Front Forum: discussing The Great War 1914-18

Ashley,

As I said earlier, by all means read those books. My point was, don't regard them as serious historical pieces.

Have they no worth at all? Winter's work was called "a manufactured fraud" by an eminent Australian historian and Richard Holmes described Laffin's book " for bias winged with bitterness his book is hard to beat." Haig's Command destroyed Winter's credibility as a professional historian. Laffin was so concerned with pushing a pre-conceived view of bile that he lost all sense of proportion. He is regarded as something of a joke among professional historians in Australia. IMO his work is nothing more than sensational journalism of the worst type. IMO neither are worth the effort of reading and have very little, if any, worth at all. As for providing opinion, yes they do. Are they opinions worth taking seriously? No they aren't.

Another book you might wish to consult is John Terraine The Smoke and the Fire. It addresses many of the myths of the Great War and has some interesting tables that dispel the myths of the throw away lines one often hears bandied around. He also addresses the casualty myth with some comparative tables that are worth considering, although they need to be used with care when making judgements about them. Nonetheless, the casualties per day makes interesting reading.

David's point 6 is in John Terraine To Win a War p 258, although according to Terraine the British captured more prisoners that the French and Americans combined and about 450 less guns than the combined total for the French and Americans

British captured 188,700 prisoners and 2840 guns
French captured 139,000 prisoners and 1880 guns
Americans captured 43,000 prisoners and 1421 guns
Belgians captured 14,500 prisoners and 474 guns

The British armies certainly captured more ground than any of the others, as the greatest advances during the last 100 days were made in the north-east of France, where the British armies were.

Cheers
Chris

Ashley, I posted the directive provided to Haig when he took up his post as C-in-C. "The specific task laid upon you is to assist the French and Belgian Governments in driving the German Armies from French and Belgian territory". Note that Haig was not to conduct a passive defence, permitting the Germans to remain in French and Belgian territory. To eject the Germans required multiple approaches: attrition to wear down the huge size of the German army; pushing the Germans out of France and Belgium. Haig approached both tasks simultaneously. He used an approach that today is known as scenario planning (see here). For people unfamiliar with this approach, it is often easier to try and tie Haig to one or other methodology. By limiting the focus, much of the sophistication in Haig's thinking is lost.

Robert

Robert,

You make a very good point about the way planning was undertaken.

Just to clarify scenario planning, which you would agree was not a term known in Haig's day, and the approach used in Haig's day.

The British military use a system called "The Appreciation of the Situation" which is not the same as the scenario planning process described in the link, although they seek a similar result. Whether the "Appreciation" process was as well developed in Haig's day as it was later I am not sure, but I have no doubt they used a similar approach. I think you will find scenario planning came out of the American military planning process, or "Commander's Estimate" after the Second World War. Certainly the US Army's "Commander's Estimate" follows a different process to the British "Appreciation" and is more like the scenario planning tool.

"The Apprecitaion of the Situation" is an analytical and deduction process that considers all of the issues affecting of a forthcoming operation or activity with the object of determining the best plan to achieve the desired aim. Essentially the steps are, if I can remember the exact terms and sequence;

THE AIM What is the aim of the activity ie What is to be achieved? Time must be spent in ensuring the aim is correct. The aim is then stated very clearly and simply and it is very specific. There is only one aim or objective to be attained. Such as "To secure a bridgehead across river X between Y and Z" or "To capture Hill 123", " To capture the line A-B-C-D", " To drive the German Army from French and Belgium sovereign territory", etc.

LIMITATIONS TO THE AIM: All limitations to achieving the aim are listed and their impact on achieving it are considered and listed.

FACTORS AFFECTING ACHIEVEMENT OF THE AIM.
This is the main part of the appreciation and under each sub heading all known facts/issues are identified and subjected to analysis from which deductions are made as to how that issue or fact will affect our operations. This is followed by detailed questioning to determine what needs to be done to overcome or exploit that issue. Sub headings include:
Own Troops
Friendly Forces
Enemy Forces. Here a detailed analysis is undertaken of all known facts about the enemy forces and their defences or assault capability, their techniques, etc, and what needs to be done to overcome or counter them.
Ground. Under ground such issues as Ground of Tactical Importance (GTI) or Vital Ground, Approaches to the GTI or Vital Ground, etc are considered . All aspects of the ground and how it will affect the defence or assault are considered and whether they offer suitable routes or what needs to be done to improve a route.
Weather. Impacts of known weather and forecasts are considered
etc
etc
SUMMARY OF DEDUCTIONS A summary of all the key deductions is made.
COURSES OPEN Here both the courses open to the enemy and ourselves are considered in detail in conjunction with the key deductions, the advantages and disadvantages of each course are considered and the most likely course the enemy will take and the best course open to us is determined.
TIME AND SPACE Considerations of the time available or the time needed to assemble all forces and what forces are needed to undertake each task in the best course open to us.
OUTLINE PLAN The best course for us and the time and space results then form the basis of the outline plan.

This then forms the basis for the Orders to be given for the activity and detailed planning to support the plan is then undertaken.

I am not sure this was a formalised process in the Great War, although I have not doubt a similar approach was used and it was from that approach the "Appreciation" was developed as a formal analytical tool, as were some many of the techniques later used in the Second World War and beyond.

We should also remember that the planning for a major operation involved a lot of discussion between various commanders and their staffs down through each level of command before the final plan was adopted. It was not just Haig's plan; it was the result of many contributions and considerations. Even then adjustments were made as new information or issues came to light.

Cheers
Chris

Ashley,

I don't believe it is a matter of either/or but a case of both being employed. Nor are attrition and breakthrough alternatives; one (attrition) is a strategy at the highest level of war, the other (breakthrough) is a tactical or operational objective attained by the means of penetration.

In war the solutions available to commanders are not many. There are basically two ways to destroy an enemy army. By annihilation or by attrition. Annihilation is best achieved by manouevre that places the enemy army in a position of severe disadvantage from whence it is destroyed or surrenders. Destroying the enemy army has the greatest chance if a commander can manoeuvre to a position behind the enemy, surround him, pin him against an obstacle, such as river, or cut him off from his lines of communication. At the operational level there are only two ways of achieving this, by envelopment or by penetration. Envelopment involves going around one or both of the enemy's flanks. Penetration involves concentrating your forces against a portion of the enemy's front and breaking through it by frontal assault. Neither can be achieved easily, for a variety of reasons of which the prime one is the counter actions of the enemy himself. In fact annihilation by envelopment is quite difficult to achieve as an enemy will always move to counter such a move, either by changing front or withdrawing before the envelopment can take place. Nor is penetration a bankrupt approach: Marlborough won the Battle of Blenheim and destroyed the Franco-Bavarian Army through penetration that achieved a breakthrough, as did Napoleon at Austerlitz when he destroyed the Austro-Russian Army.

On the Western Front, in 1914 both sides sought a quick victory through annihilation and the "race to the sea" occurred as a result of attempts by both sides to envelop the open flank of the other. By the end of 1914, however, envelopment was not an option for either side because there were no flanks to envelop except by landing on the coast well behind the fortified front. Thus penetration, or frontal assault, was the only option to achieve a breakthrough to the enemy's rear with a hope, and I stress a hope, of dislocating the enemy. The sheer scale of the armies, the depth of the defences and their ability to move strong reserves to counter attempts at penetration, made a breakthrough to the enemy's rear very, very difficult. Even when the German's broke through the defence lines in their 1918 offensives, they did not achieve a breakthrough; the British and French armies retreated and maintained a front. At no time did the Germans place the British or French armies at a severe operational disadvantage or cut them off from their communications so as to be able to destroy them. Both were able to call on reserves to reinforce the withdrawing armies and hence stopped the Germans from making a breakthrough. Likewise, the Germans were able to move reserves and stop the Allied attempts to achieve a breakthrough.

Thus by 1916, it became obvious that the only strategy available to both sides to win the war was attrition, that is the wearing down of an enemy's army to the point where either it or the belligerent nation has neither the means nor the will to fight. The German's were the first to attempt this operationally at Verdun. They also employed an attrition strategy on the Allied sea lines of communication through their unrestricted submarine warfare campaign. In the end the Allies attrition strategy proved successful through a combination of the blockade to wear down Germany's ability to sustain the war, both materially and psychologically, successfully countering the submarine threat and wearing down the German Army on the Western Front.

Nor do I believe Haig had a choice about attrition. It was a strategy forced on the commanders of both sides as explained above. I feel certain Haig preferred to achieve a major breakthrough, which offered the opportunity for manoeuvre behind the German line and he planned for it, as any competent commander would do, but he did not expect it would happen as a matter of course. He certainly realized that attrition was the only strategy left, due to the sheer size of the German Army, its capabilities and the industrialization of the war. He did, however, look at ways in which he might be able to achieve a breakthrough or turn the enemy's flank. IMO Ypres was one of these attempts but he had to use penetration as the means to turn the flank. Ypres's strategic advantage is it offered the only real option of turning a flank of the Western Front. Strategically the Germans had no real depth in that area, the Dutch border being some 80 -100 km in their rear. If the British could break through on that flank, they had an opportunity to get behind the Western Front and were on the shortest route to the heart of Germany's industrial base in the Ruhr. Such a threat could not be ignored by the Germans. In the end the weather defeated this attempt, although some notable successes were achieved. Another attempt at a breakthrough by penetration was Cambrai based on a belief the German Army had been badly worn down at 3rd Ypres.

Attrition is a much quoted but misunderstood term, being largely associated with frontal assault and senseless casualties. It is a much braoder concept than that as mentioned above. While commanders hope not to fight a strategy of attrition, in most cases where they do so they have been forced to by the circumstances. The strategy of attrition has been employed to eventually win many wars. In the American Civil War the initial strategy was one of quick victory through annihilation of the Confederate armies. This could not be achieved for various reasons and hence the Union were forced to adopt a strategy of attrition to win the war. The same occurred in the Great War on the Western Front as described above. In the broadest sense, in the Second World War the Germans and Japanese were defeated through a strategy of attrition (one major component of the strategy being the bombing campaign), as were the Americans defeated in Vietnam by a campaign of attrition by the North Vietnamese.

One must very careful, in assessing the ability of commanders, by comparing the Western Front to previous or later wars or campaigns. One only has to look at Allenby who commanded at Army level on the Western Front until 1917 and then commanded the British Forces in the Palestine in 1917-18. His performance on the Western Front was no better than any other general; he was the Army commander for the disastrous Gommecourt Feint on 1st July 1916 and he was unable to make a breakthrough at Arras in 1917 after which he was replaced and sent to Palestine. Here he performed brilliantly having the space, force ratios and ability to manoeuvre the Turkish forces out of their prepared defence lines, firstly at Gaza -Beersheba and later at Megiddo and win the campaign in spectacular fashion.

Cheers
Chris

Excellent points, Chris. The formal process used by the British in WW1 was not quite the same, though Haig's approach (as an individual) was very similar.

I am travelling at the moment, but might be able to post some of the information that I have about the British planning process when I get home. I have several sources on this.

Robert

Ashley,

Further to my previous post, I have edited a post from another forum which relates to the 3rd Battle of Ypres. A number of writers criticise Haig quite severely over this battle (which comprised a series of battles such as Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde which are mentioned below) simply on the basis of the casualties incurred without really understanding or acknowledging the issues behind why the battle was fought there. It might provide an better understanding of the issues I discussed earlier and the strategic advantages of fighting at Ypres, which is often neglected by many writers . It also seeks to show Haig was not the incompetent people like Laffin and Winters seek to portray him as and that he did not simply follow an attrition strategy per se. While recognisng that attrition of the German war effort was the only strategy avialable to the Allies, he also sought a means to turn the German flank for sound strategic purposes.

IMO military pressure plays the central part in contributing to victory when employing an attrition strategy; without the naval, military and air pressure the collapse of a country economically, politically and socially is unlikely to occur. The military component, and by this I include naval and air forces, when applied offensively, tears the heart out of the country’s manpower and economy which in turn leads to social and political destabilization and eventually the loss of will or ability to fight on.

After reading the excerpts of Sheffield and Bourne's edition of the Haig diaries and war letters for the period preceding the battle it seems clear to me that wearing down the German Army was a major objective of the 3rd Battle of Ypres. While Haig wrote “that he believed the German Army would collapse in mid to late 1917 if pushed hard enough”, I am not so sure that he believed 3rd Ypres would be " a war-winning victory” or that the collapse of the German Army was an inevitable outcome of the battle. Nonetheless, the attraction of such an outcome would have been an element of Haig’s thinking prior to the battle, and probably so after the victory at Broodseinde.

On 14 June 1917 Haig wrote, concerning a conference with his Army Commanders, "… there was no departure from the plans I had outlined at the Conference of 7 May. Viz, British and French wear down and exhaust the Enemy by attacking by surprise as far as possible at points where not expected. Finally British will strike the main blow probably in the north. Underlying the general intention of wearing out the Enemy is the strategical idea of securing the Belgium coast and connecting with the Dutch frontier. The nature and size of the several steps which we take towards that objective must depend on our effectives and the replacement of guns [his emphasis] Roughly these are:
1. Capture bridgehead formed of the Passchendaele - Staden - Clerken ridge.
2. Push on towards Roulers - Thourout so as to take coast defences in rear.
3. Land by surprise in conjunction with attack from Nieuport
If effectives or guns inadequate it may be necessary to call a halt after No 1 is gained!"

This indicates that, firstly, there were two strategic objectives: one of securing the Belgium coast as far as the Dutch frontier, and the other of wearing down the German Army in hard fighting as part of the Allied aim of exhausting it. Secondly, that Haig recognized that not all of the objectives might be achieved and that he might have to call a halt to the offensive if he had insufficient resources. Indeed he stated this might occur after only phase 1 had been achieved: the securing of the Gheluvelt – Passchedaele ridge. Implied in this is the recognition the Germans were still quite a formidable opponent and they might not collapse, particularly if the British did not have the necessary resources to bring about this result. In this type of warfare relative strengths is a major factor in achieving success. Thus while wearing down would occur, it might not lead to collapse if there was not an imbalance of relative strengths greatly in favour of the Allies.

Nonetheless, on 19 June he wrote of meeting with LG " The PM seemed to believe the decisive moment of the war would be 1918. Until then we ought to husband our forces and do little or nothing, except support Italy with guns and gunners (300 batteries were indicated). I strongly asserted that Germany was nearer her end than they seemed to think, that now was the favourable moment [for pressing her] and that everything should be done to take advantage of it by concentrating on the Western Front all available resources. I stated that Germany was within 6 months of the total exhaustion of her available manpower, if the fighting continues at its present intensity. to do this , more men and guns are required. [emphasis in the original]

This indicates he believed that given all available resources and applying maximum pressure, and hard slogging, there was a strong possibility that the German Army on the Western Front would collapse. As this assessment was made before the Russians finally collapsed in late 1917, and the Germans subsequently began transferring divisions to the Western Front, it may have been a reasonable position to take at the time although, in truth, he was being optimistic in this view. It underlines the point that he did envisage the possibility of a German collapse in late 1917, but the pre-conditions he required were that all available resources should be allocated to the task and the Germans had to be pushed hard enough through intensive fighting. Again, it was a matter of relative strengths and continual pressure if success was to be achieved.

On 21 July he wrote I told Rawlinson (what I had told him before) that in my opinion three situations might arise in which a landing [referring to a landing on the Belgium coast] would be justified – viz
a. If on our attack being launched Enemy gave way in disorder, and we were able to gain ground very rapidly.
b. If Enemy fought a prolonged battle and in the course of it used up his Coast Garrisons.
c. If we progressed and were by degrees advancing from the Clerken – Staden ridge against the Coukelaere – Thourout hills.

This entry, like that of the 14th June, indicates to me that Haig envisaged a hard fought battle and that he might not achieve all of the proposed objectives.

What is evident from his diaries is that the capture of the ridge from Gheluvelt to Passchendaele was an essential first objective (see below) and Haig accepted he might have to call off the battle after it had been secured. This implies an acceptance that the Germans might not collapse. There is no indication from these excerpts that he regarded as a certainty that 3rd Ypres would be the war wining victory. There is also the possibility that Haig was having two bob each way on the results, which is understandable, as all commanders must plan for best and worst case results.

So what were the objectives of 3rd Ypres? From these excerpts of Haig’s diaries and letters there seems little doubt that one strategic objective was securing the Belgium coast as far as the Dutch frontier. The other was to wear down the German Army, hopefully to the point where they would collapse. The first objective offered significant strategic advantages to the Allies and disadvantages to the Germans, if it could be achieved.

Securing the Belgium coast to the Dutch frontier would capture all of the Belgium ports used as submarine bases by the Germans. While the convoy system had recently been introduced at this stage of the war and was showing success in reducing the submarine threat, depriving the German Navy of its submarine bases in Belgium would make their job of waging the submarine offensive more difficult by extending sailing time from ports in Germany. This was the argument being put forward by the Admiralty, although they were probably overstating the case.

A more significant advantage was the potential to turn the German right flank and offer a more direct route into Germany. Provided the British Army could advance on a sufficiently wide front, in order to provide a subsequent position with some depth, and secure the Belgium coast to the Dutch border (an advance of some 70km) this would give the Allies the advantage of sitting on and to the rear the German right flank. They would then be in a position from which to threaten the German lines of communication in Belgium and the rear of the German line immediately south of them, as well as having a shorter route by which to threaten or invade German territory and their industrial base in the Ruhr. Were the Allies to actually reach German territory this would have a direct impact on the German political and social scene, and capture of the Ruhr would have a disastrous effect on German war production. Such an advance into Belgium, however, would extend the front line for both armies and the only advantage in this instance would be if the Germans had less manpower with which to man that line than the Allies had. If this were so, they would have been stretched to do so more than the Allies, thus weakening their line and reserves along the Western Front. Thus the advantages of seeking a decision in Flanders were considerable.

Importantly, the first strategic objective would also facilitate the second. These threats to the German right flank, and Germany itself, would certainly draw the Germans into fighting hard to forestall them and to regain any ground that was lost by employing costly counter-attacks (as actually occurred). If the Allies were successful, there was no real opportunity for the Germans to withdraw north for any great distance and maintain a straight front anchored on the sea, due to the Dutch border being at their backs. Thus fighting hard to retain this sensitive area would satisfy the Allied objective of wearing down the German Army to the point of exhaustion. To do this without exhausting oneself was the key issue.

Turning now to the linkages between strategic objectives, operational objectives and tactics. Before strategic objectives of Roulers and the Belgium coast could be taken it was absolutely necessary to secure the operational objective of the whole ridge running from the Gheluvelt Plateau to Passchendaele. Haig recognized this had to be the priority effort of the initial offensive. On 28 June in discussing the offensive with Gough (5th Army Commander) he wrote: “ I urged the importance of the right flank. It is my opinion vitally important to occupy and hold the ridge west of Gheluvelt and cover our right flank and then push along it to Broodseinde … the advance should be limited until our right flank has really been secured on this ridge”. The question of whether Gough gave sufficient weight to this portion of the battlefield is debatable.

Wearing down the German Army at a faster rate than the Allies’ own armies, and being capable of making the tactical advances needed to secure the various operational objectives, and consequently securing the strategic advantages offering, was a matter of developing superior tactics. The successful tactics had to enable the Allies to capture ground and hold it against German counter attacks at a higher cost in manpower to the Germans than to the Allies. IMO, Plumer demonstrated these tactics at the Battles of Messines, Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde. But these tactics depended on good weather and dry ground, as occurred in the above four battles. Unfortunately for the British, abnormally high rainfall for the area occurred in August and October- November. The August rains in 1917 were twice the average rainfall for that month and this had a negative impact on the British offensive.


Cheers
Chris

Let me say at the outset I do not have a view on the 'butchers/bunglers vs unrecognised strategic genius' debate. What I would say is that you need to evaluate different historical accounts. To do this you need to appreciate the sources the historians used and the context in which they were written.

Winter, whose work on Haig you have been recommended to read, has an entirely different starting point to the majority of Western Front historians. His view, as I understand it, is that the Official History and the sources it used, were written not as an objective, balanced account of the conduct of the war, but as a justification of its management aimed at the millions in Britain who had lost fathers, sons, brothers and lovers. This need intensified in the 30s when it became clear that Germany was coming back for seconds and that their sacrifices had possbily been in vain.

In other words, the Official History, is to quote a currently popular phrase, a 'sexed up' version of history designed to propagate a justification for the war, its conduct and the slaughter which took place. And of course, with all this, came a defence for Haig. This view looked rather paranoid and ridiculous in the early 1990s when Winter first published, but today ... ?

To counter this Winter did not use the standard UK sources, regarding these as being irredeemably tainted through editing and censorship to produce a politically correct version of the conduct of the war. Instead he went to those places where the censorship process could not reach such as Australia, Canada and private papers in the UK. Lay aside the question of whether or not you agree with him or not, if he uses different sources he is going to come up with a different story.

Winter's book is, again as far as I understand it, based on his Ph.D. thesis which he submited to Oxford University. His examiner or his tutor was Norman Stone, one of the most distinguished names in WW1 history. It has been through an academic quality control process. Therefore, far from being discredited it has actually been accredited in a way in which few of his opponents works have.

I am not saying that Winter's analysis is correct - as I say I do not have a view. But you do need to understand the origins, aims and context of his work and the same is true of any historian. They all have axes to grind.

Haig is, and will remain, a controversial figure. The view of him which you will receive here and on related forums, called 'revisonism', is not popular. That's not to say that it is wrong, it's just not the dominant view. It's right that you should be exposed to different perspectives.

Keep in mind, too, that history is very 'faddy' and that what goes around, comes around. I have no doubt that at this very minute there is some young researcher working away in the bowels of some university library (but not Sheffield or Birmingham) on the defintive book of the history of WW1 which will 'prove' beyond any reasonable doubt that the war was conducted by butchers and bunglers and that Tommy was a lion led by donkeys ... . And that it will be published just it in time for the 100th anniversary of the war's outbreak.

Have fun.

Erudite, perceptive, and absolutely spot on. This is sound advice, Ashley.

The relationship between sources, both primary and secondary, is an interactive process. It is also a vital part of the interpretive process IMHO. Treat all sources with the same amount of suspicion - including the underlying and prevailing ideologies of the period in which the sources were produced. This applies to other national and official histories alongside those published in Britain in the interwar period.

Good Luck
Dave

Lets be clear about this. Winter did not merely claim to have used material removed, deleted, ignored and 'bent' from and in the official record in Britain. He did not merely re-evaluate. He did make a highly specious case that the Official Histories were 'trimmed' to prove British greatness. Any careful reading of the OHs will show this to be wrong. There is masses of justifoed criticsm (and one must remember that the main objective of the OH was as a teaching tool for soldiers - not as history for the masses).
I believe that Winter developed his very own axe and ground it.
Many of his claims about records removed and etc have been shown to be untrue - he apparently did not find or use them. His work is far more than one of re-interpretattion it is deeply flawed by accident or design I feel.
Now whether having Norman Stone as your guide and mentor is good or bad - or relevant - I really do not know. His book on the Great War in the East impressed me when he read it, but I have read little else by him and I understand that he is considered to be a contraversialist.
Now that's all fine, but the key is that Winter has been shown to be incorrect in many of his important claims by a number of historians for whom I have considerable regard. His work is I believe dangeroulsy misleading and not worthy of quote. All of which, really is very sad.
I found, and find, Deaths Men and his book about the war in the air well worthwhile, well researched and well written. For what its worth, I frequently researched at Wandsworth Library (which had a massive collection of Great War volumes drawn from public libraries all over London which had to get rid of them and chose and archive speciality). That was where Winter did much of his research and the staff considered him a assiduous researcher.
Let me make it clear I do not have a thing about Winter - other than his Haig book is not historically trustworthy.
To close I do not believe Haig to be the personification of military greatness but I remember John Terainne's words that Britain has only had three "Great Commanders - those who beat the main force of main enemy on the main field of battle - Marlborough, Wellington and Haig. I often wondered why he excluded Nelson.
Finally thank you for your kind comments. But remember "regardez le Crunchy".

"Winter's book is, again as far as I understand it, based on his Ph.D. thesis which he submited to Oxford University. His examiner or his tutor was Norman Stone, one of the most distinguished names in WW1 history. It has been through an academic quality control process. Therefore, far from being discredited it has actually been accredited in a way in which few of his opponents works have."

Really? I must have missed something on my journey then.

Aye

Tom McC

I may well be mistaken but I thought Death's Men was based on Winter's PhD thesis, which BTW is a very good book. Winter was a prolific researcher but the issue is not about the depth and breadth of his research; it is about his misuse of sources and the quality of his work. He stands accused of distorting and altering the sources he found and manufacturing quotes to support his case. This is what destroyed his reputation, a falsification of sources - not the opinions he expressed.

Dr Jeffery Grey, a highly regarded Australian historian, checked many of Winter's sources in the book and found many distortions and misquotes, which he briefly wrote in a letter as follows.

Much of Winter's claim to authority and originality lay in his alleged use of archival materials held in Australia , and on this your readers may find further comment useful.
A check of the documents cited in the Heyes papers, collected for C.E.W.Bean in London in the 1920s, and in the correspondence between Bean and the British Official Historian, Sir James Edmonds, not only fails to substantiate Winter's claims but reinforces still further Barnett's criticisms of his capacity as a researcher.
Space does not permit a full listing, but such a catalogue would include the misidentification of documents, misquotation of documents, the running together of passages from different documents without identification in any form that the material is from different sources, and misdating of material.
The most serious shortcomings are to be found in his handling of the Bean-Edmonds correspondence. Here Winter misdates a letter by seventeen years in order to support his conspiracy case against Edmonds , and his 'quotations' from the correspondence must be viewed with considerable distrust. To give but one example, on page 31 he cites Edmonds to the effect that 'before 1914 the army was very feudal in its status and...great personages still exercised the higher patronage.' What Edmonds actually wrote to Bean, in June 1929, was: 'I can't help feeling that you think the BEF of 1914 was still the feudal army it was in 1899 before the South African War...Efficiency, not birth, alone counted!' A reading of the correspondence in toto undermines still further the complexion which Winter chooses to place on Edmonds endeavours.
Dr. Jeffrey Grey of the University of New South Wales (Letter, TLS, 9 August 1991)

If Winter's PhD was published as Haig's Command, these errors and distortions reflect badly on Norman Stone's professionalism as an examiner. Or perhaps Stone was not able to access Winter's sources because they were in Australia and Canada, which greatly assisted Winter in not being found out. Unfortunately for him, Grey lives in Canberra and was able to access the Australian sources.

Winter has a conspiratorial approach to history - he argues that the sources from which previous histories have been written are tampered-with and often entirely rewritten versions of the truth – e.g., the daily war diaries kept by all army units were often altered by the cabinet office, cabinet war minutes were rewritten, and Winter even claims that the war's official historian deliberately destroyed documents. The problem is of course, that the documents supposedly re-written would have taken an enormous effort; for the war diaries to have been re-written would have involved a massive cover-up the like of which the world has never seen. Winter's real problem is that he is unable to accept any document that does not support his pre-conceived views.

One has only to read his 25 April 1915 to see similar distortions and accusations, but above all it displays a lack of knowledge of how military operations are planned and conducted. Again, the conspiracy theory runs rife and beggars belief, but it is the only way he can sustain his argument.

The irony is that Winter has been found to do what he accuses the British authorities of doing - falsifying the record. Again, I stress this is why he is discredited, not because of the opinions he espouses.

Cheers
Chris

This review by Donald Cameron Watt in the Sunday Times book section 1991 offers a respected historian's view of Winter appropos Haig's Command. It also discusses why the British Official History was commissioned rather than a " 'sexed up' version of history designed to propagate a justification for the war, its conduct and the slaughter which took place", which says more about the commentator than the histories themselves.

There is one kind of graduate student whom academic supervisors know and dread. The student becomes devoured by the idea that everyone who has written on their theme before them is wrong. Their thesis ceases to be a site on which to construct a personally designed building but becomes, instead, an arena in which all their predecessors and the subject of their study must do battle. The great R H Tawney referred to such students as exponents of the "gladiatorial school" of historical research.

Denis Winter belongs to that school. But he has added to his obsession (the villainy of Field Marshal Earl Haig) the conviction that disfigures so much amateur historiography - that when other historians disagree, or the archives that are so selectively plundered do not support the writers' belief, the subject must be the victim of a conspiracy or a cover-up. Winter's conviction of this began with Earl Haig himself and the official historians of the first world war and has continued across those generations to this very day. Apparently, he thinks the innocent civil servant who heads the Cabinet Office historical section, the professional historians of the army historical branch, not to mention the trained archivists of the Public Record Office, the National Library of Scotland and half a dozen other major collections of private papers in Britain, are still conspiriatorially linked in denying him the final startling proof he desires of Haig's vanity and villiany.

The defense of Haig's military reputation can probably be left to the one student of his work whom Winter, perhaps wisely, does not mention in his book, John Terrain. For myself, I have never felt quite happy with Terraine's arguments. Books such as C S Forester's 'The General' struck too deeply into my imagination at an impressionable age. I am still half-convinced that a bolder admiral than du Robeck, or a more adventurous commander than Sir Ian Hamilton, might have broken through the Dardanelles, opened the route to southern Russia, and perhaps rolled back the armies of Austro-Hungary, thus sparing us Passchendaele, if not the Somme. But it did not happen; and I do not feel the need, as Winter apparently does, to suggest that Kemal Ataturk's reputation, in the defence of Gallipoli, was invented by a British colonial historian writing in 1931 at the behest of the Foreign Office. How does Winter think Ataturk ever emerged as the leader of the Turkish nationalists in 1918-19, if he were just one of a dozen Turkish divisional commanders?

It is one of the hallmarks of Winter's sort that they pass only too easily from the task of discovering historical reality to writing the scripts for Soviet-style show-trials. In such a task it does not matter whether they paint a consistent picture or not. Thus the architect of modern Turkey becomes an unimportant ninny. And Sir James Edmonds, the first official British historian of the western front, who was an unimpressed contemporary of Haig's at Camberley Staff College, becomes an egregious toady to Haig as soon as Winter turns to his official history.

In doing so, Winter shows himself curiously ignorant (as in so many other things important to his story but peripheral to his obsession) of the by-no-means secret grounds on which the Cabinet Office, or rather its secretary, Lord Hankey, initiated a series of official histories of the first world war and the terms which were binding on the authors commissioned to write them. They were to form the basis for the study of the experiences of the war as a guide to preparations for another, and the organisation of policy if it should happen. The official historians were bound to consult the memories of those whose actions they were examining. They knew, as Winter apparently does not, that written records are faulty, that they are frequently not composed clearly or with the historian in mind, that they often omit what is common ground to both writer and recipient, and that a simple question from the author may bring clarity to obscurity.

The pity is that, hidden in Winter's book are the makings of a fascinating psychological study of Haig, a study of an intelligent, desperately ambitious soul, more than a little insecure and uncertain, voluntarily entombed in a mould for which certainty, unquestioning decisiveness and a capacity for carrying unbearable strain and responsibility are regarded by all as essential. Winter thinks Haig was far from up to the job, but he has not begun to explain why Haig wanted it, how he held it down and how he got away with it. Such a book might have helped our understanding. All we get instead are mumbles about the Establishment "looking after its own" - the usual cop-out.

Winter should know that the calling of a historian is a noble one, and not to be confused with that of a public prosecutor of those who have gone on to face a much more personal and final judgement.

Yes, Tom, I think you probably have.

My point - which appears to have been lost - is not that Winter was right in his assessment of the veracity of 'official sources'; nor that it was competently conducted. It was simply that once a historian goes down the route of consulting other sources, then he or she will write a different story.

And Winter's story chimes with other accounts. Haig revisionism is a minority view. It is voluble, articulate and well-informed here and in related forums, but it has few supporters outside. Ask the man in the street or in the pub for an opinion about the conduct of the First World War and they will reply - if they reply at all - using the discourse of Laffin, Winter and Clark. Look in your local branch of Waterstone's or Blackwell's. Winter's books, all available in Penguin, fly off the shelf, while the major tomes of Haig revisionism lie in a small, undisturbed pile in the remainders basket. That's not to say that they are 'wrong', badly written or historically flawed; rather that they simply do not resonate. Laffin, Clark et al hold sway in the court of public opinion and for that reason, if no other, their arguments have to be addressed by students like Ashley. They cannot simply be waved away as 'discredited' or 'manufactured history', as though there was such a thing as 'non-manufactured history'.

I note that there are many critical reviews of Winter's work quoted. I would have thought that in the interests of balance, objectivity and fair play some of the many favourable comments could have been cited.

Tawney and gladiators. I don't think that Tawney was entirely critical of them. He would recognise that gladiators or would-be iconoclasts have the potential to move ideas along, and that the alternative of following in the footsteps of great men usually leads to quite conservative and ultimately sterile views.

Of course Tawney was a Sergeant in the Manchesters who attacked Mametz on 1 July 1916. He was badly wounded there. Therefore he may not have been entirely unsympathetic to the view of the conduct of the war presented by Lafffin, Clark and Winter.

Hedly,
With the greatest respect read again the reasons for the criticism of Winter's approach. Many of his conclusions are based not on fact but apparent falsification of the record. This is hardly a different interpretation. The fact remains that Haig's Command has been proven beyond doubt by respected academics to be grossly innacurate. Thus it should not be used as source material - I think this what some of us are saying (and offering proof of).
Best regards
david

So what you are saying Hedley, is that because the man in the street resonates with Winter, Laffin and Clark and that Penquin et al keep publishing their work, this bestows on them the mantle of an accurate account and therefore they must be believed? If this is the case then historical accuracy has no place and as Henry Ford said " History is bunk". Thus Azza need do nothing more than manufacture a view of Haig that bears no resemblance to the truth?

Popularity does not make them accurate and that is the issue we have been discussing. You seem be suggesting that distortion of the facts is legitimate as long as it sells books.

Cheers
Chris