Armistice Centennial: The Final Days Of The Great War Part Three – All Quiet On The Western Front
November 12, 2018 by oriskany
This week marks the 100th Anniversary of one of the most powerful moments in recent history, the fateful Armistice that effectively ended the First World War on November 11th, 1918. Over the past weeks, we’ve been reviewing the battles that led to this event and trying to bring some small sliver of these engagements to the table top.
Armistice Centennial: The Final Days Of WWI Interview
In Part One of this series, we looked at the overall military situation in 1918 - and the opening British, Australian, and Canadian phases of the so-called “Hundred Days” Offensive that would eventually end the war. In Part Two, we focused on battles fought by the Americans and French as the Hundred Days Offensive expanded further south.
Now we’ll move our focus back north again, where the British and their Commonwealth allies unleashed fresh offensives deeper into German-occupied France, this time joined by the Belgians under King Albert. There’s even a division of Northern Irish up here, fighting on almost the same field as they would for the Dunkirk campaign of 1940.
Last Battles
The renewed assault along the Western Front’s northern shoulder opened on 28th September 1918, mounted primarily by the British Second Army and the Belgian Army under King Albert I. As successful as the British had been at Amiens and Arras, and the Americans and French had been in the Meuse-Argonne, from the outset this new offensive in Flanders was perhaps the most successful yet.
In what is sometimes called the Fifth Battle of Ypres, British and Belgian troops drove quickly across the old Ypres battlefield, reclaiming everything they’d lost to the German “Georgette Offensive” the previous April. This included all the Passchendaele battlefields, ground soaked in so much blood through previous years.
Nevertheless, the offensive soon bogged down in mud and confusion. Perhaps unprepared for the scale of their own success, the Allies regrouped and shoved again on 14th October, igniting the Battle of Courtrai. Here is where 36th Ulster Division, formerly held in Second Army’s operational reserve, played a leading role in II Corps’ drive deeper into Belgium.
Just to the south, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig was set to capitalize on his August victories at Amiens and Arras-Bapaume (“Third Somme”), he launched First, Third, and Fourth Armies into the Battles of Cambrai (1918) and the St. Quentin Canal.
Again, the Allies (spearheaded by Australians and Canadians, assisted by the French supporting from the south) made excellent headway. But the fighting here was especially brutal. The Canadians, in particular, had a very tough job at St. Quentin Canal, where they were also up against defences of the “Hindenburg Line” (German name: Siegfriedstellung - Siegfried Position)
Yet even once this line was cracked, the Germans were able to stage a coherent defence along with a new line, based this time on the town of Cambrai itself. This was broken in a new assault starting 8th October, so the Germans staged a new one along the River Selle starting on October 17th, then another one on the River Sambre.
The Canadians started an advance on the Sambre line on November 11th, with Haig’s full forces committed in a set-piece assault on November 4th. The Germans cracked but fell back yet again, with the Canadians clearing the city of Mons on November 11th, widely regarded as the last major action of the Great War.
Allied casualties here were actually some of the highest of the war. The British and their allies suffered 350,000 killed and wounded since the start of the Battle of Amiens in August, with 140,000 just at Cambrai and St. Quentin.
Eleventh Hour
By the end of September, even the most diehard German imperialist could tell the war was spinning out of control. The battlefield situation was bad enough, but the home front was falling apart as well. Four years of war and British naval blockade had ruined the economy, leading to starvation, civil unrest, and potential communist revolt.
The idea of a settled peace was far from new. For years, Belgium’s King Albert I had been working for some kind of “no victory, no vanquished” settlement. But he’d been frustrated by militant factions in both camps, leaders convinced that victory was always “just within reach” and that they “owed it to the dead” to win the war outright.
In September 1918, the German Supreme Army Command (Oberste Heeresleitung, or OHL) advised the government that the German front was about to collapse. The Chancellor resigned, and a new one was appointed on October 3rd with a directive to contact American President Woodrow Wilson for an Armistice.
The Germans hoped for a better deal from the Americans because of Wilson’s “Fourteen Points,” a set of principles set forth in January outlining his vision for “a just and secure peace, not merely a new balance of power.” Wilson wanted a strong, stable Germany, and a new “League of Nations” to mediate future international disputes.
European leaders, especially in war-ravaged France and Britain, had little time for Wilson’s idealism. Nor did many hawks in America. Negotiations nevertheless went forward, leading to a fateful meeting in a railroad car in the Compiegne Forest.
Through three days of tense negotiations, German delegates at Compiegne were beset with harsh terms virtually dictated by Marshal Ferdinand Foch (Supreme Allied Commander). Finally, Germans were forced to yield to Allied terms, and both sides agreed an Armistice would take effect at 11:00 AM, 11th November.
Thus was set the fateful “eleventh hour of the eleventh day or the eleventh month” for the war to officially end. Yet this agreement was reached at 5:00 AM, leaving six hours until the Armistice actually took effect. The Germans asked for an immediate “battlefield cease-fire” until the formal Armistice, but Foch rejected this out of hand.
Thus began six of the most tragic and wasteful hours in the history of modern warfare. Full-scale fighting actually increased, leading to 2,738 men killed and 8,206 wounded. This actually exceeds the statistical median for a comparable six-hour period of the war (November, time of day, no major offensives).
There are many reasons these attacks persisted and even intensified. Some were sparked by vengeance, some by madness. Senseless, last-minute assaults were mounted to gain some imaginary advantage or prestige position. And it wasn’t just the officers, sometimes the men themselves defied orders to inflict some last measure of payback or vindication.
Private George Edwin Ellison, a coal miner from Leeds serving with the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, was the last British soldier killed in World War One. Part of the aforementioned advance on Mons, he died less than ninety minutes before the Armistice took effect, hit while on patrol just outside the city.
Augustin Trébuchon was the last French soldier to be killed, part of an insane attack ordered “at utmost speed and regardless of cost” toward the Meuse River that killed or wounded 91 men. Trébuchon was shot trying to tell his comrades that hot soup would be served after the Armistice.
He died with the cease-fire just ten minutes away. Embarrassed by the senseless order, the French Army initially lied about his death, recording the date as November 10th.
Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was one of five men who decided to clear occupied houses along a canal facing Ville-sur-Haine. Price was shot by a German sniper. Comrades and a Belgian nurse on the scene tried to help, but he died at 10:58, just two minutes before the guns fell silent. He is recognized as the last British Empire fatality of the Great War.
Henry Gunther was the last American killed, a private who’d been broken from sergeant for writing home negatively about the war. Since then, he’d been obsessed with proving himself to regain his rank. As the final minutes of the war ticked away, he disobeyed orders and advanced on his own against a German machine gun roadblock.
The amazed Germans tried to wave him off. He fired at them, and was shot in turn and died instantly. The Armistice took effect...seconds later. He was posthumously re-promoted to sergeant.
A Shadow Of The Future
Even after the guns had fallen silent, the Great War wasn’t technically over. The Armistice was only a cease-fire pending the finalization of the Treaty of Versailles, not signed until well into 1919. During this time, Allied armies occupied the Rhineland and the naval blockade of Germany persisted.
Almost immediately a wave of betrayal swept through Germany. They’d expected somewhat fair treatment from the Americans, but Wilson’s views were more or less overruled by the British and especially French at the Paris Peace Conference. Furthermore, isolationists in Congress wouldn’t permit the US to join the new League of Nations Wilson himself had proposed.
At the conference, the British and French put the hammer down hard on Germany. Vast tracts of German territory were taken. More was occupied. Almost 50 billion marks were demanded in immediate reparations, with about 80 billion more extending forward, completely ruining a German economy that was already in a shambles.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was sloppily disbanded, the map of Eastern Europe carved up into “artificial states” that would cause decades of tension - and even all-out war and genocide in the Balkans - well into the 1990s.
But the worst results of the Versailles Treaty were in Germany itself. The army felt betrayed, forced to accept defeat even though they’d never surrendered. The Navy sank most of their own ships in Scapa Flow rather than hand them over to the British. One of the German Armistice delegates would be assassinated by extremists as a “traitor.”
From the political and economic chaos of post-war Germany arose a flock of right-wing nationalist political parties. The labour strikes and economic turmoil that helped end the war were blamed on communist sympathizers and Jews, with horrific consequences to come. The Versailles reparations only made such turmoil many times worse.
One such party was the National Socialists German Workers’ Party, or NSDAP, later shortened to “Nazi.” Their leader was an embittered Austrian who’d served with the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment, decorated with the Iron Cross at the 1918 Battle of Soissons.
Adolf Hitler would blame the Allies for Germany’s woes and because of the Treaty of Versailles, people had a reason to listen. Rarely has a document so clearly ended a war, and started the next war, with the same stroke of the pen.
Conclusion
That’s going to do it for another article series, everyone. As always, I’d like to thank Ben, Sam, and Lance for their facilitation that allows me to publish these articles, and of course the whole OTT / BoW team for supporting this kind of commemorative material on the site.
Most of all, thanks to all of you, the community, for taking the time to read these articles. By doing so you prove that this hobby really can be more than “just toy soldiers.” We can take history and, in our own small way, become part of that story, keeping it alive and close to our hearts.
So whether it’s a Great War-themed game you run on your table, posting a comment below, or just a quiet pause sometime this week, we can each take a reflective moment … and remember.
We owe the men of November 1918 at least that much.
"By the end of September, even the most die hard German imperialist could tell the war was spinning out of control..."
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"...you prove that this hobby really can be more than “just toy soldiers.” We can take history and, in our own small way, become part of that story, keeping it alive and close to our hearts"
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Thanks for the series @oriskany ,its hard reading knowing that there were those deaths that were just so pointless and could have been avoided. Such is the nature of man though i guess.
Its also interesting to see that the terms of the end of WW1 effectively started the second. I always find it amazing that with all the history we have the same mistakes happen time and again and that emotions have such an impact on these big decisions.
I have the remastered WW1 film footage to watch tonight so thank you for some context.
Thanks for kicking us off, @civilcourage , and thanks to Ben, Lance, John, Justin, Gerry, and the whole team for all their support in helping this article series get published and supported.
The “goods news” in the theme of this article series is that even wars like this do eventually end. And not all the mistakes are repeated over and over. After World War II, not only did the Allies make sure that Germany was thoroughly and completely defeated (leading to no “stab in the back” myths, etc.), but also invested tens of billions through the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany into a strong, independent, and economically viable democracy. There was serious talk at the national leadership level about breaking Germany down into nothing, again … (Churchill’s infamous “agrarian state” plan), but it’s actually encouraging to see that yes, even human beings can learn from history and NOT make the same mistake over again.
Also, like Woodrow Wilson before him, FDR envisioned and pushed for an international peacekeeping body – but this time the American congress did not recoil into isolationism. Once the Americans pulled out of the League of Nations, the people who actually thought of the idea, how could anyone take it seriously and how could it ever be given the respect it needed to keep any peace? Thankfully, the UN is not the League of Nations. So again, we do learn, however slowly and painfully.
Now, I do have two small corrections to make in this article …
ERRATA
In the paragraph that reads:
The Canadians started an advance on the Sambre line on November 11th, with Haig’s full forces committed in a set-piece assault on November 4th …
That should read:
The Canadians started an advance on the Sambre line on November 1st, with Haig’s full forces committed in a set-piece assault on November 4th … .
Also, in the seventh image, “7.58 cm granatenwerfer” should read “minenwerfer.” While technically these are mortars, and so “granatenwerfer” is the right term in a mechanical sense, the term didn’t come into widespread use for these weapons until World War II – for some reason they were called “minenwerfers” in World War I.
a fascinating and at times heart wrenching article series, but one I feel was required to mark such a significant anniversary of the war to end all wars.
I’d like to make a couple of points Augustin Trébuchon was not the alone on the day of his death being misrecorded. No French casualties are listed for 11.11.18, every death is recorded as happening on the 10th, no reason was ever recorded for why they deliberately changed the dates, it may have been a morale issue, or to hide the futility of the losses, but regardless it must be a bitter pill for any family bereaved at the last to discover that the death was essentially pointless.
I know that the butcher’s bill on the final day caused a congressional investigation into the actions of the senior officers but that it’s findings were suppressed so as to cause no additional pain to the families.
A thoroughly engaging and at times harrowing series @oriskany, thank you for the time and effort in compiling it.
Thanks very much, @avernos – not only for the comment but for all the support and the two great interviews. 😀 I didn’t know that the French Army initially lied about ALL the deaths that day. I would have assumed they lied about all the deaths in that original attack (91, according to what I’ve found).
As we say in the article series, as easy as it would be to blame the senior commanders for the deaths of November 11 (and they are in fact responsible for many of them – Marshal Foch especially), some of them were out of their hands. Field- and company-grade officers (lieutenants – colonels) were responsible in some cases, and as crazy as it sounds, some of these attacks did make a kind of military sense (i.e., no one was sure the Armistice would hold and potential post-ceasefire surprise attacks had to be preempted by seizing certain pieces of key ground).
And of course, still more were prompted by actions of the NCOs and even rank-and-file enlisted men.
Definitely a terrible situation, but also a complicated and nuanced one.
Thankfully, it ended – and as we mention above, it seemed we did learn something from it, perhaps in spite of ourselves.
A very well written and researched article. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to produce it.
Thanks very much, @gremlin – and no worries at all about the “time and trouble.” 😀 After the “Kaiserschlacht” series earlier this year, I promised the community we would come back to the Great War at least once for a look at the last days. It almost got by us, with all the noise and energy surrounding the Bolt Action Boot Camp of late September.
So we were rushed a little, we only had three articles, and of course I don’t have any miniature armies for the period. That why we also have hex-and-counters … 😀 and I felt this was a piece that really should transcend toy soldiers. There are other kinds of games out there, and honestly if we want to call ourselves “historically conscious gamers,” this was a subject and a date we really couldn’t miss.
On Facebook today I was looking at the original message sent to the Inniskillings on 11/11/18 and the message was received at 07.15hrs
Awesome, detail, @torros – thanks! 😀 Yeah, it takes a while to get the message out to all these units, millions of men across 500 miles of front (on both sides and probably in a dozen languages), and of course for a cease-fire to work, it has to all happen at once. You can’t have one side observing a cease-fire and other side NOT.
@torros found the original message received by the 9th Inniskillings Fusiliers / 109th Bge / 36th Ulster Division (11 Nov 1918) – I asked if I could post it here:
WHAT?! Only three articles??? What sin is this?
In all seriousness, this was a perfect end to the series, “The futility of the last hours of a war”. You truly honored the memory of ALL those who fought in this “War to end all Wars.
One question, do all wars have these pointless last few hours of combat or are more resent wars a little more clear cut/immediate with the cease fire?
Thanks, @gladesrunner – and to answer your question, I would actually argue the opposite. World War II had a somewhat sloppier ending, with different parts of the German army surrendering at different times. Some parts of the World War II in Asia didn’t end until September 9 1945- despite the Japanese announcing their surrender on August 14 and the official surrender signed on the deck of USS Missouri on September 2.
I’m talking about the Chinese-Japanese part of the war, which (in an interesting connection to this article series), they decided to schedule for 9:00 AM. In this way, it would be the “ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month, almost in an homage to the 11:00 time of 11/11 Armistice of World War I.
But since wars today never “officially” start (i.e., no Declaration of War issued by governments) – the often never “officially” end. Just as an example, the Korean War is technically still on since 1953 – that’s really just been a very long cease-fire, the two Koreas still refuse to sign an official document ending the war.
Their are stories of people being found on Pacific islands years after the war still fighting thinking it hadn’t stopped?
Oh, absolutely. I think the last Japanese soldier to officially surrender was found in the early 1970s somewhere.
Somewhere in the Philippines I think
I’m honestly unfamiliar with the details.
I read about this. They even had to get an officer from Japan to order the man to stop fighting, because he would stop without a military order. He didn´t (or couldn´t) believe the war was over.
“Thanks for the update! So the war’s finally over, eh? Outstanding! When did America surrender, exactly?” 😀 😀 😀
A nice consist series of articles on the bloody war to end all war’s but unfortunately didn’t @oriskany
All too true, @zorg – I always find the title “war to end all wars” bitterly ironic since it couldn’t possibly be more inaccurate, the end of World War I positively lit an unmistakable fuse to World War II. In some ways it’s actually amazing it took so long.
A wonderful article, as usual. I appreciate you raising awareness like this at a time when knowledge of the great lessons and sacrifices of the 20th century seem increasingly forgotten, or even worse, ignored.
My only constructive criticism is that this article, more than any of your others, reads a little teleologically. While some implied connections are more commonly accepted, that the Treaty of Versailles “leads to” the Second World War, for example, others are far more contentious. It can be tempting to explain modern issues in Israel or the Yugoslav Wars as being caused by a bad stroke of the pen, but that belies the complexity of the history of the centuries leading up to that point.
Of course, I appreciate that you are writing these articles for mass consumption by the average wargamer, and not to be published in a historical journal. On the whole, your articles are easily my favourite pieces of content on this site, and I’d like to thank you for all the time and effort you put into researching and writing these.
Thanks for the comment, the support, and the feedback, @greyhunter88 . I’ll be honest, I admit that in interviews I’ve made some rather broad assumptions for the sake of saying something dramatic (“if there had been no Battle of Saratoga, there is no D-Day at Overlord) … but for this article series I’m sticking to my guns.
To take the conflict in Yugoslavia as an example (I won’t plod through them all) – the most direct and egregious causes of those wars … do not stem from the fact that Bosnians, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, or Macedonians don’t get along. Lots of people don’t get along. How they manage to coexist is by living in different countries, under different governments that serves (at least in theory) different national / social / cultural agendas.
They real issues stem from the fact that external forces took it upon themselves to force these groups together into a single country, with a passing knowledge (at best) of who these people actually were. Yugoslavia was never an actual nation. It was a false concept created by border-doodling “peacemakers” who thought they knew best for others, when clearly they did not.
Be it the Austro-Hungarian Empire, German occuptaion in World War II, or even the Soviet Communist block of the Cold War, “Yugoslavia” was always an artificially-sustained polyglot of antagonism of hatred (cultural, religious, and historical) squeezed together against its will by outside forces.
The moment all of these forces were finally removed, almost in the same year, the whole sorry mess fell apart into nearly a decade of the worst war and genocide Europe had seen since 1945.
Peace wasn’t attained by the 1995 Dayton Accords anymore than it was by Versailles in 1919. It was attained by simply letting this “false state” fall apart and allowing each nation / culture / people to find its own way.
Oh, and I guess I should say that in the case of Yugoslavia and the Balkans, we’re not talking about Versailles specifically, but the Treaties Saint-Germain-en-Laye (Germany / Austria), the Treaty of Trianon (Hungary) and the US–Austrian Peace Treaty of 1921 – but Paris Peace Conference all the same.
😀
Almost the exact same mechanic has really lit the fuse for Iraq, with the post 1919 “Mandate System” gluing together different ethnic groups like Sunni, Shi’a, and Kurd, into a state that had no business existing as an artificially created whole.
Now, if your point is that the totality of a modern problem cannot be explained solely by its origin, I would agree with that. Each geostrategic blunder builds upon the last. But that’s not the point I was trying to make. I wasn’t trying to explain the full dimension of say, Yugoslavia or Iraq or Israel / Palestine, but only a major element of the their origins.
Time flows in one direction. Successive mistakes cannot take place if the previous mistakes hadn’t already been made. So while the British Mandate system (for example) in Iraq is certainly not the ONLY the factor involved, we then have German interference in World War II, American support of terrible leaders through the Cold War, Gulf Wars One and Two, etc … these later chapters draw unmistakable roots back through to 1919.
Some might say: “okay, rewind the clock a little more, didn’t the Austro-Hungarian Empire (in the case of Yugoslavia) or the Ottoman Empire (in the case of Iraq) squeeze these ethnic groups together as well?
Actually, no. Not really. Part of what made these empires so weak and ripe for collapse was their disorganized administration and structure. They ruled places like Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia, and Kurdistan in many ways as separate territories. Again, it’s only when 1919 forces these groups under one flag that real issues arise.
And I wouldn’t worry about not being written for a “historical journal.” Most historical journals I’ve run across lately are hardly worthy of the title – published more to push a modern social agenda or stir up pointless revisionist controversy than actually educate anyone or preserve anything. Nothing grinds my gears worse than someone picking up history and re-shaping it to serve some other purpose.
An interesting conversation to be sure. 😀 Thanks for the great comment!
Thanks for the great reply! It’s so refreshing to have genuine, interesting dialogue about history in my post-University days, that I’d almost forgotten what it was like.
In this case, I should explain myself. In attempting to be brief, I don’t think I properly illuminated my critique. My concern was more with form than content, to be honest, and as you’ve even acknowledged yourself, much of the time you’ll make overly broad generalizations for the sake of drama and flair. This is an article about the end of World War 1… naturally you’re well-allowed a mandate to emphasize the importance of this occasion.
I suppose I was being a little pedantic, but when I read “This led to fragmented states in Eastern Europe, and horrific wars in the 90s”, my spidey senses went off. Why? Well, naturally because saying X “led to” (I reread the article a few times to make sure I wasn’t misquoting you) Y is a statement of causation, and while you’ve gone into much greater detail above to support your assertion (which I greatly appreciate), it’s still a loaded statement.
I’m not at all suggesting that you are wrong. Without a doubt, your academic knowledge of 20th century history far eclipses my own. However, as an example, one can also make an argument that some of the ground work for the Yugoslav conflict goes back as far as 1389, and the Battle of Kosovo. Now, how much each historical factor contributed is a big question. Whether you’d have that war or something like it without the creation of Yugoslavia in the early 20th century, is also a question, even if the answer seems obvious. Whether Yugoslavia has a war if all else remained the same, but there was never any Ottoman interference in the region earlier on, is also a question.
From the extremely unreliable and purely anecdotal source of “My wife’s family and family friends from Serbia/Croatia/Albania and Montenegro”, there are huge differences in peoples’ feelings on Yugoslavia, the conflict, etc. Some will tell you about irreconcilable differences between Serbs and Croats going back to the initial Turkish invasion. Others will tell you that Yugoslavia was wonderful, and that everyone there are mostly the same, and that it was only as the Communist regime began to fall apart and bankrupt itself that other tensions rose to the fore. Yet another group of them still hold a grudge against NATO and will claim to their dying breath that the conflict was mostly manufactured from the outside.
Naturally, I have no idea the whole truth of the matter. I’m also experienced enough to know that none of this constitutes anything even approaching proof. However, I bring it up only as food for thought, since if “Yugoslavs” from the universities of Belgrade to farms in rural Montenegro, crossing 4 generations, tell me things that contradict the accepted narrative, it’s enough to get me to at least concede that maybe there are things I do not understand at play, or at risk of sounding cliche, “It’s not so simple as that…”
We historians have always had a bit of a habit of drawing certainty from conclusions that are really no more than strong hunches or theories supported by evidence. But it’s not “scientific” evidence (as my archeologist wife loves to point out to me again, and again…)
I wrote a paper, once, on the English popular reaction to the Easter Rising, as seen through letters to newspapers at the time. Even accounting for the biases of the newspapers, the owners of the newspapers, the editors, the class bias of those who would have the ability or inclination to write in, and the quality of the information being reported at home with which people could even draw conclusions… even after accounting and attempting to control for all of that, my best conclusion was in reality no more than a ‘best guess’. In many questions concerning history, that ‘best guess’ is all we can ever really hope for. We will never truly know the cause of the Crusades (or if there were more than one), no matter how certain old guard historians or new age revisionists are that they’ve got the answer. It’s partly this acceptance of pursuing a goal for the sake of its pursuit alone that makes me love historians so much. I know this sounds preachy, but I don’t intend it to be. I know you know this as well as I do, since examples of this humility appear all over your written work, and it’s part of why I respect you so much.
We cannot possibly recreate the historical, geographic, or demographic factors that came together to cause any particular major world event, to test our theories. As such, we can never truly be sure as to what exactly influenced the impossibly complex social organisms we study to act in the way it did.
Now… naturally, you cannot even begin to answer these questions in the caption to a painting in one of your articles on WW1, so I don’t want you to think I’m holding you to an impossible standard. My predilection also falls into periods of historical study that have fewer and less reliable sources, so I’m holding my hand up and admitting that I am more paranoid than some about making unproven assertions.
TL:DR… Oriskany, you’re great, and I bow to your encyclopedic knowledge of the 20th century. May I humbly submit that in some cases “X contributed to Y” or “X may have directly influenced Y” might future proof your work a little more than “X led to Y”. Hahaha! Sorry for being “that annoying teacher’s assistant”… Though you are writing for entertainment, I realize, and entertaining your work is indeed!
All good fun, please don’t take this as a challenge or a criticism. Thanks for your willingness to have a conversation that I at least am finding quite interesting!
No worries at all – @greyhunter88 – completely uncritical replies start to get a little vanilla after a while. “Great article! Thanks a lot! … Great article! Thanks a lot! … Great article! Thanks a lot!” 😀
When it comes to “x” led to “y” being a statement of causation … yes. I agree, and it was intentional, and I still stand by it. Perhaps a more accurate statement would have been “x led to y1 and y2 and y3 and y4 and y5 and y6 which eventually led to z” … or in the interest of brevity (always a problem with these articles), “x contributed to or directly influenced z” (as you suggest) – obliquely suggesting the presence intervening “stages of causality.”
I just don’t know if I’d call it a “loaded statement.” I mean, you’re certainly free to disagree with any of my positions, but “loaded” almost implies I have some kind of intentional agenda, which I certainly hope I don’t project. 😀
But now it almost sounds like we’re having a debate about grammar or rhetoric or how long an article can or can’t be. When it comes to that, I’ll run up the white flag. 😀 No historical issue can be fully explained in an article, we either have to summarize or not write an article at all. So I would cede that point that between A and B, there are also A1, A2, A3, etc.
However, accepting the idea that time is linear, I would maintain that in many ways the first step in a given process remains the most important, even if it’s not the biggest. So if A leads to B and C, D, E, F and finally G … and A is small but F is apocalyptic, in the context of trying to understand why G finally happened, A remains the most important because without it, F never happens, regardless of its proportions.
Which leads to your next point, going not forward (in Yugoslavia’s case not between 1919 and 1990), but backward to 1389 … In other words, is 1919 really the “A” first step in the process under discussion?
Again, I’m pretty sure I would stick to my position. The reason – the 1990s Yugoslavia Wars weren’t fought because Serbian Slavs or Croats didn’t like Bosnian Muslims or whatever. They fought because they’d been forced for decades to live in one country under one government with one agenda that can’t possibly meet the needs of such different ethnic identities.
If they were fighting because they were different, why aren’t they fighting now? Bosnians still live in Bosnia, Serbs still live in Serbia, Croats still live in Croatia. These countries all still border each other, they still have “irreconcilable” differences and they still have weapons.
In many ways, it’s because they don’t all live in “Yugoslavia” – and that started directly in 1919.
Reaching too far back into history can present its own problems, and can make geopolitical or cultural problems sometimes seem even more insoluble than that already are.
The worst case for this Israel and Palestine. I swear every time someone casually dismiss the issues there as “oh, that’s Isaac and Ishmael, they’ve been fighting for thousands of years …” I want to claw my own face off.
That conflict starts in 1948 – cut and dry. It’s not about religion, it’s about government authority and it’s about land. Yes, there were terrorist incidents with the Palmach and the Haganah before that, but these were usually against British occupation / mandate forces and not against Palestinian Arabs. People who say that war’s been going on “forever” fail to explain why Jewish and Muslim and even Christian communities had been living there in peace since God knows when (no pun intended). It’s not until things get squeezed under a single national government and someone runs a flag up a pole that the situation goes sideways.
To go back to Yugoslavia, I would agree that there are irreconcilable differences between Croat, Serb, and Bosnian. I would agree they go back to the Middle Ages if not further. My issue is that is not what the 1990s war was about. Countries can live next to each other with tension but not war, it happens all the time. Its when they’re all under a single government without a border (or their own armies) between them that civil war becomes all but inevitable.
Winding the clock forwards, I would a certainly accept that when people who have been living together finally split up, there is a mess and a period (perhaps a generation or even longer) of intense violence. The breakup of Yugoslavia, the possible breakup of Iraq, the breakup of colonial Raj India into India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh, hell, even the breakup of Northern and Republic of Ireland. But eventually I feel these cultures are better off living apart, like a husband and wife long overdue for a divorce. Yeah, there’s going to be some shitty days in court, especially if there are kids involved, but it’s still for the best eventually, and now they won’t be fighting everyday because they’re not living under the same roof.
I would agree that history is never “scientific” – but there are enough examples to suggest that it’s a lot closer to scientific than many would realize. The more people are included in a given behavioural model, the more herd-like and less unpredictable they become.
That said, I would completely agree with you that it’s never 100% predictable or provable. History and mathematics will never completely meet. 😀 It really is about our “best guesses” as you say. I would just add that “best guesses” can’t come from people who lived there or stories or anecdotes. It has to come from dispassionate outsiders with no personal stake in a given agenda, people who treat it (as closely as possible) as analytical science … at least to an extent.
You write: “It’s partly this acceptance of pursuing a goal for the sake of its pursuit alone …”
That’s the sentence in your post I think I agree with the most. 😀
here is something for both of you to consider, the first world war was started due to a rush for oil. Discuss. 😉
There goes @avernos – trying to stir up the pot. 😀 😀 😀
nothing is ever simple. If it was we wouldn’t be interested 🙂
Hahaha, I’ll be honest… I even admitted that my criticism was mainly rhetorical/grammatical! I suppose at the initial moment I made the comment, I had gotten a bit of a flippant vibe from the caption. In the way you claw your face off when people say “Jews and Arabs have always been fighting!”, I worried you were maybe being slightly reductive about the complexity of the situation.
“Ah, forcing those people into one country made them fight!” I realize now that I was merely doing you the disservice of underestimating your familiarity with the topic. I was thinking, “Well, that’s definitely not the only reason they killed each other!”, but I think you’ve certainly made a strong case for “That is the strongest reason why they killed each other.” I might even dare say that you have convinced me.
It’s very interesting. There are definitely still huge religious and ethnic tensions in the Balkans, but you make a very apt point that they still have weapons and share borders, but they’re not killing each other anymore (at least outside of small-scale ethnic violence and crimes).
I would posit that fear of international censure, as well as the still very real economic, infrastructural, and psychological damage caused by the conflict and subsequent intercession, leads in large part to the ‘begrudging stalemate’ in the region, but it’s definitely an interesting question. As an aside, there are certainly large groups in the Balkans who watched Putin’s gambits in the Ukraine with either fear or approval, depending on where in the region they lived. He’s quite a popular man in Serbia, at the least. You can buy Putin t-shirts and mugs at every street vendor in town. It was very bizarre, to my Canadian sensibilities. General consensus was that “Russia cares for us fellow Slavs, while the West (read Americans) hate us!”, but I have a sneaking suspicion it’s more than that to some people.
As a last aside; I certainly did not mean to discredit our discipline! I’ve always maintained that History is the most “scientific” of the humanities. The process, the burden of proof and evidence, etc., are more similar to most sciences than they are different.
I just meant that there is a tendency, in ‘Popular History’, to claim hunches as facts, without admitting the tenuous nature of the evidence supporting it.
“Romans fought like this!”
“Really? How do you know?”
“Well… because they wrote it!”
“Who did?”
“This philosopher.”
“I see… where was he from?”
“Uh… Greece.”
“And was he a soldier?”
“No… he did watch some soldiers in a battle once, from a few hundred feet away, and wrote about it, though!”
Now, obviously I’m exaggerating for comedic effect, but I’m certain you’ve come across those situations before. Like I said earlier, though, my studies usually lay further back, where this becomes more of a problem. As a fun example, it’s always shocking how much of our understanding of Early Modern European society comes from the writings and journals of Casanova…
You are a well-read man, and are writing about the 20th century, where such issues of sourcing and historiography are actually a lot less prevalent. So, agreed with you on all fronts there. I actually fear for historians in 100 years, looking back on our society today. I fear that the mind boggling amount of (mis)information available is going to make sober and critical historical work very difficult, but that’s a problem for the younger generations!!!
Apologies for rambling. In the end I did draw you into a long conversation over what was in effect a pretty minuscule quibble, but it’s led to quite an interesting discussion. Thank you for further explaining your assertion. On the balance of things, I think you’ve educated me, and I’ll admit I think you were right to stick to your guns.
@greyhunter88 –
“…I worried you were maybe being slightly reductive about the complexity of the situation.”
I certainly hope not. If I ever seemed that way, it certainly wasn’t my intention.
“… but I think you’ve certainly made a strong case for ‘That is the strongest reason why they killed each other.’”
I hope it’s clear I’m only talking specifically about the 1990s Wars in Yugoslavia / the Balkans. That’s the only small part of that conflict I pretend to even have a passing familiarity. Modern War magazine ran an article “War by Television: Kosovo 1999” – Issue #9 (Jan-Feb 2014) – then their parent publication Strategy & Tactics ran an article series in #303 Issue – “War Returns to Europe: Yugoslavia 1991”. Both issues also included wargames, the first postulating theoretical NATO invasions of Serbia, the second actually recreating on an operational level the opening months of the war in 1991.
“He [Putin] is quite a popular man in Serbia, at the least.”
Indeed, the relationship between Serbia and Russia has always been a fuse waiting to be to lit, as we certainly see at the beginning of World War I.
“I just meant that there is a tendency, in ‘Popular History’, to claim hunches as facts, without admitting the tenuous nature of the evidence supporting it.”
This is very true. “Popular History” is almost a contradiction of terms, especially in the age of movies, YouTube documentaries, and the internet. We must be on our guard. 😀
On how the Romans fought …
Are we talking about Josephus? “Their maneuvers are like bloodless battles, their battles like bloody maneuvers?” I don’t pretend to be a Classics historican, but I’ve always liked that line just as a veteran and stressing the importance of training in a military.
“Like I said earlier, though, my studies usually lay further back …”
You have my sympathies. How historians of these eras fight through all those layers of myth, legend, and just a lack of even quasi-reliable records is beyond me. You guys have my respect. 😀
“On the balance of things, I think you’ve educated me, and I’ll admit I think you were right to stick to your guns.”
Absolutely no worries, and I certainly hope I didn’t come across as too defensive. I never really defend what I say in interviews, because it’s often off the top of my head (and as often as not I’m cringing as I watch them later). But my writings I try to at least check once or twice. And even then there’s no way I’m always right.
Furthermore, with an audience of at least 70,000 subscribers and God knows how much on YouTube, we really do have a responsibility for at least trying to get it right. Accordingly, we can never be unwilling to address the occasional challenge or be ready to revise an opinion in the light of new information.
Thanks once again for the great comments!
Very true, @avernos – if we liked simplicity we would play checkers instead of wargames. 😀
—““…I worried you were maybe being slightly reductive about the complexity of the situation.””
“I certainly hope not. If I ever seemed that way, it certainly wasn’t my intention.””
Not at all! It was just a knee-jerk response on my end. You definitely don’t come across that way. I had just never heard of so many ills being laid on the doorstep of those treaties all at once, so I suppose my gut response was to say, “Wait a minute! It can’t be that simple!”
—“I hope it’s clear I’m only talking specifically about the 1990s Wars in Yugoslavia / the Balkans.”
Certainly. I don’t know nearly enough about the issues in Israel/Palestine to be of much value to that conversation. The Yugoslav one I had some personal and I guess “first-hand” experience of, so I naturally drifted towards focusing on that particular conflict.
—“and I certainly hope I didn’t come across as too defensive”
Nope. You came across as a dignified person who was educated on a subject, and were willing to defend your assertion when you believed that you had the right of it. If you hadn’t defended your position, I might have just walked away patting myself on the head for being all smart.
Instead, I got to have a mature discussion, the end result of which was me feeling smarter because I believe that what I learned from you is closer to the truth than what I woke up this morning believing, and that’s far more important to me than my ego.
It’s been an honour actually getting to engage with you after all these years. I say that having read all your articles and watched all your interviews, but never really feeling like I’ve had anything worthwhile to add to the conversation thus far.
Though of course all I added this time around was several LONG winded paragraphs of rambling, but hopefully it at least provided you some good practice! They do say that there’s no better way to learn something than to teach someone else! Hahaha!
No worries at all, sir. The idea that OTT / BoW is interactive and the team actually engages with the community was the first and biggest factor that drew me to the site back in 2014. We can’t just be talking heads on a computer monitor. 😀
A fine closing piece to another great article series, respectful and thought provoking. (and a fitting finale to a year of graft for a historical editor, thanks Jim).
There was an interesting question asked during the BBC coverage of the Cenotaph service yesterday about when should we stop commemorating WW1 as other wars in history are no longer venerated like WW1. One of the talking heads answered that it is essential to continue as current history is seeing a polarization of communities and opinions due to the effects of social media and that the lessons of history are essential to understand what happens when that divide becomes too wide.
Thanks very much, @damon – Stop venerating WW1? Because other wars are not venerated? While I can acknowledge the disparity, I think the solution here is not to remember WW1 less … but remember other wars more. Who knows, maybe we’ll finally stop having them. 😐
that’s an interesting point about the veneration of WW1. I remember an article a few years on the 70th anniversary of the end of the second world war when a journalist mentioned being in a car with two German journalists while the radio was giving ongoing coverage of the preparations to mark that event. and at that time he remarked that it has to have an end or else they (the British) may reach a place similar to the situation in Northern Ireland and the Boyne were it has become a dividing mark of triumphalism rather than commemoration.
I think it’s extremely important to teach the history and reflect on the lessons of the conflicts so they’re not repeated. The local BNP stuck stickers and signs up with the silhouette of Tommies advancing and the slogan “they did not die for a multicultural society” which is almost exactly what they did, and people should never be allowed to forget the actual history or allow it to be twisted by others for their own agenda.
Objectivity and presenting both sides of a given topic (assuming there are only two, there are probably dozens) with respect and fairness is probably the best precaution to the triumphalism mentioned.
That said, even that can be overdone. It sounds great to say “present both sides with respect and fairness” – but what if both sides don’t deserve respect and fairness? An extreme example, I know, but just to make the point: Would we want to present the history of Auschwitz with “respect and fairness” to both sides? 😐
Probably not – or even if we did (i.e., some of the guards were draftees who didn’t want to be there) … man, we’d want to be extremely careful with that.
I guess the two main elements here are HONESTY and INTENT.
If you’re picking up a piece of history and waving it around, are you doing it HONESTLY to the best of your ability, and what is your INTENT?
Are you commemorating? Are you honoring? Are you educating? Are you even trying to entertain (assuming you are doing it in a responsible manner)?
Or are you trying only to make money? Make a cheap, irresponsible, or exploitative movie? Push a social or political agenda? Aggrandize yourself? Cloak yourself in glories won by your ancestors that you don’t deserve?
Honesty and intent. WHY is a given piece of historical commemoration / TV programming / movie / book / wargame / article series put together? What were the creators trying to get out of it, and did they acknowledge the responsibility they undertook when they started the project?
eloquently said Jim.
Thanks, if you can say that a sentence with five slashes in it is “eloquent.” 😀 😀 😀
Just not “elegant.” 😀
true, but elegant language can say very little in a long and florid speech, while eloquence can be brief yet just, if not more, persuasive.
Brevity being “the soul of wit” and all that. 😀
That’s extremely interesting, actually.
In Canada, for example, we don’t venerate the War of 1812 (outside of comedy songs and to make fun of our American friends), even though it’s more recent, chronologically, than the American War of Independence, which is still very much remembered.
Now, obviously that war is integral to the American spirit and nation, but is the War of 1812 any less significant to the independence of Canada? In an alternate universe, could it not, for example, have led us to become part of the United States?
The battles leading to the subjugation of French Canada are remembered among us French Canadians, but they’re certainly not remembered or even really understood by the average English Canadian, despite the fact that they were the winners.
I imagine that it seems self-evident; we remember WW1 and WW2 because they are bigger and worse than anything that has come before and hopefully after. I think it’s maybe a combination of scale, increasing information technology, a rapidly globalizing world, as well as books and movies often trying to portray such events as more “real” than we’d come to expect from say, Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot”.
We learn about WW1 and WW2 in school. We read the poems, watch the movies, read the books. We observe the moment of silence, and vow never to forget.
We are taught that heroes fought so that we could be “free”. I will never disparage the heroism of anyone who has served, but was Canada’s freedom actually at threat? Were our homes not more at risk to early American expansionism than German Imperialism? Is it doing justice to the memory of those who fought in WW1 to simply say “They fought so we could be free”, without even understanding why?
I ask this genuinely, since it’s the first time I’ve ever considered this question, and I don’t know. I imagine WW1 could have changed our destiny, had the outcome been different and had Daddy Britain lost.
I fear that maybe we are learning these things by rote, rather than having any true understanding as to why people fought, or what it really meant. WW2 is easier to understand; there was a clear villain that had to be stopped. World War 1, though?
I remember watching Wonder Woman and asking people why we were meant to cheer as she crossed the trenches and annihilated the Germans on the other side. As she picks one man up with her magic whip and throws him through the wall of a church, and roundhouses another into oblivion, I asked my friends why I was supposed to be happy that this character was bombastically killing what was probably some baker’s son who got conscripted, whose family was starving at home, who hadn’t seen his wife in 2 years, and who never wanted this war and wanted to go home. The completely blank expressions confirmed my fear that to my friends, who are smart and educated, the Germans in WW1 were just the generic Nazi stand-ins that the movie needed.
I guess that goes back to what Avernos was mentioning about “triumphalism”. Is remembering WW1 as a victorious war against evil and tyranny helpful? Or does that actually cloud the true horrors and lessons we all, as a society, need to take away from that particular conflict? A professor of mine once chillingly described WW1 as in large part the “Senseless Industrialization of the Mutilation of Young Male Bodies”, and that’s stuck with me all these years.
I agree with Oriskany. The issue is not that we remember the veterans of World War 1 and 2 (because we absolutely should), but rather how inconsistently we as societies remember the others.
As to when it becomes “okay” to stop remembering WW1… I would suggest to that journalist (?) that we forget history at our own risk, and that even in 400 years, forgetting the errors, sacrifice, senselessness and heroism of those great wars will be a mistake.
In my personal opinion, society’s at a far higher risk of forgetting history these days than “remembering too much”…
Another great post. 😀
“In Canada, for example, we don’t venerate the War of 1812 (outside of comedy songs and to make fun of our American friends) …”
Oh man, we certainly deserve it for our performance in 1812. 😐
“In an alternate universe, could it not, for example, have led us to become part of the United States?”
Well, the Americans tried a two-=pronged invasion of Canada in 1775-76, and failed, and invaded Canada no less than three times (or at least from three directions) during the War of 1812, and all failed. I was kidding around with Canadian friends at the recent Bolt Action Boot Camp than “you guys are invasion-proof … you’re the Afghanistan of the North!” 😀
“The battles leading to the subjugation of French Canada are remembered among us French Canadians, but they’re certainly not remembered or even really understood by the average English Canadian … ”
Are we talking about Quebec 1754, the Fields of Abraham, General James Wolfe and all that? I’ve known a couple Canadians from western provinces who are pretty well versed in those battles (more so than me, in any event). But I know what you mean about the “losers” sometimes remembering a war more keenly than the “winners,” here in the American South the Civil War is oddly “cherished” (if that’s the right word) far more than it is in the North. Then again, most of the battlefields are down here, too.
“. . . more “real” than we’d come to expect from say, Mel Gibson’s ‘The Patriot.’”
Oh God, that movie. Did you hear that? Could you hear me grinding my teeth from all the way down here in Florida? 😀 It’s the American Braveheart.
I completely agree that World War I’s causes and morality are a lot more murky than World War II – a point I’ve made (albeit obliquely) in some of these article series. I try not to hit it directly because many readers are from the UK where the Great War is often practically a religious event. But you’re right – I often feel that the shadow of what the Germans did later in 1939-45 often casts an unjust shadow back on 1914-1918.
Now the Germans in this time period were certainly no angels. Some of the atrocities perpetrated in Belgium, for instance, cannot be defended. Some people also point to unrestricted submarine warfare (carried all the way into Canadian waters and against Canadian shipping, I might add). But I would also admit that the waters there are a little clouded (no pun intended). I mean, how many of those passenger liners did the Allies pack with war materials in direct violation of international law, hoping to use the lives of their own oblivious citizens as human shields, all while conducting a rather ruthless naval blockade against Germany that was starving millions of civilians?
At the risk of “wrapping myself in the flag” – the rationale for defending freedom abroad is often as simple as this. When other people’s freedom is attacked, even if its in Belgium or France, it’s not just those people under attack, but the idea of freedom itself. Every time something like that succeeds, the world overall becomes less safe for democratic governments or societies.
I realize I’m starting to sound like an army recruiting poster. So on a more pragmatic note – it’s always better to fight wars in someone else’s front yard than your own. Better to fight for freedom in Belgium . . . so your grandchildren or great-grandchildren don’t have to fight for it in the streets of Montreal 100 years later?
“In my personal opinion, society’s at a far higher risk of forgetting history these days than “remembering too much . . .”
Okay, now I need to open a technical support ticket with OTT / BoW . . . so I can put +100 votes on this one comment. 😀 😀 😀
” Okay, now I need to open a technical support ticket with OTT / BoW . . . so I can put +100 votes on this one comment. 😀 😀 😀”
Hahaha!!! I know, right? I wish it weren’t so.
The Plains of Abraham and all that were indeed what I was referring to. Folks in Western Canada do tend to be better-versed in our history in general, so I’m not surprised to hear that. Though I might be cheeky and suggest that your friends are probably more likely than average to know about military history. 😉
World War 1 is just so damn tragic… It’s so easy to look back on it now and think of it as the senseless destruction that it was, but nobody could really even fathom what was going to happen at the time, right?
The famous “The war will be over by Christmas!”, as well as just a total ignorance of what was to come. Not an ignorance that could really be avoided, but no less depressing for all that.
You know those small little details you learn about that for some reason or another really stick with you? That American you mentioned who wrote on the wall of that fortress (Verdun?) in both wars was one of them for me.
Another was reading that when the supply of khaki uniforms ran out in early WW1, the British had to use something like a half a million blue post-office uniforms as replacements in the interim. It sounds silly, but just imagining being given a postman’s outfit because so many people were going out to die that they’d run out of things for me to wear hits me on an emotional level.
I had always studied WW1 more than WW2 in school, but in the years since, it’s been kind of overshadowed as I’ve dove into Bolt Action, Flames of War, and the like. It took this centennial and articles like yours to really bring me back to thinking about those little things, and about the first World War in general in a real way again.
Regardless of why the war was fought or the outcomes, I sympathize a lot more with the soldiers on both sides of the conflict, in a way I never could with the SS, or the Imperial Japanese, for example.
You’re right that the Germans were certainly no angels. I don’t think there really are any angels in war (except for Space Marines and the 100% bad-ass 101st US Airborne).
I try to look on those atrocities as lessons, in a way. I think the scariest lesson of the 20th century is that any of us could be those men. All of us, to some degree or other, harbor the evil inside of us that would allow us to rationalize committing those acts. That’s the biggest danger, I think, of looking at our enemy as this kind of peculiar villainous force, different from us in temperament and morality. “The Hun”, as it were.
I guess that’s at the heart of why milestones, discussions, and memorials like this are so important. We have a very privileged community here, who I don’t think would run the risk of misunderstanding or misrepresenting what the 20th century was trying to teach us. Hopefully we can all keep the lessons and the history alive. 🙂
Someone mentioned the French Indian War? I must comment!
It’s strange what people do and don’t remember.
The War of 1812 is literally known as “The Forgotten War” (although a lot of people are also using that name for Korea).
I mean no one came out of the War of 1812 looking good with the exception of Andrew Jackson. The American’s had their Capital burned down, the President was riding around on horseback begging for volunteers, the Battle beforehand was such a rout that it’s know as the “Bladensburg Races”, a US Fort commander was so drunk he had to be drug out of his bed several miles from his post to surrender the fort, the three American Generals all squabbled with one another and royally screwed up in their invasion of Canada (most of the militia plain refused to invade), the British forgot to bring ladders with them when assaulting fortifications at New Orleans, their flanking force managed to tip their boats over and screwed up a crucial plan at New Orleans. The whole War was/is seen as a sideshow to the Wars in Europe at the time which is a total 180 when compared to the French Indian War/Seven Years War which most people remember for the American theater.
Plains of Abraham is a very important battle but very overlooked by English speakers.
Basically the entire battle was two volleys fired by the British that sent the French into a total route. Yes there was some skirmishing on the flanks and the follow up but those two volleys changed Canadian history. British Commander Wolfe was killed, French Commander Montcalm was dead, the future Captain Cook came to the attention of the British Elite for his role in transporting the army, the American’s and British both saw that a conventional army could be defeated by Light Infantry and Skirmishers that lead to the eventual formation of the Rifle’s and a focus on dedicated Light Infantry Tactics and the British army learned that long thin lines were indeed a feasible way to fight battles.
Here in Australia we venerate Gallipoli to insane levels. Australia was a very small part of that very large operation and it was a miserable defeat. Yet victories like Kokoda are known about but not understood.
Speaking of silly WWI Uniforms here’s a good one.
The French get a lot of flak for wearing Dark Blue Coats with Red Pants but in 1913/14 they had come up with a new uniform. It was Khaki and because of Patriotism was comprised of Red , White and Blue threads woven together.
The only problem?
The only place that the French Army could get a reliable source of red thread (in the colour needed) was Germany. Hence the French Army adopting the uniform minus the Red thread which is where the late war sky blue colour comes from.
@oriskany thanks for that now I have to go scream at the sky because you mentioned that awful movie. I love to wargame in the Carolina’s during the AWI and that movie haunts me on every table I set up.
@greyhunter88 “I remember watching Wonder Woman and asking people why we were meant to cheer as she crossed the trenches and annihilated the Germans on the other side”
It’s because when the Public watches a movie with guys in grey uniforms, Stahlhelms and German Accents they immediately think Nazi’s. It’s a movie maker trick to get you to hate the “villains”. Most filmmakers outside of a few exceptions rely on preconceived notions of an audience to quickly build characters and motives.
The only time period/group that I can think of that is treated “fairly” by Hollywood (not accurately mind you just “Fairly) is the Ancient Romans. Romans are both villains and heroes, liberators and tyrants and people tend to not have a preconceived notions about them.
@elessar2590 –
“Someone mentioned the French Indian War? I must comment!”
Yep – there it is. I still remember the article series you wrote almost in tandem with the first American Revolution series @chrisg and I were doing back in 2015.
I always though French “Horizon Blue” had to do with they thought that color would make the troops tough to see as they were advancing towards a trench.
Next time you have a Fanta and you wonder why it tastes a little different from Pepsi or Coke … this was a German company in WW2 and when the Americans stopped trading with them, the Germans couldn’t get some of the chemicals needed for the carbonation process in soda. So the company had to come up with a new process based on chemicals they could still get. 😀
And ever wonder why German uniforms, especially officer’s / SS uniforms, look so badass? Designed by Hugo Boss. Not something they really advertise today. 😐 But I always get a wry chuckle from the fact that these SS officers trying to be so fearsome in their black costumes, are literally fashion queens posing in those photos.
If only they had “Project Runway” in those days. They might have been too embarrassed to start World War II.
@oriskany speaking of Fanta they did a promotion a few years ago for their 75th anniversary. Basically they put out “original” Fanta made the same way it was made in the early 40’s and used the slogan “Remember the good old days” or something to that effect. It did not go well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAJXHPaWUWw
The Sky Blue colour got “retconned” by the Military as an intended colour. France was pretty good at covering their screw ups in WWI like the “mutiny” or the fact that they had the best artillery in Europe but didn’t really produce any shells for it. In 1914 94% of France’s artillery shells were made in Germany (or critical components of them were).
France has some brilliant ideas pre 1914 but they just screw it up every single time. In 1886 they adopt the Lebel the first Smokeless rifle but it’s a piece of junk. Tube loading, over 6 feet long when a bayonet is attached and heavy. Then they came out with a carbine, a three shot en block loader that used bottle nosed ammunition and was outclassed by basically everything in the world. Their 75mm guns were the best in Europe but they couldn’t get enough ammunition to keep them going.
European armies had gone through a few colours when trying to find a new uniform colour for modern warfare. The British had already tried a blueish grey in the Sudan and found it didn’t really do much (in my Profile pic you can see Horse Guards wearing the jacket’s in 1885).
@elessar2590 – Just checked out that Fanta commercial.
Wow. Just … Wow.
How FUCKING tone-deaf can you possibly goddamned be?
🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
Moving swiftly forward …
Yeah, the whole “horizon blue” thing was just what I read. If memory serves, the exact verbiage of the text was something like “the idea was that this color would be harder to see” or “it was issued on the pretense that this color would be harder to see” etc.
I didn’t know it was an intentional “ret-con,” but it’s pretty clear it didn’t work as troops don’t wear light blue in combat through the rest of world War I, World War II, or through to today. 😐
They did have the best artillery piece in the war which was the quick firing 75 which could fire 15 rounds into a target area without having to be realigned. The French also managed to make 200 million rounds for them during the war
We approximated this quick-firing French artillery with additional “heavy barrages” in our trench-heavy uber-game in Valor & Victory. Yes, yes, I know these 75mm aren’t usually considered “heavy” artillery. In the context of Valor & Victory “light barrages” are battalion-level mortars, “heavy barrages” are any kind of howitzers you’re likely to see in a company-sized firefight.
@greyhunter88 – I know next to nothing about the French and Indian War, at least the parts in what is today Canada.
I’m much more familiar with the American invasions of 1775-75 under Richard Montgomery (through Montreal) and Benedict Arnold (up the Kennebec River, through the wilderness of Maine, and then the Chaudière River to the St. Lawrence). Done quite a bit of writing on this invasion, as it leads to my favorite theater of the American Revolution – the Northern Theater, including battles like Saratoga, Valcour Bay, and another battle named … Oriskany. 😀
And of course, War Plan Red, the contingency for the US to invade Canada should Great Britain be forced to cut a deal with Nazi Germany. As we saw with Vichy France, many French colonies went to the Germans / Axis and had to be forcibly re-invaded (Madagascar / Syria / Gabon / and of course French Northwest Africa). If Britain lost Dunkirk / Battle of Britain / possible Sea Lion, the fear was that maybe Britain might be forced to compel certain parts of Canada to be ceded to the Germans, and the idea of the Atlantic with German U-Boat pens on BOTH sides of the Atlantic was nothing anyone wanted to imagine.
A long shot, but definitely a plan that was in someone’s desk drawer in those dark days.
“And of course, War Plan Red, the contingency for the US to invade Canada should Great Britain be forced to cut a deal with Nazi Germany.”
Wow… Never knew about that one. “War Plan Red” is a great name, though. Kind of a scary thought, though. I am very glad we are still (trade agreement disputes notwithstanding) good allies.
Sounds like it could make for a solid weekend of asymmetrical “What-If” gaming, though.
Yeah, @greyhunter88 – all the American war plans in the 1920s and 30s were named for colors. Most infamously was War Plan Orange, contingency for plans for war against Japan which of course became all too true.
Turns out this was really part of a larger plan for war against the United Kingdom and ALL its holdings in the Western Hemisphere.
There was another plan: War Plan Crimson, specifically for war against only Canada.
Not to be outdone, the Canadians had “Defense Scheme No 1.”
Canadian military officer Lieutenant Colonel James “Buster” Sutherland Brown developed an earlier counterpart to War Plan Red called Defense Scheme No. 1 on April 12, 1921. Maintaining that the best defense was a good offense, “Buster” Brown planned for rapid deployment of flying columns to occupy Seattle, Great Falls, Minneapolis, and Albany. With little hope of holding these objectives, the actual idea was to divert American troops to the flanks and away from Canada, hopefully long enough for Imperial allies to arrive with reinforcements. Defense Scheme No. 1 was terminated by Chief of the General Staff Andrew McNaughton in 1928, two years prior to the approval of War Plan Red.
From what I see, War Plan Red also postulated opening strikes using chemical weapons. Yikes.
Yes, let’s remain allies. 😀 😀 😀
A really good read @oriskany I did go through all of the articles in this series.
Awesome! Glad you liked them. Good to “see” you on the site again! 😀
Just finished watching the Peter Jackson film. Can’t honestly find the words to say how astonishingly good it is
myself and @johnlyons were saying the same thing last night. A picture really does paint a thousand words.
Awesome, @torros and @avernos . I’ll have to watch it when available here.
When the screen widens and switches to the first colour footage I did a silent WOW looked at the wife and she was doing a silent WOW at me
I’ll definitely keep an eye out for it then. Sounds like its a big improvement on the World War One in Colour series narrated by Kenneth Branaugh.
I reckon they spent a lot more on the Peter Jackson one. Going to watch the making of tonight
🙂
Great series, thanks for taking the time to put is together.
No worries at all, @hairybrains . Like I was saying above, this was a date I definitely didn’t want us to miss.
@oriskany Thank you for another excellent series of articles. Also, thank you the BoW / OTT Community for the always fascinating and ever respectful discussions in the comments.
Here is my contribution – with apologies in advance for the wall of text.
As I am sure we will all know – or can guess -,the last soldiers to die in combat, before the Ceasefire came into effect at 11:00am on 11th November 1918, were by no means the last soldiers considered to have died in the First World War: many of the casualties of the fighting in 1918 – and many prisoners of war – later died from their wounds or illness in the months and years following the Ceasefire.
You wrote in the concluding paragraphs of the article: “We can take history and, in our own small way, become part of that story, keeping it alive and close to our hearts.”
Well, if I may, I should like to share with you my personal 100 Years Rememberance Day story.
My father once told me that one of his uncles had died in the First World War, though he did not know many details. A letter to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission had helped locate his grave: in a British and Commonwealth War Cemetery, South of Berlin. This, at the time, seemed rather odd to me – wasn’t all the fighting in France, Belgium, Gallipolli and Mesopotania…?
Anyway, 15 years later, as I was reading all your articles about the battles of 1918, I felt motivated to finally find out more about this long forgotten relative. By searching the International Red Cross archives and their lists of First World War prisoners – recently put online – I was able to piece together my Great Uncle’s story.
He was a professional soldier in the British Expeditionery Force: fought, wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Le Cateau on 26 August 1914.
According to Wipipedia: “The Battle of Le Cateau was fought on 26 August 1914, after the British and French retreated from the Battle of Mons and had set up defensive positions in a fighting withdrawal against the German advance at Le Cateau-Cambrésis. Although the Germans were victorious, the rearguard action was successful in that it allowed the majority of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) to escape to Saint-Quentin.”
My Great Uncle then spent the next four years in various POW camps in Germany and in what is now Poland. Sadly, he died of pneumonia in a German Military Hospital – 10 days after the Ceasefire.
A week ago I finally had the chance to go and visit the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery, south of Berlin. There are 1176 British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in Germany during the First World War laid to rest there. Each soldier was identified by his name, rank, Regimental insignia – and Date of Death, mostly it would appear, in 1918. There are also quite a few soldiers from Irish and Canadian Regiments, and I even saw ones from Nepal and India.
Apparently, unlike in the UK, poppies to honour soldiers fallen in war are not a custom in Germany, but, instead, red roses had been planted between many of the grave stones.
I was impressed to see how the Cemetery, the Memorial Cross and each individual grave were all in excellent condition. Apparently they are maintained directly by Commonwealth War Graves Commission itself. The land itself was ceeded in 1924 by the German government to Britain in perpetuity. This means that these graves will remain there forever. (In Germany, a grave plot is usually only allowed to be kept for 20 years).
Directly adjacent to the British and Commonwealth Cemetery, was a similarly sized Cemetery for Italian soldiers. Both Cemetaries are only a small part of a huge area of wooded parkland, with hundreds of oak, beech, birch, pine and maple trees: beautiful Autumn colours, peace and tranquility.
With Rememberance Sunday yesterday, I am grateful that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission continues to honour “the 1.7 million men and women of the Commonwealth forces who died in the First and Second World Wars, and ensures they will never be forgotten.”
And, I am sure my father would have been pleased to know that one of his “lost” Uncles has been found and is now remembered – 100 years after he died, and 104 years after fighting in one of first battles of the war.
If you have read my post all the way to the end, thank you for allowing me the time to tell you this story.
That’s an amazing and very moving story, @aztecjaguar – I especially think it’s great that this British / Commonwealth cemetery has survived in Germany, through multiple changes in government, the hostilities between Germany and Britain in 1939-45 and (by the sounds of it) the Cold War immediately afterward (you say south of Berlin, so I’m assuming this was formerly in East Germany, unless it’s in one of the former zones of West Berlin).
And if what you say is true: “as I was reading all your articles about the battles of 1918, I felt motivated to finally find out more about this long forgotten relative,” then … wow. Thanks so much. If I or @neves1789 or anyone else who’s been posting Great War themed content since the spring of this year had anything to do with your journey of discovery, no matter in how small or minor a capacity, then I think that’s really an episode of the the internet at its best.
Thanks very much for sharing.
To answer your questions @oriskany : yes, the British and Commonwealth War Cemetery I visited was located in the former East Germany, south of the Allied sectors of West Berlin. There was a stone engraving to the right of the entrance, with an insignia of crossed British Union and Soviet Union Flags and the following inscription (in English and German):
“From 1946–1990 this British Military Cemetery was visited regularly by members of the British Commanders-in-Chief Mission to the Soviet Forces in Germany (BRIXMIS) and maintained with the help of the local Protestant Diocese on behalf of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.”
I find it interesting to know that even during the Cold War, the former Allies and now Cold War enemies could find ways to work together. In Berlin, before the fall fo the wall in 1989, there are many pragmatic and clever solutions to local, specific and sometimes quite peculiar problems caused by the Wall and the Cold War, quietly worked out (or around) between the four occupying powers and the West and East German authorities.
When I first visited Berlin in December 1989, I was surprised to meet a squad of Soviet soldiers walking along the West Berlin side of the Wall, casually confiscating the hammers and chisels of tourists who were trying to chip bits of the wall (usually they got no more than small flakes, as the concrete was exceptionally hard). I later read in my guidebook, that, as Berlin as a whole was legally and politically still a city occupied by the WW2 Allies, military units of all the Allies could travel unhindered between all four zones. Americans, British and French forces could travel into East Berlin, just as Soviet forces could travel into West Berlin.
Finally, I guess, perhaps I was simplifying the motivation behind researching the war record of my great uncle somewhat, but, then, brevity and all that… Actually It was combination of three motivations: conversations within my family about family ancestry following the funeral of an elderly relative earlier this year, your BoW / OTT 1918 articles series and the 100 years ceasefire anniversary… all finally got the rusty cogwheels in my head in motion: “wait a minute, didn’t Dad mention years ago that one of his uncles died in the First World War…”
To explain in terms of your and @greyhunter88 “cause and effect” discussion: “When it comes to “x” led to “y” being a statement of causation …” I guess my motivation would have been: “x1, x2 and x3 led to y which eventually led to z.” Perhaps I would have done the research at some point anyway without reading your articles. Perhaps not: I could have visited the War Cemetery 15 years ago when I first found out about the grave there, but I didn’t. So whatever the “stages of causality” in my mind were, I believe that the article series by @oriskany and – as you rightly said – ” @neves1789 or anyone else who’s been posting Great War themed content since the spring of this year” – has/have (probably) been the deciding motivation behind my personal journey of discovery.
And yes, the internet helped me with my amateur research, giving me access to information I would otherwise never have discovered. I had tried to search the British National Archives but as 60% of the British World War 1 service records were destroyed by fire in September 1940, when a German bombing raid struck the War Office repository in London, I did not get very far.
However, I have to say, it was certainly a very strange and wonderful feeling: whilst daydreaming on my regular train commute to work, it suddenly occurred to me that my great uncle could have been a prisoner of war – which would explain why he was buried in Germany. And, if so, perhaps the International Red Cross might have some information… A single google search brought me to this website: https://grandeguerre.icrc.org
After a few minutes of searching the ICRC database, apparently online since 2014, there I was on a commuter train, starting at my iPhone, reading through various original documents from 1914 to 1918, listing the names of prisoners of war, including the details of my “lost” great uncle.
Thanks again everyone for the awesome discussion in the comments!
Awesome! Well, if we played any small part at all, that’s great. No matter the case, great story and well done.
Visiting some British war cemeteries in Normandy (Bayeux, for example), I was always struck by how many of the graves were unknown. “Here lies a British soldier, known but to God” over and over. There’s always some of that, and of course the Germans had thousands of stones marked only “Ein Deutsches Soldat” – but that’s understandable since they didn’t control the battlefield after a given engagement.
The Soviets (or East Germans) allowing a WW1 or WW2 cemetery to be maintained makes a fair amount of sense. After all, both sides were always trying to prove they were more humanitarian than the other. What I find surprising is that this site survived 1933-1945 under Hitler. Either way, a happy (if bittersweet) story.
In WW2 the Germans and Allies had a sort of unwritten agreement not to fight round the WW1 graveyards. The only exception was the Villiers Brettenaux memorial where the Germans destroyed the statue of an Australian bayonetting a Prussian Eagle. In WW2 the Gestapo seem to be quite active round Ypres and I’ve always wondered if it had something to do with Hitlers involvement in the slaughter of the innocents. Staying in WW2 during the occupation of Belgium was the only time the last post wasnt played at the Menin Gate.During the liberation of the town by the Poles and fighting was going on at the other end of the town the fireman came out to play the last post
See, I always thought Hitler’s regiment (16th Reserve Bavarian Infantry) was further south around Soissons / Marne, where he won his Iron Cross in July 1918). I guess they were moved around?
He was at the he first battle if Ypres and visited Langemark cenmetary in 1940. Of all the places I’ve been Langemark has to be the most depressing
Cool. They must have transferred his unit for 1918, then.
In the 1st Battle of Ypres his unit went into the line with 3600 men and came out with 611
😐
I meant to add this earlier that I think the CWGC commission do a tremendous job with the graves all over the world.
Its a pity that the government and the
army survivors didnt treat the survivors with the same respect when they came home
Veterans never get a fully fair shaken when they get home, it seems. American veterans were outfight fired upon in the streets of Washington DC when they marched for their pensions during the Depression. Who gave the order? Douglas MacArthur. A real American “hero.”
Great Series.
Have you got a link for the Valour and Victory download?
Also have you released your WWI conversion? I think I’d like to dip my toe into this whole Hex and Counter thing 🙂
@elessar2590 –
Here is the link for the official Valor & Victory wargame by Barry S. Doyle.
http://www.valor-and-victory.com/
The “1918 Edition” I’ve been tinkering with … (massive battle report / game in progress, by the way, including new tank counters!)
https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1288632/
… there really isn’t too much to it. We’re trying to keep the rules as close to the native set as possible. And outside of some new units, maybe a few tweaks on terrain (deeper trenches, rubble, craters), and changes to how artillery fire missions work (no radios) – it really is quite basic.
The Vietnam update was MUCH more involved (helicopters, integral support weapons, civilians, CASEVAC procedures, prisoners of war, etc).
But 1918 “prequel” gaming has actually been a breeze.
Valor & Victory is a “love letter” to the 1980s classic – Advanced Squad Leader. ASL was THE wargame in the 1980s, long before the personal computer and 40K came along and ruined everything. 😐
Just kidding –
– but not really. 😐
Anyway, ASL admittedly grew way too complex after 40-50 modules and expansions, so the game kind of went out of print. Now Barry S. Doyle has brought it back … sort of … publishing a much easier, streamlined, and easy to get into system that really captures MOST of the spirit of ASL, with about 20% the complexity.
I’ve played V&V games that have taken 30 minutes. The rule book isn’t the best in how its organized, but it’s only 20 pages or so and does a great job in getting people started.
And of course, there is a huge community (BGG mostly) of people who, as you’ve seen with me, design their own units, maps, scenarios, etc.
Best part is the price point –
ZERO. FREE. GRATIS. He made the game so people COULD PLAY. CUT AND DRY.
Community wargaming at it’s best.
Thanks for the final installment of this article and what will be the last WW1 content for awhile.
I read your follow-up comments you made to my comments in articles 1 and 2. I completely agree with them and thanks for taking the time to answer them.
I was about 15 when I first read about the assaults on the morning of November 11th. Why plan them at all when the planners were fully aware of the significance of 11am. Why fight for and take something that they could freely walk into in just a few hours time. It has never made sense to me. Perhaps the most annoying justification for it was that French and English national pride required.
Woodrow Wilson a very complicated and equally contradictory person. I watched a documentary about him a few months ago. He was a doomed character from any great story. In the US he was a formidable politician back home but he was out of his league when trying to direct European politics in European matters. He could not see the contradiction in his 14 points and his recorded views of what needs to happen with the African descendants back home. The League of Nations were a fine idea but he forgot to get Congress to ratify it before leaving for Europe. The British Prime Minister and French President quickly had his measure when he drew a line in the sand. If we can’t do this we can’t repay our war dept to you. He could not go back to the US saying I have waved France’s and England’s war dept so we can have a better world. Don’t get me wrong I admire the man for what he was trying to bring about and the effort he made in trying to bring it about. He simply could not see how unrealistic it was, given the mood and the times. In this respect he was no FDR. So I do not place any blame upon him for the fractures that will extend well into the next century that was created in the hall of mirrors.
However if this was not bad enough for the man upon returning home Congress then showed him what they thought of his non ratified League of Nations.
Then the world was hit by the Spanish Flu pandemic killing more than the dead of WW1 and finally the war to end all wars was turned into a sad joke in less than a generation. So the whole thing ended up to be nothing more than a very sad tragedy that was paid for in blood.
For me the most frightening thing about this war and you can include the next as well is that there are no monsters here. No vampires, zombies or ghouls. Just normal people doing bad things. They were no different than the children we are raising now.
Rather than finishing on such a dark note.
Truly great series @oriskany and so above all thank you for your effort.
@jamesevans140
“Thanks for the final installment of this article and what will be the last WW1 content for awhile.”
How do you know? 😀 Battlefront is releasing new FoW Great War content next year, PanzerBlitz always had a 1919 theoretical tank combat module.
In all seriousness, though, I think I’m ready to lay down the Great War … at least once I finish the Valor & Victory playtesting project still in progress. Which reminds me, check that out when you can, the Australians (and British tanks) have cracked the German trenches at Hamel. They’ve taken terrible losses, and lost three Mark V tanks (two burning, one immobilized) – but the battle report is continuing.
https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1288632/
The closest I can come to any kind of “logical” explanation of the additional offensives launched between 05:00 and 11:00 on 11 November is the idea that neither side knew for certain that the cease fire would succeed or hold. In order to guard against surprise post-ceasefire attacks, certain patches of important ground had to be pre-emptively taken. At least that was the feeling at the time. And that certainly doesn’t account for all of the actions undertaken that day.
I agree that Woodrow Wilson was little out of his league (no pun intended) when dealing with men like Lloyd George and Clemenceau. I feel this is part of why FDR wasn’t too worried about strong-arming Churchill / the British when he felt he needed to. We’d played it the Europeans’ way in 1919 and look what happened.
And of course Wilson was also badly undercut by isolationists at home, not only Republican political opponents in Congress at home (Teddy Roosevelt leading the charge on this one) but also within his own party. Then of course, his health was hardly helping matters.
Glad you liked the series! Appreciate your support and comments as always! 😀
Wilson always had the “well if you want your money back, you WILL!..” card played against him, while FD;R had the “if you want our lend lease you will.. ” to play against this Europeans in round two.
I also believe FDR seemed to know what life was really about on both sides of the pond. Wilson seemed to be more of an idealist with a Victorian /Bible overtures.
From what I gather from the documentary about him, Wilson seemed like he did not do any favours for himself either. It seemed to all parties that once he latched on to something he could get a little big for his boots.
But I must admit I base this on one documentary and a few bits here and there about the man. Other than these differences there is a lot of parallels between him and FDR in their moment in history. Although given Teddies involvement I don’t see FDR and Wilson being in the same circle of friends.
Later this week I will be watching the Foxtel two part series 100 days to Victory. Although I am already concerned. In an out take they have some battlefield “expert” carrying on about Hamel being the genesis of blitzkrieg. Really 🙁
I will gladly check out your project later tonight.
@jamesevans140 – “I will gladly check out your project later tonight.”
If you want. Honestly it’s complete and I’m now shutting it down.
No one seemed terribly interested.
Once again into the fray my friend, always like what you get your teeth into.
For people who always thought the first world war was only fought from trench to trench.
Thanks very much! And yes, we keep changing topics. We always try to keep things new and interesting.
Much has been said and written so far, so I try to be brief.
The assassinated German armistice delegate was Matthias Erzberger, right?
Commander Coffin: What a name for a military commander. If he says “I´m with you, my men!” this might be a bit awkward.
Right-wing parties had existed in both Germany and Austro-Hungary way before the First World War. The NSDAP had been DAP after 1918, Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers Party). Hitler added National and Socialist in order to make the party more attractive for a wider spectrum of society.
The ossuary at Verdun always reminds me of my great-grandfather Jakob, who was killed in the battle of Verdun in 1916. His body was never found and I imagined his remains are in that huge building. It is REALLY huge. And the field of white crosses is rather depressing. A visit is worthwhile. Trenches, ossuary, Fort Vaux, remains of Fleury, a museum …
For me history is scientific as far as getting figures, facts etc. together is concerned. This is I believe an integral part of historical science. The other part is drawing conclusions from the facts, and here it is “as many heads, as many opinions”. An opinion is only rubbish, if it contradicts a given fact.
As for former Yugoslavia, there are so many reasons for the 1990s war, it is impossible to name but one reason. A lot has been said. I can easiliy add a name that can explain some of the events: Josip Tito. Go, lovers of discussions. Do we have another angle on things here?
For those who do not know what a median is: This is statistics. For the average you add all the figures and divide by the number of figures, then you have the average. With the median you put the figures into a row from lowest to highest and choose the middle figure found.
This gives better results, occasionally. Example: Let the figures be 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 20.
The average would be (2+2+2+2+2+2+20) divided by 7, this is 3,71.
The median would be the fourth figure in the given row, which is 2.
If you want to foretell what might be the next number in the row (figure number 8, in this case) you´d have 3,71, which is not even one of the numbers of the original row and therefore not very good, as opposed to 2 for the median. This much better. Hurray!
Sorry, again too much burbling.
Yesterday was contradiction day (at least in my country), so @oriskany , please stop those beeeeeeep article serieses (I´m absolutely sure this is the correct plural), we never want to hear from it again, and I can´t thank you less for all this beeeeep beeeep.
If you look up Kaiser Wilhelms quotes just before,during and after the war it sounds like another German leader 15 or so years later
Ludendorff-Hitler connection, later to end very badly for both.
@jemmy –
Okay, I will try to answer as always.
“The assassinated German armistice delegate was Matthias Erzberger, right?”
I don’t know.
“Commander Coffin: What a name for a military commander.”
He was assisted by his chief of staff, Brigadier Ulysses B. Deadmeat, his operations officer Colonel Skeletor, and his Chief of Intelligence Major Grim R. Reaper. 😀
“Right-wing parties had existed in both Germany and Austro-Hungary way before the First World War.”
They do in all countries. The KKK marched in the US 20,000 strong in D.C. as late as the late 1920s. I wasn’t trying to say that WW1 “invented” the right wing in Germany.
“NSDAP had been DAP after 1918, Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (German Workers Party).”
yeah, I know. Pretty sure it was after 1918, though.
“The ossuary at Verdun always reminds me of my great-grandfather Jakob, who was killed in the battle of Verdun in 1916.”
That’s haunting. My sources say 130,000 remains, but none are identified (?) and Germans and French are in there together.
“For me history is scientific as far as getting figures, facts etc. together is concerned.”
I agree 100%. I know every likes veterans’ anecdotes – but honestly I don’t know if that’s “history” at least not in the manner I find interesting or helpful.
“As for former Yugoslavia, there are so many reasons for the 1990s war, it is impossible to name but one reason.”
Eh, not too sure about that. As you say, a lot’s been said. My position has been laid out a few times above, with sources.
“Yesterday was contradiction day (at least in my country) …”
Are you in Germany?
“So @oriskany , please stop those beeeeeeep article series.”
Well, you have your wish. This is probably the last one for a while, for a lot of reasons. I went on “sabbatical” after the Kursk series back in May. The Desert War Redux was basically a re-run, and I returned for this quick one pretty much only because I promised the community I’d run something for the Armistice.
But yeah, it’s time for me to go back on my “extended vacation.”
Contradiction Day was a challenge to say everything you mean “the other way round”, a really stupid thing. Meaning for instance if you like steaks you were supposed to say you´re supposed to say “I hate steaks more than anything”. They had People ontelly, telling them it was contradiction day and thenthey asked them, do you love your partner, and then they said yes, what on contradiction day would have been no.
Btw. thanks for the link for Valor and Victory. No more excuses for me now.
Enjoy your vacation, health, fun and a lucky hand at everything.
And yes, I´m in and from Germany. River Rhine, not far from the Loreley. Wonderful. Remagen is just 40 miles from where I am and there is a museum, you know what about. Ask Mr Timmermann :-).
I’m just tired. Annoyed. A little frustrated. It’ll be better soon. Maybe next year.
Yes, please.
We’ll see.
What no standard deviation upon the mean?
History has never allowed a fact to get in the way of the politics of the time. Neither does politics of the now allow facts of the past to place them in bad light either. History is the history of politics, anything else is just fallout. Initially history goes to the victor after that it is what the majority is comfortable with.
If history was black and white facts we would not need all these experts to tell us how to think and the rethink if necessary. 😉
Well, if there’s one thing we have plenty of is experts. 😐
I know all about experts
“An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing.”
― Nicholas Butler
By the way, I see what you did there. 😐
I know lots of useless crap about lots of stuff. Just not lots of stuff on one thing
Sounds like a lot of people.
As ever, an excellent series of articles, so thank you for the time and effort you have put into it. This series was certainly more poignant and thought provoking than the others and you have also managed to slip in some educational value as well, so kudos to you!
Thanks very much, @redvers – glad you liked the series and found it of value. My only regret was that I didn’t have any 15mm Great War figures to photograph. 😀
Can’t help you there I’m afraid @oriskany. But you know who to come to if you need a lot of 15mm German Fallschirmjager!
Fair enough … but don’t think we wont’ come back and do something for Monte Cassino next year. 😀
Just got round to reading this series and what a series it is. Thank you @oriskany for your hard work and putting this together. I was completely unaware of the details surrounding the Armistice and the 6 hours of tragic and pointless death. Just so unbelievably sad.
Thanks very much, @ragnar08 – Yeah, those six hours are an interesting topic. It’s one of those things that too often gets oversimplified into: “What? The generals kept the war going? Aren’t all general a$$holes …” or “Those poor men … they all just went mad.”
As with any such episode, there are hundreds of individual incidents each with its own conditions, root causes, aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Each one could probably be debated as to whose fault it was, was the fighting really necessary (in a handful of these cases, it kind of was, believe it or not) … but combined into a whole, then certainly it becomes a very tough topic.
In general, though … incredibly sad.
I watched the making of the Peter Jackson film last night and went through the process of making it including making sound effects and getting uniform colours right by using artifacts from Jackson’s own collection,this included artillery pieces.
One interesting part was the Imperial War Museum started making copies of the original footage and working out the best way to store for future generations back in the 20’s
It took them 4 years to make it and as Jackson said. After those guys gave 4 years of their lives fighting for their country it didn’t seem too much to give up film making for 4 years to honour them
Meanwhile, the “Battle of Hamel” Valor & Victory is finally complete in the project logs. Combined with the 36th Ulster at Courtrai earlier, and the French / US Army / US Marine Corps 1918 games earlier in the year, completes the “1918 Edition” work I’ll be doing for Valor & Victory, unless someone else requests anything or wants to coordinate on a deliverable project / content.
.
.
Well it’s taken quite a while to read through the articles and the comments and all I can say is to reiterate the plaudits to @oriskany and say what a well researched and written series it has been. I would normally wax lyrical about the First World War, as it is my particular passion but so much has been said in the comments that I think it’s all just about been covered. It was very interesting to read your thoughts on Monash and his development of combined arms tactics that proved so effective. So much so that Guderian was a great admirer and used it as the basis of blitzkrieg. Confirming your hypothesis that you start the next war the way the last finished and also that military tatics are always 30years behind the curve (about the time it takes to get to senior staff officer). I do hope that will not be repeated again however, as the last one ended with a bit of a bang! Cheers Jim and i’m looking forward to a catch up at the weekend for some had and counter goodness😁👍
Thanks very much @brucelea ! 😀 I did not know the Great War was of particular interest to you, although I suppose I should have guessed by your userID icon. 🙂
I would say (in very broad summary) the secret with Monash wasn’t in discovering anything new, but putting preexisting elements together in a slightly new way that exponentially increased their overall effectiveness. I’m also seeing in some follow-up reading that he had ammunition parachuted to some of his forward units so it didn’t have to be carried or trucked across the craters, trenches, and mines of no man’s land – a novel (if very limited) way to maintain momentum of a local tactical breach into a real operational breakthrough.
Damn, that hex & counter Panzer Leader was for this weekend, wasn’t it? No worries. I’ve also been working with @damon with i>Arab-Israeli Wars scenarios (1956) for the same basic system. I’ll but together one combined e-mail thread where we can put all this together. Looks like we might be running both Panzer Leader North Africa and Arab-Israeli Wars this weekend. Awesome!
I have been reading the Les Carolyn book The Great War again and one of the things Monash did was to use dedicated supply tanks at Hamel. I don’t have the book right beside at the moment but one tank could carry the equivalent of what it would take 1000 men to carry across the battlefield
*Note* I’ll check that’s properly correct later as that might be all the supply tanks carrying capacity not just one
It was all 4 tanks
Seems to make sense. Assuming each man can carry about a 60 pound pack x 1000 men = 60,000 pounds = 30 tons / 4 tanks = about 7.5 tons each tank.
The resupply tanks were hugely successful. Porters can be caught up and suppressed by rifle or MG fire which is not the case with a tank.
Certainly this went a long way for the Australians to start trusting the tank in combat. At least this time the tanks did not abandon our infantry neck deep in a river of hurt this time. It might seem strange today that these guys did not want anything to do with the tank however the tank is very rude and crude at this stage. At least the Mark V was a lot more reliable than previous models and appeared to handle the terrain better.
Over the next week or so @timp764 and I are planning a visit to the Australian War Memorial. We will be taking a lot of photos to update our reference material. For @timp764 he will be going over the tiny Italian L3 tankette for his Italian army. It is in original war paint and the paint job is in very good condition. We also want to see any friendship exhibits and I want to chase up some details in its library and archive.
Thanks @jamesevans140 – Indeed, closer coordination with the tanks and infantry played a major factor in Allied success in Hamel, following through the Amiens and the rest of the Hundred Days.
We tried to capture that in our V&V 1918 games. The Mark V we gave an easier trench traversing roll, and one extra point of movement. This, plus the new tank turning rules presented in Barry Doyles original V&V rule set, helped us keep the tanks closer with the infantry which really proved decisive at the last part of our Hamel game.
The L3! Is this the same basic vehicle as the CV33? The poor little tank that, during Italian invasions of Abyssinia (modern Ethiopia), defending infantry learned they could run up to by squads and physically flip the tank onto its side?
LIFT WITH YOUR KNEES, GUYS! NOT YOUR BACK! 😀 😀 😀
Expert
A retired drip under pressure.
I just finished going through your V&V Hamel game on the other post. I could not leave a comment as it has been marked no comments.
I don’t think it is gamey. The higher the level the game the more abstract the small delays should become. In a division level game you should be focused on the big picture and not concerned about you battalions have their companies in one up two back formation. After all it is reasonable to assume the battalion commander knows his job, as do the company commanders. There should be a bit of automation in the tactics.
The dice rolls were throwing things out by a lot. The job of the artillery in Monash’s play book is to protect his infantry from enemy fire. It was intense enough to encourage the enemy to retired to his deep bunkers. It did not seem that way in the game. However the bad die roll could easily caused this.
The tanks seemed to be a little lost. They needed MG bunkers to focus on and infantry they were protecting to finalise they job. The Australian infantry seemed to do too much shooting. I feel that there was not enough barbed wire and a means of artillery to create openings that occurred during the real battle. I also feel there is a need for aerial observation/FO to identify barbed wire and other instructions and adjust artillery bombardment. This was a key element of the battle but missed by most historians. The aircraft did a lot of work that also included forward resupply. There should be a delay in the effects of there observation and adjustment depending on the time scale of a turn. I quite liked the victory condition of limited turns. More than any battle fought on the Western Front, Hamel is extremely time sensitive.
I would liked to have seen a small US unit that must be kept close to the action but protected by Australian forces and should this unit be destroyed there would be a loss of victory points. Perhaps the equivalent of a house, two to three victory points. Attach one of the named commanders as the one in charge of the US unit that must remain so many hexes of the named commander and maybe an extra VP for the US unit taking a house.
This would place the extra pressure on the Australian player that was there with the original commanders. They had the task of experiencing up the US unit yet have enough of them survive to pass the experience on. This was an important objective of the battle. The date of the battle was chosen in honour of this significance.
These points are hopefully taken as constructive comments as they are not meant to be true criticisms.
One issue I have had with all wargames based in the twentieth century is that the are really great for playing general battles or rough representation, but the need a lot of modification to replay a historical battle accurately. I find that different situations that are basically ignored by the rules as they rarely happen tend to be very significant in a specific battle. This is one of the reasons it takes our group so long to campaign a particular battle. We heavily research the battle and try to identify what is significant to that battle, such as break down of command, wrong maps, etc. Then we see if the rules can accommodate this and if not then create rules that are fully compliant to the logic engine of the rules.
What you have created for the Australian forces of WW1 in V&V are truly great for generic battles.
Thanks @jamesevans140 –
“I just finished going through your V&V Hamel game on the other post. I could not leave a comment as it has been marked no comments.”
Very strange. No worries, though I tested the comment field and it seemed to work fine.
https://www.beastsofwar.com/project-entry/1301499/#comment-498045
“I don’t think it is gamey.”
Awesome, thanks!
“The higher the level the game the more abstract the small delays should become.”
Maybe this is me, but I still question when these kinds of games are characterized as “abstract.” I think we as a community are so inured on the idea of the miniature table top game, on the idea that wars are won by MEN and not by UNITS, that shooting at and hitting other targets is actually how battles are decided (all of which are flat out wrong) that I actually feel it’s the WYSIWIG table top mini game that “abstract” and the higher-level command tactical or operational game that is far more factually realistic.
“The job of the artillery in Monash’s play book is to protect his infantry from enemy fire.”
This happened in the V&V 1918 … sort of. It may not KILL enemy units, but will inflict casualty points to the extent that the German player is compelled to pin more of his units. Pinned units cannot deploy opportunity fire against approaching Australian units or even resist assaults.
So yes, the relatively poor dice on this did cause this part of the game to not quite go along historical lines. I would also add that in V&V, the player being HIT BY the artillery gets to, in some part, choose how to react to it. Say a given German platoon takes 3 casualty points. Is the sergeant screaming at his men to “stand fast” and keep and eye across the parapet of that trench? Or is he in the bottom of the trench taking cover with his men?
This reflects in the German choice of whether to “pay his casualty points” in either kills, or pins. With three casualty points, he can pin three squads, half-squads, or gun crews … or just take the three casualty points (killing probably half a squad).
Historically, I would say the Germans chose more pins. Cautious play. Staying low and over cover. Low casualties, but the tradeoff is that they’ve now allowed the Australians to make that rush with no counterfire. Deep in the bunkers, as you say.
The problem here is that the German player made the opposite, bloodier choice. He knew the Australians were coming for him, so he ordered his men to take the casualties, but kept other units unpinned and ready to meet the attack.
“The tanks seemed to be a little lost.”
Initially yes. That southern force of two males and two females positively whiffed ALL their initial rolls. In the north we had a better result and finally a Mark V female overrun in the center. The tanks then had a bad time crossing the trench, with a couple of them being immobilized for German mortar fire. Definitely could have gone better.
“They needed MG bunkers to focus on and infantry they were protecting to finalise they job.”
Eh . . . this is exactly what happened in later turns. Mark V male puts a six-pounder straight into a building at like 180 yards (handing this building to be cleared by Ingram’s platoon), and in the south that last Mark V male and female positively tore apart German MG 08 and MG 08 15 positions in successive buildings, allowing Australian infantry to make bloodless assaults and secure three buildings (five victory points, if memory serves).
“I feel that there was not enough barbed wire and a means of artillery to create openings that occurred during the real battle.”
Plenty of barbed wire in front of the German trench. There were gaps, which the Australian infantry definitely exploited, these were considered to have been created by artillery fire before the battle.
“I also feel there is a need for aerial observation/FO to identify barbed wire and other instructions and adjust artillery bombardment.”
Not in a battle on this scale. Please remember that V&V is only squad-level, we had barely a full company on this table. Now if we were to tackle Hamel on a higher command-tactical level like, say . . . Panzer Leader . . . I would totally agree (battalion / regiment / possible brigade).
“There should be a delay in the effects of there observation and adjustment depending on the time scale of a turn.”
Again, I would concur this is a Panzer Leader / Panzer Grenadier level mechanic. If you ask me, aircraft and artillery above the battalion level are waaaaay too heavily featured in tactical level games. Infantry commanders at this level of command to not have access or control of these kinds of assets (please remember we’re talking sergeants / 2nd lieutenants here, we had exactly ONE captain on this table, and he’s still only a company grade officer).
I understand what you’re saying here about including historical elements, and I’m not disagreeing with you. If I wanted to really work in those elements though, I would just choose a different game system with a “resolution” level on a higher scale.
This is a massive problem I have with just about every miniature game that is “popular’ these days. They pick a small scale for WYSIWYG … *ahem*… “immersion” and then, for practicality and playability, can only have the game at a certain size. But they then want to cram in these elements they’ve read about even though they honestly don’t belong in a “bucket of this size” if that makes sense. Add to this the loss of control you get when you allow players to build their own lists, and it all goes out the window.
See, how you have me wanting to set something up in Panzer Leader for this game. 😀 Shifting artillery, flexible air support, these would TOTALLY be elements in that scale.
“I quite liked the victory condition of limited turns. More than any battle fought on the Western Front, Hamel is extremely time sensitive.”
I always like putting time crunches in my scenarios. 😀 It helps with asymmetrical design. Let’s face it, with this much firepower, elite troops, the values on these counters, plus EIGHT tanks in support, there was no way between heaven and hell the Germans were holding this position. The point was whether the Australians / British could clear it fast enough. In Valor & Victory, speed is bloody. Assaults without taking an extra turn to suppress a given position cost you hideously. So with the depth of this field, the Australians had to balance available time, against the depth of their attack zone (they had to crack basically four distinct V&V boards here), and maintain enough of a force that the could hit that last board in sufficient strength.
That, and it helps from a “lazy designer” perspective. If the game is unbalanced either way, you can just increase or decrease the time limit. 😀
“I would liked to have seen a small US unit that must be kept close to the action but protected by Australian forces and should this unit be destroyed there would be a loss of victory points.”
I considered it. I really did. I have the US Army counters made up, it would have been a few clicks of the mouse to toss them in there. But I decided against it because, again . . . scale. Australian Corps was five divisions if memory serves that least 100,000 men. Balance that against a few battalions of American infantry . . . 1500-2000 tops. So we’re talking 1.5-2% of the force.
Four things here:
1) What are the odds that American forces would be on this table? Well, 1.5-2%. 😀
2) This is one Australian company. Would an American platoon be integrated at the COMPANY level? No. Battalions into the Regimental level would be my guess. That’s about 8-10 V&V games hooked together.
3) I am sometimes accused to putting too much of an emphasis on American contributions. In World War II I never back off from this, but for World War I this is different, and I feel that my predominantly UK audience would appreciate a little less of a “Yankee” factor, especially given the emphasis I put on Belleau Wood earlier in the year and the St. Mihiel / Meuse-Argonne Offensive in Part 02 of this latest series.
4) We already had British tanks, so I was already dizzy from having two allied nationalities on the same table (again, at this scale, you DON’T do this). A third nationality would have been pushing it.
“These points are hopefully taken as constructive comments as they are not meant to be true criticisms.”
Please don’t worry. 😀 😀 😀 I agree in principle with everything you’re saying. My only counter-arguments have to do with the scale of the game as presented. It really is a small battle (for me, anyway), maybe 300 men total on both sides. This is ONE relatively “busy” Panzer Leader hex. 😀 Nothing you say is out of theme or historically inaccurate. I would just use a different scale game so as to provide a big enough box for these elements to comfortably fit in their TRUE proportions, ranges / scopes, and geometries.