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British Butchers & Bunglers of World War One

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This book assesses the military performances of Sir Douglas the Inarticulate and Pious, Sir John the Spiteful, Sir Henry the Humble, Sir Ian the Fastidious, Sir Aylmer the Ass, Sir Lancelot the Lachrymose, Sir Hubert the Confident and Callous, Sir Henry the Jolly (another Sir Henry, one who later brought a sword to a gun-fight with the IRA, with predictable consequences), and other half-baked be-knighted nincompoops who constituted the British High Command in the Great War, and who went on to have such an inspiring effect on the Monty Python Team. Sir Douglas Haig takes most of John Laffin's flak, though as the chapter "Dedicated Futility" suggests, Haig may have been much less disastrous a commander-in-chief than his predecessor, Sir John French. Haig, like French, was "stupid ... but better educated." But the dogs of the streets where the slaughtered Pals Battalions came from have been barking all this for years, so why should anyone read this book now? Why indeed has it been reissued, ten years after its publication? Laffin, if anything, does not go far enough in his condemnation, and besides, he might have gone beyond proving a well-worn point to exploring in greater depth answers to the questions he poses. How did these clowns come to be placed in charge of the lives of men and entrusted with the very survival of European democracy? Why were they allowed to stay in charge after they had squandered millions of those lives and proved their incompetence? How could career soldiers have failed to learn the most rudimentary lessons of the American Civil War, fought in the lifetime of many of them, and be so blind to the strength of the defense and the ruinous cost of the attack against, not just rifles now, but machineguns? How could they have dismissed machineguns as "overrated," or imagined, as Haig did, that the effectiveness of these dreadful weapons against horses was "greatly exaggerated"? (How could anyone of even average stupidity doubt the effect of fifty-caliber bullets hosed upon flesh and bone at high velocity?) How could the "master of the field" possibly endorse the use of horse cavalry eight years after the war was over? ("Aeroplanes and tanks are only accessories to ... the well-bred horse"-tell that to the Poles, old chap; it is difficult to evade the suspicion that Haig was not so much stupid as mentally deficient in some literal, clinical, sense.) What does unbridled confidence in Divine Aid, and pig-headed faith in long-outmoded tactics and resources, tell us about the army and society of the time? And why were the few truly able commanders, like John Monash and Herbert Plumer, kept in positions so far below their capabilities? Of course, had Laffin addressed these questions, he would have written a very different book ("The Dashing Adventures of Sir Peter Principle in the Trenches"?), and the one he has written does draw qualified endorsement. He has a clear thesis which he stoutly defends. His book is quite short and not badly written, apart from a few things his editor should have picked up. It is readable and worth reading, if only for the chapter "Townshend of Kut," which describes the Mesopotamian theater, one that gets relegated to footnote treatment in many books. Townshend was, Laffin says, "a gratuitous bungler." More intelligent than many of his colleagues, his butchery is interpreted here as deliberate rather than incidental; his psychology is compared with that of certain Nazi war criminals, notable Goering. Very noteworthy is Laffin's discussion of what he calls the HCI-High Casualties Inevitable-fixation. This belief in attrition warfare led to the success of engagements being measured in terms of losses, units with low body-counts being regarded as shirkers, and their commanders being censured, as happened with the 49th Division at the Ancre. Laffin reminds us that this sort of bungling and butchery characterized the Great War, something we must never forget. His book is therefore a useful reference to help us refute those defenders of the sort of prodigal lunacy and villainy it describes. For, however we may laugh at the Monty Python Team and their frightfully funny performances, the real thing was not funny at all. And, as remarkable as it may seem, there are people who still can defend the frightful butchery. One must, I suppose, respond with charitable silence to Earl Haig's recent assessment of his father as "one of the great men of the twentieth century," but professional historians have no such filial excuses, and deserve no indulgence. Last November John Terraine defended Haig with the same old tired tautology that Haig used himself: He won the war, therefore his tactics and strategy, and his leadership, are vindicated. This claim, like the man it is made about, is half-baked at best. The naval blockade did far more effectively what Haig and his HCI fixation merely tried to do-break the Germans' will-and the arrival of Pershing's doughboys broke Ludendorff's nerve, and drove him to adopt, in desperation, a HCI fixation of his own. Laffin not merely itemizes the butcher's bill, but presents a few lower-fat recipes Haig might have used to cook up a less costly, less bloody, perhaps more permanent, victory.

This is a very well written book and is a scathing assesment of British generalship during WWI, particually Gen. Haig and his battles of attrision on the Western Front. When Haig was shown the prototype of the tank he was so impressed with the it's armor that he wanted to take the engines out and use the hulks as pill boxes! Haig also sent the tank corp into battle after several days of shelling the ground they were supposed to drive over, even after the tank commanders told him that they would get stuck in the mud caused by the constant shelling and sent him a map showing where not to shell so they could get through. Haig responed by teling them "don't send me any more such stupid maps." If your a student of The Great War this book should be on your shelf - it really hepls put into presective the needless slaughter of the Western Front and the generalship which contributed too it.

This book has got the sort of title - "British Butchers" - that ordinarily I would not be particularly attracted to, as it sounds like some sort of anti-war 'rant', probably a pacifist tract, as were so many books about World War One, or "The Great War", as it was known in its day, and as it still is known in Europe.

But, World War One (WWI), circa 1914-1918, is a subject that I've generally felt that I never really knew enough about, so, given the bargain basement price - they were practically giving it away, something like $3 for a new hardcover at Stacy's downtown - and given the general subject matter, I just bought it, almost absent-mindedly among a slew of others on various subjects.

It sat on my bookshelf though for several years, 'till finally one day I was out of stuff to read, and I just picked it up almost idly and started reading. Boy was I ever shocked.

First of all, it's not in any way an anti-war tract. The author, in fact, is proud to be a soldier, who served under Montgomery in World War Two, and proud to be from a soldiering family.

He thinks war and soldering is the greatest thing since sliced bread, fight it out and may the best man, and the best country win, is his idea.

No no. It's not war that he takes issue with at all.

His problem is that, from all the extensive research that he'd done, he'd reached the conclusion that World War One was not a war at all. It was, in fact, a mass murder by the rulers of the respective European countries involved, of their OWN soldiers.

In other words, what he shows, is that the generals of the respective armies were not out to kill the other country's soldiers so much as being out to kill off their own armies.

To the uninitiated, this may sound a little strange.

After all, everyone knows that, certainly traditionally, you send armies into battle in order for them to kill off the opposing army; Not, first and foremost, to get one's own troops killed.

So goes the propaganda of war, and everyone finds it pretty convincing.

This book shows that that's not what happened in World War One.

In World War One, armies were routinely thrown onto the field, not so much to kill, but rather to be killed. It was a deliberate and organized mass execution of the entire working class of Europe, not a battle between nations.

The ruling classes of all the main nations involved, were killing off the working classes of all the nations involved.

Not nation against nation, but rather, and rather overtly at that, ruling classes of all the involved nations against working classes of all the involved nations.

It's hard for people to keep this in mind, but this book is the most powerful evidence for this that I've ever seen.

A book that takes no prisoners when it comes to roasting his own countrymen.

As better commanders were kept from showing how the war could be run (Monash was, afterall, a colonial!) the top brass seemed to be in a competition to "out-blunder" their fellows. (The Blackadder Syndrome perhaps?) The lessons of the American Civil War and the Boar War were lost on those in command and they refused to believe that they were wrong in their prosocution of the war. As bad as the generals were, remember that they were aided and abetted by their government.

I believe this book should be compulsive reading for all military colleges as a prime example of how NOT to wage war.

I wanted to like this book, for the simple reason that in reading it, it is abundantly clear that the thesis is one the author feels passionately about. However, that does not necessarily make for good history and in this case it makes for a deeply flawed book. Great War buffs seem to be divided into two camps in recent times - those who seek to defend, or at least understand and contextualise the actions of First World War generals and those who believe that there can be no justification for the casualty numbers of the conflict. It takes no more than a glance at the title of this book for it to be abundantly clear that Dr Laffin belongs to the latter camp.

I could write a very lengthy critique of the book in minute detail but you wouldn't read it all (I know I wouldn't!) and anyway I don't think amazon will allow me enough words so I'll try to sum up the book's more glaring flaws in a concise form...

- The book is incredibly badly sourced. In some chapters it borders on shameful. I have read hastily cobbled together undergraduate essays that have more comprehensive footnotes. A student submitting chapter 3 in essay form would almost certainly have had his wrists slapped.

- The entire text is incredibly subjective and riddled with unsourced assertions. The author shows an ill concealed bias in favour of Australian troops and staff officers. If taken at face value, a newcomer to WW1 history who had only read this book would be forgiven for thinking that the ANZACS won the war while Tommy Atkins put the kettle on. Dr Laffin also wheels out that hoary old chestnut about Sir John Monash being the greatest leader the BEF never had. Outside Australian military history circles it is now widely accepted that while Monash was a brilliant tactician and trainer of men, he was less capable in an operational role and posessed nowhere near the seniority to assume command of the BEF in France. Even if he did, as at that level of planning he was an unknown quantity. The idea that he should have got the post is ludicrous.

- The author is deeply selective when choosing which historians to quote. Most of the most highly regarded of Great War historians are significant in their abscence. He instead quotes historians, often Antipodean historians, who have trodden similar ground before him and a number of social historians while conveiently ignoring military historians and members of the war studies/strategic studies community who have looked at the conflict in the MILITARY context of the time.

- The book is littered with factual inaccuracies. Some of these are obvious only to the First World War junkie (eg. Sir Ian Hamilton sailed for the Dardanelles with a copy of the 1912 handbook on the Turkish Army, not a 1905 edition) but some of them are glaring and really should not have been made in the first place. An example of this is that General Rawlinson is stated to have attained the rank of Field Marshal, which he never did - in a book on British generals it would be assumed that the author had looked more closely into his subjects' biographical details than this. The fact that the book is not especially long, coupled with the very dubious sourcing makes it hard to pass over these mistakes and helps to undermine the author's central argument.

On a final note, the author devotes a chapter of the book to quotes from soldiers (overwhelmingly Australian) condemning British generalship. Again, this is highly selective and for every quote Laffin uses to "prove" his argument I could provide two that undermines it. Such quotes, while emotional, do not constitute a satisfactory closing argument. I have spoken to veterans who feel that the generals are a much maligned group as a whole and resent academics such as the author rubbishing men whom they never met, who had to command in conditions they have no experience of.

Frankly I find the positive reception with which it has been received by many of the other reviewers alarming. On every measure of historical rigour, thorough research and academic objectivity this book fails miserably. If readers can't accept the idea that the great war generals (oh, sorry, only the British Great War Generals...) weren't just a bunch of "Butchers and Bunglers" I would suggest I would suggest they read the books of Tim Travers (a Canadian historian) and Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson (Australians) who, while critical of the performance of Haig and his ilk, at least source their works, spend some time in the archives and don't write books simply to indulge in character assassination and cheerleading.

This book does have it's place, but I'm afraid that, for me at least, it's place is as an example of how studies of the Great War should not be written. If you only ever read one study of Great War generalship, don't make it this one. If you do wish to read it, try to put the work in some sort of context within the historiography of the war and handle it with very great care indeed.

Laffin describes how first French and then Haig wasted the lives of their men in fruitless efforts at dislodging the Germans from their strongest defenses on the Western Front. Laffin also indicts the commanders in Gallipoli (Turkey) and Kut (Iraq) in their foolish attempts and the wastage of their human resources in these campaigns. Not only were these commanders stupid, but many were criminally negligent in the use of their men. Most of these commanders never saw the front and experienced the conditions of the trenches to know what they put their men through. Laffin singles out Haig as the worst offender. The flower of British youth was thrown away on the Western Front. As an American, I now know why Wilson decided to put Pershing and the American Expeditionary Force under separate command. If he had entrusted these men to Foch and Haig, the war cemetaries in France would be filled with much more American dead.

Having read the book several times I am shocked that the author was ever taken seriously by a publishing house. John Laffin's book is bad history. Nowhere does he constrast the problems facing the French at Verdun with and the British on the Somme. Laffin does not have a basic understanding of the military situation in 1916. In fact, its important to point out that John Laffin does not have a history degree. He is by trade a tour guide who is making money by jumping on the band wagon about Haig. I'm sure with a title like Butchers and Bunglers it will sell well, but lets fact it, its not history, just historical fiction like Blackadder. If you fancy a laugh and want a book that shows you how not to write history, buy this one - its a scream

Stop and think about the fact that the Allies/British actually WON the Great War. By 1917/18 the British army was the only army that had not had major mutinies and was fully capable of offensive action. The British army suffered considerably lower casualty rates than either the French or the Germans and the rate of tactical and technological innovation over the period was nothing short of incredible.

For a sensible analysis of the facts on casualties see Gordon Corrigan - Mud, Blood and Poppycock. For an analysis of innovation during the war see Paddy Griffiths - Battle Tactics of the Western Front: The British Army's Art of Attack, 1916-18 .

A scathing analysis of the utter stupidity of the British military bureaucracy who could not think of doing anything but sending even more men into the guns. While German and, to a lesser extent, French militaries were trying to intelligently solve the riddle of the trenches, those at the top in British HQ were actively supressing those below them who had better ideas.

There seem to be commentators who will go to great lengths to prove that Haig and those staff around him were really not bad generals: we wern't there, we don't have enough information, we're colonials who couldn't possibly understand and anyway, their actions saved us from an evil fate so all is forgiven.

Haig's people-grinder can be masked by sophistry and the belittling of arguments through the many stings of petty facts; however, I'm sorry to say but the book was a superb contribution to righting the many wrongs of a myopic and severly parochial cadre of historians that simply can't see, refuse to see or prefer to maintain the myth that these fools knew their job.

How can any person with a modicum of intelligence accept casualty figures of 250,000 for a five mile dent in German lines at Passchendaele and this was only one example of Haig's military "brilliance"-Laffin has an entire book full of facts like these.

Again, I am sorry for writing such a bad comment-I'm sure I'd get the cuts for composing such a sorry couple of paragraphs. The point however is salient because that was, perhaps still is, the soft under belly of the British military-its refusal to accept criticism and that refusal leading to the covering up of unbelievable military horrors committed by its military elite. They seemed to be awash in "form"-function be damned-the soldiers attacking the ineffectual, in Haig's view, machine guns will get through if they walk and not run in clean uniforms.