucial battles of 1918. In terms of the numbers of German divisions engaged, the numbers of prisoners and guns captured, the importance of the stakes and the toughness of the enemy, the 1918 'Hundred Days' campaign rates as the greatest series of victories in British history.

Even the Somme (1916) and Passchendaele (1917), battles that have become by-words for murderous futility, not only had sensible strategic rationales but qualified as British strategic successes, not least in the amount of attritional damage they inflicted on the Germans."

"He(Haig) encouraged the development of advanced weaponry such as tanks, machine guns and aircraft. He, like Rawlinson and a host of other commanders at all levels in the BEF, learned from experience. The result was that by 1918 the British army was second to none in its modernity and military ability. It was led by men who, if not military geniuses, were at least thoroughly competent commanders. The victory in 1918 was the payoff. The 'lions led by donkeys' tag should be dismissed for what it is - a misleading caricature."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/lions_donkeys_01.shtml

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 02:47 PM

Teribus, dear boy, as I have refrained from contributing anything at all to the substantive in this thread, I would thank you for not dragging me in for your contumely as if I have. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 03:17 PM

Magaret Macmillan,

The wartime generals were not all cowards and incompetents as Alan Clark argued in his infamous The Donkeys (1961). A new generation of British historians, among others, has done much to explode such lazy generalisation and show that commanders developed both strategies and tactics that, in the end, worked.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/7b6f0490-6347-11e3-a87d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2oJ9WwKyd

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 05:20 PM

GUEST with regard to your post of 24 Nov 15 - 12:54 PM

The first bit and the "made up" quote from Sheffield - Well maybe it wasn't made up maybe some "man-in-the-street" in the city of Sheffield said it but certainly not Dr Gary Sheffield the historian whose specialty is the study of the First World War - Keith A has quite comprehensively just blown that little invention of yours out of the water.

Let us therefore have a look at rest of your post.

"If Keith A of Hertford repeats his mantra enough times, he thinks others might believe him. The evidence, fields of the fucking things, says otherwise. The hours of carving on thousands of war memorials say otherwise. The evocative words "lest we forget" says otherwise."

What Mantra? I recall he listed three points that represented the current prevailing historical opinion with respect to Great Britain's involvement and prosecution of the First World War, he put those points up for discussion and was attacked for doing so on the basis that those points of view had been formulated by Keith A himself - not really his fault that his moronic attackers could not read and comprehend basic English. The "evidence" you are emotively trying to refer to are the graves, which are to be used as the metric for judging the competence of those who led the British Army? If that is the case then please explain why those who commanded the French and German Armies do not feature? After all of the three main protagonists fighting on the Western Front the British suffered the fewest killed and wounded, was that down to the poor quality of their leaders?

"Incompetent military thinking goes back as long as you can think."

Hate to burst your bubble but:

"Incompetent thinking in all walks of life, both in peace and in war goes back as long as you can think."

Only trouble is that looking back through those ages in terms of military thinking Great Britain's Army and more importantly her Navy did rather well when asked to act in defence of the realm.

When it comes to incompetence and waste related to Government Ministries and their "budgets", why highlight the MOD (After all their "Budget" is tiny compared to those of the real wastrels) C'mon GUEST tell us about the billions wasted in Health, Welfare and Education. On Coroner Inquests I don't think our hospitals come out too well there especially the Stafford Hospital - tell us the number of deaths deemed to be excessive due to lack of care over a two year period - IIRC it was roughly three times our entire Afghan fatalities which were spread over 13 years of combat - Incompetence you prat with those figures it meant that you were safer on foot patrol in Sangin District of Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2007 than you would have been if you were admitted to that hospital's A&E Department the same year.

"So... Why, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, should anyone believe that military top brass just happened to become competent for four years out of a few hundred? Especially four years when all over Europe, a whole generation were butchered and damned, to coin the phrase."

What evidence to the contrary? The achievements and innovations introduced by the British in those four years were astounding considering the starting points for each of the main 1914 combatant nations. And if victory is any metric by which to judge military success and most people who DO KNOW about such things would say that that is an important, if not THE most important, marker then over those hundreds of years you were wittering on about earlier on, then we have done far, far better than many we have had to come up against - and believe me GUEST there IS overwhelming evidence of that.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 07:07 PM

Total Casualties WW1

          killed            Wounded          Missing       Total

ALLIES    5,000,000         13,000,000       4,000,000   21,000,000

Axis      3,300,000          8,300,000       3,600,000   15,200,000

But that doesn't matter to the likes of Teribus and Keith BECAUSE most of them were FOREIGNERS and WE won.

YAR BOO SUCKS, NAR NAR NA NAR NAR!

Truly, truly pathetic.

SOURCE:HISTORY LEARNING SITE,

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 07:35 PM

Ah Raggy, having to shift goalposts now I see. You and your pals challenged the conclusions drawn by a number of historians who specialized in the study of the First World War who with respect to Great Britain's involvement who stated that in general the British Army was well led (NOTE THAT SMARTARSE - British Army NOT Allied Forces).

Now toddle off and come back with what the British casualties were in comparison to the other major combatants who fought on the western Front.

You and your pals who have all said that they know little about the war really should do some real reading about it before you flounder about desperately trying to find facts presented in such a manner that fit YOUR preconceived notions - so far all that you have established beyond any doubt is that you are on a hiding to nothing.

And you have the utter gall to accuse others of being pathetic - f**kin' unbelievable.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 07:43 PM

Do I really need to remind your poor little tired brain that you said just a few days ago you were not going to respond to me. I do wish you would keep your promise.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 07:58 PM

But Raggy how on earth can I fail to respond when you, who have clearly stated that you know little about the subject, keep attacking things I have stated with information that is completely inapplicable and irrelevant to the point you are trying to attack - or do you always compare apples to oranges?

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Raggytash
Date: 24 Nov 15 - 08:16 PM

Just for you Teriblunder. In the past year or so I have read a good deal regarding WW1. None of which is so simplistic as you and the professor would have us believe.

Anyway I'm in the middle of a good book a the moment, not related, so I'm going back to that.

Do try and keep your promises, go and polish your Masters boots or something, there's a good little pleb.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST,Harry Forest if you must know
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 03:07 AM

More selective quoting from Keith A of Hertford. As I said, Dr Gary Sheffield concluded that senior military leaders were both callous and incompetent. He also mitigated on the basis you can't be stupid and wrong all the time, although Haig did have a good stab at it.

I am aware, as someone who reads a bit of Mudcat banter that there are a few people under the umbrella name Musket. I am also aware through reading that they seem to have the usual suspects weighed up. But isn't it amazing that anybody who points out (it isn't difficult) the glaring outrageousness of such people get accused of being Musket.

I don't know any of them but I'm sure they must be laughing if any of them read this. I see a similar complaint in other threads by someone at the same level of intellect and reason as Keith A of Hertford. Are you sure it's Hertford and not somewhere in Scotland?

For the record, I have read Sheffield's assessment but disagree on some of his conclusions. His verdicts don't always follow his own evidence, an elementary mistake but understandable if your pressure comes from book publishers. He got it right but looked for too many exceptions with which to sanitise a rotten lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 04:00 AM

"I am not an historian and make no claims about history."
Yes you do - you claimed that you have made "a life-long study of World War One" - a claim that nobody here has made, yet, having claimed that the war was well led, you decline to comment on badly conducted campaigns that
Gallipoli casualties totalled 89,000
At Loos, the "good leadership amounted to:
By 28 September, the British retreated to their starting positions, having lost over 20,000 casualties, including three major-general
British casualties at Loos were about twice as high as German casualties.
8,000 casualties out of 10,000 men in four hours
British casualties in the main attack were 48,367 and they suffered 10,880 more in the subsidiary attack, a total of 59,247 losses of the 285,107 British casualties on the Western Front in 1915
On the first day of the Somme there were 57,470 British casualties, of whom 19,240 were killed - the highest by far of all the combating armies (Germany was a runner-up with between 10 and 12 thousand)
The leadership of the war was appalling (if anything, Blackadder payed it down!!) - sacrifice as many young many young lives as possible - that is not leadership simple butchery.
You claim to have made a lifelong study of the war - you have now admitted you lied - you know nothing of this war and you continue to excuse the death of many millions of young lives.
All historians do not back your claims - you have misquoted less than half a dozen of them and you have now scurried back behind historians who you have obviously not read, - not one single one of them
Your bullying blustering galleymate is exactly the same - now refusing to answer on the grounds that the questioner "knows nothing" (same as you, apparently.)
Your campaign to justify the bloodbath is about as well-conducted as was the bloodbath itself.
Your case becomes more and more idiotically dishonest.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 04:09 AM

More selective quoting from Keith A of Hertford.

Not true.
I provided whole paragraphs and linked to the whole article.
I can produce many more examples of him saying the same.

As I said, Dr Gary Sheffield concluded that senior military leaders were both callous and incompetent.

As you lied, actually.
General French has come in for some criticism, but who else?

You say you(?) disagree with Sheffield's conclusions on Haig.
The fact that other historians do agree will make that easier for him to live with!
What is your opinion worth when it is rejected by all the people who actually know anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 04:17 AM

Sheffield,
"When Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig died in 1928, the major controversies about his reputation were still to come. His death was a cause for national mourning; a moment that loomed as large in the nation's consciousness as the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. For many, the achievements of Haig and his fellow commanders was worthy of that tribute."

"The British generals of the First World War were not an homogenous group. They performed a variety of functions and roles and they did so to differing degrees of effectiveness. A few were incompetent, most were not, all were operating under incredible pressure. "

"Haig led his armies to decisive victory in the 1918 Hundred Days offensive that ended with German capitulation on 11 November. The contributions of other Allied armies must be recognised; indeed all Haig's offensives need to be seen in this context. Battles earlier in the war, such as the Somme in 1916, saw heavy loss of life but were also strategic successes for the Allies. Haig argued they created the conditions for the victories of 1918 by wearing down the strength and morale of the German army. I agree with this assessment - traditional victories were not possible in trench warfare, so attrition was a vital and valid method."

"The British army, like all other armies, began the war using outdated tactics. These were progressively replaced by cutting-edge methods incorporating the latest technology, including artillery, air power, machine-guns, gas, and tanks. By 1918 Haig's forces had evolved a war-winning weapons-system that enabled them to defeat the German Army in battles such as at Amiens in August that year. As for casualties, win or lose, Western Front battles were costly in human life. A French commander, General Mangin, rightly remarked, 'whatever you do, you lose a lot of men'."

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 04:18 AM

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zq2y87h

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 04:38 AM

You tell us it was a well conducted war yet you can't tell us why - that is mindless.
You claim you have made a life-long study of the war yet all you can do is provide yet another cut'n-paste which you have hastily sought out which in no way explains the fiascos that took place (which you have just been given)
That is both mindless and dishonest
Owzatt - you're our
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 04:57 AM

You tell us it was a well conducted war yet you can't tell us why

Yes I can.
That is the findings of the military historians.

all you can do is provide yet another cut'n-paste

Yes. Quotes of historians unequivocally rejecting your views.
I do that because I can.
You can produce nothing to support your baseless assertions.
There is nothing out there for you.

Your views derive solely from your extreme class war politics.
I suggest we leave it there unless and until you can find some, any, support for your dogma from people who actually know about WW1.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 05:53 AM

"That is the findings of the military historians."
No it isn't - not all of them by any means - you refused to read the list of nearly 200 you were given because it was "tto large"
You dismissed the historians who actually said it was ba
dly led because they wer "dead" or "not real historians" or obscure and "didn't sell their books in "real" bookshops"
You ave refused even to comment on the actual examples of bad leadership on the grounds of your now self-confessed ignorance (having claimed you have made a "lifelong study of the war"
You have sought out out-of-contexts quotes fro, less than half-a-dozen historians which you have not read, nor do you understand (or more likely - have deliberately distorted).
Historians are not gods - their opinions as to the justification of this colonial family squabble which ended the lives of millions of young men are worth no more than those on historians who describe th war as a waste of human life - historians don't deal in the ethics of colonial wars - it is not their field.
Sheffield is an employee of the military establishment making his views of the history of the war suspect and the morality of the war useless yet he continus to be one of your gallant less-then-half-dozen witnesses!!
Yoiou sais you studied thewar - you didn't
You claimed to have read a book by one of your historians - you obviously haven't, and you refuse to respond to what she actually says.
As I said - the most dishonest contributor to this forum by far.
Your only support for your case is from a bullying, blustering no-mark who would like us to believe he has a service record but in fact never got nearer that the sink in a ships galley.
You have no case - you have never had a case yet you continue to justify the decimation of a generation - and you call those who fought in it "liars" if what they had to say challenges your jingoism.
It seems the war isn't the only thing lacking ethics.
Jim Carroll

.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 07:45 AM

"In the past year or so I have read a good deal regarding WW1. None of which is so simplistic as you and the professor would have us believe."

IF that indeed is the case then your contributions do not reflect that fact. Nobody has ever pretended to make or put forward the case that anything to do with the conflict was simple, but plain facts and truths as stated by myself and by Keith A are correct - evidenced by yourself and your pals being unable to refute anything we have stated.

One thing that puzzles me Raggy, IF as you say that over "the past year or so I have read a good deal regarding WW1." why do you post to this thread stating that you know very little about the subject? Is that because you find it difficult to take things in, or were you simply being "economical with the truth"?

"go and polish your Masters boots or something, there's a good little pleb."

The subject matter is WWI. Here is a quotation from someone

"You are obviously interested in the subject and far more knowledgeable than some others on this forum."

Now this good little pleb would like to ask you a couple of questions:

1: Identify who it was that stated the above?
2: Who is the "YOU" mentioned in the quote?

After you have done that you can go back to your book.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 07:45 AM

Where's that GUEST who was going on about "Howlers" when you need him?

"You tell us it was a well conducted war yet you can't tell us why? - Jim Carroll

Ehmm Jim you have been told time and time again - get your head round the fact that as far as you are concerned anything about any subject on earth that you haven't come up with simply does not feature, anything told to you that fits your view must be taken as being "gospel" without any check being made by way of verification.

But here it is again by Dr Gary Sheffield:
"He(Haig) encouraged the development of advanced weaponry such as tanks, machine guns and aircraft. He, like Rawlinson and a host of other commanders at all levels in the BEF, learned from experience. The result was that by 1918 the British army was second to none in its modernity and military ability. It was led by men who, if not military geniuses, were at least thoroughly competent commanders. The victory in 1918 was the payoff. The 'lions led by donkeys' tag should be dismissed for what it is - a misleading caricature."

The British Army and its Divisional Commanders started learning in 1914 and continued to learn throughout the war. Fortunately for the rest of Europe the German Army and its Commanders DID NOT exactly the same thing stopped them in their tracks on the Marne in 1918 as stopped them in their tracks in 1914.

"Gallipoli casualties totalled 89,000"

And on two occasions during the Dardanelles Campaign had the Allies advanced the intended aim of the campaign would have been accomplished, Turkey would have been knocked out of the war and a secure supply rout to arm the Russian Army would have been secured. It came that close to being a complete success. 1915 both in overall command of the troops at Gallipoli and at Divisional level at Suvla you have examples of poor British Generals - Neither of them were Douglas Haig.

"At Loos, the "good leadership amounted to:
By 28 September, the British retreated to their starting positions, having lost over 20,000 casualties, including three major-general
British casualties at Loos were about twice as high as German casualties.
8,000 casualties out of 10,000 men in four hours
British casualties in the main attack were 48,367 and they suffered 10,880 more in the subsidiary attack, a total of 59,247 losses of the 285,107 British casualties on the Western Front in 1915"

This was the first big British attack, they had carried out a smaller one earlier in the year at Neuve-Chapelle. Basic rule of thumb is that if you attack a defended position you must outnumber the defenders by at least 3:1 - why do you think that is Jom? You have read, or maybe you didn't bother, from a man who was there, right in the thick of it as an Artillery Observation Officer. At Neuve-Chapelle and at Loos, Haig's advice and placement of the reserve required to achieve the breakthrough that was there in both battles were ignored by Haig's superior officer General Sir John French who was simply too timid and as a result of that timidness and inability to think and act quickly was dismissed from his command and replaced by Haig and from that point on the British Army didn't look back, it went from strength to strength employing new tactics that continually evolved and improved upon.

"On the first day of the Somme there were 57,470 British casualties, of whom 19,240 were killed - the highest by far of all the combating armies (Germany was a runner-up with between 10 and 12 thousand)"

On the first day of the Somme eh? 1st July 1916. So on one day in a war that lasted for 4 years and 3 months you have managed to find one day when the British Army suffered more casualties. Congratulations Jom. Now what was the position once the campaign and the battle drew to a close in November 1916 - talking about the entire battle here Jom not just ONE DAY of it. The 1st July 1916 might have been a bad day for the British Army but 1916 was a bad year for the German Army - a year they never recovered from. 1916 to the First World War was what 1943 was to the Second World War - after those years in both those conflicts the allies knew they were going to win and for the first time in both the Germans stared the spectre of failure full in the face.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 08:04 AM

Try re-reading the post yesterday at 07.07pm and then come back and tell me that the Allies (we were fighting with others on our side remember, you tried to place all the blame on the French yesterday) lost more men than the axis forces.

And THAT is the crux of most of the discussion, you and your sidekick don't seem to care about the humane issues.

No, we WON the war, jolly good, well done lads, we taught those pesky Hun's a thing or two didn't we. What? all those bodies, oh never mind them we'll get someone round tomorrow to have a tidy up. Now then chaps who's for polo.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 08:33 AM

"Ehmm Jim you have been told time and time again "
No we haven't - you explain Loos (think you said it wasn't a defeat on a previous thread)
You explain Gallipoli
You explain the armament cock-ups
You explain the catastrophic losses at the opening of the Somme
You explain how any of these can be put down to "good" leadership"
You explain how "good leadership" was ever anything more than forcing masses of young men to be cut down by other young men they, knew or had any argument with
You haven't so far - neither has anyone else.
If you want to make a plea for good butchery, you may have a point.
You have the figures of casualties for these glorious battles - explain how any of them can be put down to "good leadership"
It was simple carnage and all your bluster doesn't make it anything else.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 08:42 AM

Ragged Arse - The point under discussion as raised by Keith A what seems like ages ago now concerned Great Britain and the British Army. Don't you dare try moving the goalposts now - Haig did not coimmand the Allied War effort - the French did, on the western front both the French and the Germans lost more men than the British - Tell me and everyone else just how the hell that could have been Haig's fault, tell me just how thoise deaths came about because of poor British military leadership?

I will ask you one more time:

The subject matter is WWI. Here is a quotation from someone

"You are obviously interested in the subject and far more knowledgeable than some others on this forum."

Now this good little pleb would like to ask you a couple of questions:

1: Identify who it was that stated the above?
2: Who is the "YOU" mentioned in the quote?

If you don't answer then in my next post I will - you bloody two-faced hypocrit.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 08:50 AM

Talking of hypocrisy I seem to recall you were not going to respond to me.

It's one of the few things that you've typed that I really wish you were correct about.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 09:12 AM

Who's "ME" GUEST? How many different GUESTs post on Mudcat? And how do any of us who do use constant cookies to identify ourselves tell which GUEST is which.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 09:30 AM

I have oftened questioned your intelligence. If you cannot figure out who posted that without a name how the hell can you pretend to understand WW1.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 09:53 AM

Out of all your posts on this subject Jom your contribution of 25 Nov 15 - 08:33 AM has one little bit right at the end that actually sums up the reality of the First World War in a nutshell:

"It was simple carnage and all your bluster doesn't make it anything else."

And Jom neither Keith A, or Lighter, or a number of others (myself included) have ever tried to state that it was anything other than that.

Yes it was simple carnage it was a static war fought for the first time ever on a truly industrial scale, so just for once in your life look at the entirety of it.

Taking all of the main combatant powers who were there from the start in 1914, Britain, her Commonwealth and her Empire suffered fewer fatalities and casualties than any of the others. What do you put that down to Jom? As a percentage of everyone mobilised in the main combatant armies deployed on the western front casualties amongst the British & Empire forces, French forces and German forces were ~35%; ~75%; ~70% respectively fatalities in the British & Empire forces were the least by quite a margin.

In 1914 on the western Front between Germany, France and Great Britain, who had the smallest army? Can you explain how that army survived through 1914 to become one of the largest and most effective armies in the field by 1918?

In the spring of 1918 once the Germans had transferred the bulk of their armies who had been fighting the Russians, who was it they threw against? In 1914 it had been the major threat - the French. In 1918 the Germans saw the greatest threat to them as being the British. Now how did that come about Jom?

In 1918 the Germans from March onwards into Summer mounted five major offensive operations aimed primarily against the British in northern France. Yes they pushed the line back almost to their 1914 high water mark, but in August 1918 only 21 days after their last gasp attempt at victory in the west Haig went over to the offensive and 100 days later the war was over - Tell me Jom does that look like poor leadership? Certainly does not to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 09:58 AM

"If you don't answer then in my next post I will - you bloody two-faced hypocrit.
Every time you paint yourself into a corner you beat a hasty retreat ad refuse to respond - on the profit made from ceramic poppies, on the War, on every single point about the Irish Famine - despite constant requests, you remained silent - making you a "bloody two-faced hypocrite".
Let's see how you get on with Loos, Gallipoli, the early days of The Somme and the wrong ammunition cock-up - won't hold my breath though!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:05 AM

Ah Raggy posting as an anonymous GUEST - if you are ever accused of doing so again please don't deny it.

But none the less as promised:

The subject matter is WWI. Here is a quotation from someone

"You are obviously interested in the subject and far more knowledgeable than some others on this forum."

Now this good little pleb would like to ask you a couple of questions:

1: Identify who it was that stated the above?
2: Who is the "YOU" mentioned in the quote?

The answer to question 1 was Guest Raggytash
The answer to question 2 is me - Teribus

The quote comes from a message I received from Guest Raggytash on the 17th November 2015. The message was one asking for help and advice, which I gave.

As to the hypocrisy charge please take a look at the forum exchanges between Raggy and myself since that message and then judge whether what Raggytash says person to person in private reflects what he states when posturing on the open forum. Judge for yourselves whether in public Raggy considers me to be obviously interested in the subject and far more knowledgeable than some others on this forum.

Now then Raggy go off and read your book.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:09 AM

OK Teribums off you go and read your compass ..................... oh you can't do that either.

Not that you have ever admitted that mistake.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:12 AM

Shot and completely miussed the target again Jom I see:

Jim Carroll - 25 Nov 15 - 09:58 AM

Read my last post which is addressed to Raggy as was the charge of hypocrisy.

Hate to say this Jom but it isn't all about you - truth be told very little of it ever is, you are too much of a bigot to really bother about - but at times "Wolfie" you do make me laugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:21 AM

Good Raggy - is that really all you've got? No vehement denials that you sent me a message stating that I am "obviously interested in the subject [First World War] and far more knowledgeable than some others on this forum."

My compass reading is probably a damned sight better than yours part-timer. But by all means if you wish to discuss how well connected the port of Cork was to the hinterland to the south and west in the mid-1840s to mid 1850s then by all means feel free to open your own thread on the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:31 AM

Teribus is more interested in who is writing rather than what they write. What's up? You don't need to get concerned about a cookie in order to clarify the bullshit you keep spewing.

Oh gosh. All the historians seem to agree with Sheffield's conclusions so why be bothered with the conclusion of someone else given the same evidence? I don't know what, if anything Keith A of Hertford does for a living but I hope it isn't being a teacher or lecturer. First off I doubt "they" do, not that there is a "they" to make such a silly claim from and secondly, Sheffield himself has published various conclusions at different times. He's a historian not a god botherer.

Eeh, it's worth coming on here just to tour the cages and give them the odd rattle when the zoo keeper isn't looking.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:32 AM

My word !!! Are those goalposts moving again?

I may find the pertinent post later if I'm bored

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:37 AM

Jim,
- you refused to read the list of nearly 200 you were given because it was "tto large"

Not true Jim. If it was you would be quoting some of them, but you can not quote any.
I know that there used to be a few who believed what you still do, but knowledge has moved on.
Nothing written in the last twenty years supports your views.

I suggest we leave it there unless and until you can find some, any, support for your dogma from people who actually know about WW1.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 10:45 AM

Rag, I have never defended any army bit ours, and I have pointed out how much better led ours was than the French, and most definitely the Russians.

Jim,
You explain how any of these can be put down to "good" leadership"

I refer you to the work of the historians and military historians, all of whom know much more about the Somme and all your other issues than you do, and are still quite clear that the army was well and competently led.

You have still not found anything written within the last twenty years that finds otherwise.

Jim and Rag, I suggest we leave it there unless and until you can find some or any support for your dogma from people who actually know about WW1.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 11:20 AM

"Not true Jim. "
Oh not again!!
"Jim and Rag, I suggest we leave it there "
Surrender -= you mean?
You have nor made your point - you two have not convinced anybody with your jingoism, you have faked history and you have lied throughout
Happy to leave it there unlessw you'd like to explain the examples of bad leadership you have been given, of course!!
As with Cap'n Pugwash - won't hold my breath
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 12:10 PM

You might, of course, look at what your old Ally, Max Hastings jas to say about the war – somewhat typical of the way you have misused historians in this argument

OR THIS

OR THIS
Jim Carroll

The Wisdom of Max Hastings from a review of his book 'Catastrophe'
Why does Max Hastings have such a hatred for the British military?
David Crane is taken aback by the particular contempt Max Hastings appears to reserve for the British at the outbreak of the first world war
14 September 2013
One of the great problems for any historian writing writing of 1914 and the slide into conflict is that everyone knows the causes of the first world war and those of us who don't still imagine that we do. It is clear that no historian can simply ignore the causes and get straight down to the fighting, but with the best will in the world it is hard not to feel like some poor Easyjet passenger, stranded on a Gatwick runway and sadly watching the precious take-off slot slipping further into the distance while the cabin crew go though the familiar old pre-flight safety instructions that they know perfectly well nobody is listening to.
Serbian ambition, the internal incoherence of the Hapsburg empire, the Kaiser, Alsace-Lorraine , the 'first blank cheque', the 'second blank cheque,' Pan-Slavism, Ulster, mobilisation, uncertainty over Britain's intentions, fear of decadence, fear of Russia, fear of socialism — none of them can be any more dodged than can the emergency doors or the oxygen mask. But when half the world seems to be writing about what happened in 1914, or should have happened and didn't, it is an uphill struggle to make it fresh or interesting. It is immensely to Max Hastings's credit that he manages to dispose of it all as economically as he does; but this huge, compelling, argumentative bully of a book only really hits its stride when the fighting starts, and the full catastrophe that the 'absurdly amateurish' 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip unleashed with the assassination of the unloved and unlovable Archduke Franz Ferdinand begins to unfold.
'A bullet does not go precisely where one wishes,' was how an apologetic Princip explained away the unintended murder of Franz Ferdinand's morganatic wife, Sophie; but Hastings will have no truck with the idea that a chapter of accidents brought about the war, or with any liberal, guilt-ridden guff about equal moral and political responsibility of the warring belligerents. There is no reason to think that Germany was gunning for war when it gave Austria their 'blank cheque' for the extermination of Serbia, but they were certainly prepared to live with the consequences in the firm belief that they were in a stronger position to win any war against Russia and France in 1914 than they would be in the years ahead.
One of the great strengths of Catastrophe is the space and energy it gives to the less familiar theatres and aspects of the conflict — the barbarism of Austria's Serbia campaign, the chaos of Galicia, East Prussia and Tannenberg, the Home fronts, the North Sea, German 'beastliness' — but like the fortunes of the war itself, the book stands or falls on the Western Front. From the start the Germans had gambled on the rapid and total defeat of France before turning their full attention to the east, and by the time they realised that no number of victories over Russian armies was going to win them the war, they were inextricably mired in the bitter stalemate in France and Belgium to which the strategic fantasies of Schlieffen and his disciples had doomed them.
It is the story of the Germans' bid for a quick and crushing victory in the west, told with an equal richness of detail and sure narrative sweep, that is at the core of Catastrophe, and no story better deserves the name. In the popular imagination the first world war is always going to be associated with the miseries of trench warfare; but the trenches were the consequences of this first fluid phase of the war, a place of troglodytic sanctuary from a war of open movement in which 19th-century strategies and armies led into battle by mounted officers and bands playing came up against modern technology.
Eighteen thousand French and German dead in the Ardennes on 23 and 24 August alone, 329,000 French dead by the end of the year, 800,000 German dead or wounded in the same period, 150,000 Austrian, 16,000 British, more than half of Samsonov's 230,000 Russians, killed, wounded or captured at Tannenberg in the last week of August — it is impossible, or at least it ought to be impossible, to write about the first world war without a sense of moral indignation at the waste and futility and stupidity of its leaders. But Max Hastings saves his particular animus for Britain and her army. There are precious few generals on either side of the war who escape his wrath, but if he is rightly contemptuous of Moltke and dismissive of his army commanders, the British seem to inspire something approaching a hatred — it is the only word to convey the level of hostility — that adds a startlingly bitter edge to this formidably impressive book.
Hastings hates British complacency about her military past, he hates British chauvinism, he hates Britain's patronising attitudes towards her allies, he hates Britain's love of turning retreats — Corunna, Dunkirk, Mons — into moral victories, he hates her continuing penchant for 'gesture politics', and he is damned sure that he is going to leave no treasured national myth unexploded. For the officers who only arrived in France in 1915 there already seemed something heroic about the men of the BEF; but in Hastings's hands even the old saw of lions led by donkeys is turned on its head, with the VCs they win 'soft' VCs, the battles they fight 'little battles' and even Mons — the jewel in the Old Contemptibles' crown — little more than a sideshow of a sideshow.
'Dodgy' battalions in the Ypres Salient, wholesale abandonment of weapons and positions, pusillanimous leadership, a reluctant showing at the Marne, a navy that couldn't fire, politicians who knew nothing of war, it all makes for chastening reading. Anyone travelling down the 900-odd Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries that mark the line of the old Western Front from Ypres to the Aisne might be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but Britain no more won the first world war by herself than it did Waterloo and here is chapter and verse. Whatever happened later, it was the French who saved France in 1914 and saved it in spite of everything our own Sir John French could do to scupper the alliance, and with the centenary looming it is important to be reminded of that. 'No part of the Great War compares in interest with its opening', wrote Churchill, and Hastings does full justice to its appalling drama. He is, unashamedly — thankfully — a historian in the Barbara Tuchman tradition andCatastrophe is rich in unexplored sources from every side of the conflict and every theatre of the war. He is wise, too, to end the book where he does, with the German defeat at Ypres. I, for one, could not take much more and — more to the point — I'm not sure the author could either. If the performance of the old army that died at the First Ypres can reduce him to such frustration, God knows what, the 2nd and 3rd Ypres, Loos, Gallipoli, Kut and the Somme might do.
It is going to be a long five years of grim anniversaries, so triumphalists might want to pencil in 8 August 2018 — Ludendorff's 'black day of the German army' — for the next centenary we can really look forward to.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 01:14 PM

I am still quite amazed that teribums seems to be oblivious of the fact that I am not disputing any of his, or Keith's, 'facts' when even Keith seems to have eventually twigged that. I have always said that it is the attitude of some posters that is particularly obnoxious, not the content. How anyone can be so intent on winning completely useless points while seeming to be completely oblivious of the human suffering is, I suppose, a reflection of their wartime role models. Fortunately none of the merry little band here are in a position to cause anyone any damage.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 01:27 PM

It's not what you say, it's their prejudice against reading your name in the title block. Hence their having a paddy when we post anonymously.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 03:56 PM

Jim, your two links are to two anonymous pieces!
Historians put their names to their work, so no credibility there at all Jim.

You provide a review of a book that is only about the outbreak and lead up to the war. Nothing about the actual conduct of the war at all!
The reviewer himself has written nothing about WW1 except something about monuments!
He finds things that no other reviewer has found and that Hastings has never said.

So Jim, you still have provided nothing on the issue of leadership, or support for the war, written by any actual historian!
I have found plenty that rubbish your views and can produce more if you like.

I suggest we leave it there unless and until you can find some or any support for your dogma from people who actually know about WW1.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: GUEST,Raggytash
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 04:08 PM

A wonderful independent voice is Max Hastings, public school, Oxford, Knighted, member of The Other Club, editor of the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail columnist. Not that I'd expect him to be biased or anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 05:13 PM

You know I posted an urban dictionary definition earlier. I just realised I did not post the whole thing. The example at the end seems strangely coincidental...


Pompous Ass
A person who seems full of themselves and who grabs every opportunity to let others know of their feelings of superiority.
This professor sounds like a complete pompous ass. (See from time 3:00 of this recording: soundcloud dot com/kingston-university/music-at)

Subject: RE: BS: Jingoism or Commemoration
From: Teribus
Date: 25 Nov 15 - 09:04 PM

Ah but Jayzus Gnome, unlike others I could name, you could never accuse the man of being a coward, a bigot, a hypocrite or a liar now could you.