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A review by elliottzink
The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War by Peter Hart
4.0
Overall Peter Hart does an excellent job of detailing the war from the large scale to the small scale interspersing primary sources from Generals, officers and enlisted personnel extremely well. Very often such a feat becomes bogged down in its own trenches of detail. Hart avoids that pitfall.
In spite of that I can't award this book five stars for Hart's analysis of the British Command.
Douglas Haig apparently spent much of 1914-1915 'paying attention' or 'learning' on the Western Front. As it were Haig appears to have either stayed 'learning' the whole war or else he appears to have learned the wrong lesson.
We're approaching the 100th anniversary of Passchendale and if you're willing to forgive Haig for the Somme (admittedly the army was of the previously untested Kitchener battalions, the British artillery shells contained a high proportion of duds, and they thus neither penetrated the German bunkers or adequately cut the wire, communications from the front to HQ were not the best, a high proportion of officers were killed whilst leading the offensive none of which were Haig's fault), than you cannot also forgive Third Ypres/Passchendale. Hart excuses the battle as trying to take pressure off of the French Army freshly broken by Nivelle, but then Haig didn't have to attack in the terrain that he did, at this point it should have been clear that the artillery was not a perfect tool for cutting the wire or demolishing the German defenses, and that enfilading fire from just a few operational German machine guns could stop up entire divisions. If Haig was not aware of all of these than he was incompetent and if he was aware- than he deserves "The Butcher" moniker.
In the face of this I don't blame David Lloyd George for withholding men from Haig.
All in all Hart's argument in favor of Haig's command is that since the British won the war Haig was a good general because Britain won the war.
I can't buy that assessment.
In spite of that I can't award this book five stars for Hart's analysis of the British Command.
Douglas Haig apparently spent much of 1914-1915 'paying attention' or 'learning' on the Western Front. As it were Haig appears to have either stayed 'learning' the whole war or else he appears to have learned the wrong lesson.
We're approaching the 100th anniversary of Passchendale and if you're willing to forgive Haig for the Somme (admittedly the army was of the previously untested Kitchener battalions, the British artillery shells contained a high proportion of duds, and they thus neither penetrated the German bunkers or adequately cut the wire, communications from the front to HQ were not the best, a high proportion of officers were killed whilst leading the offensive none of which were Haig's fault), than you cannot also forgive Third Ypres/Passchendale. Hart excuses the battle as trying to take pressure off of the French Army freshly broken by Nivelle, but then Haig didn't have to attack in the terrain that he did, at this point it should have been clear that the artillery was not a perfect tool for cutting the wire or demolishing the German defenses, and that enfilading fire from just a few operational German machine guns could stop up entire divisions. If Haig was not aware of all of these than he was incompetent and if he was aware- than he deserves "The Butcher" moniker.
In the face of this I don't blame David Lloyd George for withholding men from Haig.
All in all Hart's argument in favor of Haig's command is that since the British won the war Haig was a good general because Britain won the war.
I can't buy that assessment.