The Great War
In his Age of Extremes Eric Hobsbawm wrote: "The
destruction of the past or rather of the social mechanisms that linked one's
contemporary experience to that of earlier generations is one of the most
characteristic and eerie phenomena of the late twentieth century."
Now the Age of Extremes is an uncannily prescient
book; written at a time (1994) when American neo-conservatives were crowing
about the "end of history". Hobsbawm, old Marxist that he was,
correctly saw that with the collapse of the Eastern bloc a world brought into
existence as a result of the Great War was coming to an end. The new world
would be fundamentally different: not Eurocentric; globalised economically; and
characterised by "the disintegration of the old patterns of human and social relationships...".
Now that we are in the second decade of the 21st century
some things are becoming clearer. And Hobsbawm's characterisation of the period
from 1914 to 1991 as the "short twentieth century" - a unified era
brought into existence as a direct result of the forces unleashed by the Great
War now seems blindingly obvious. No Great War: no October Revolution in
Russia; no Stalin; no Nazi Germany; no World War Two; no Holocaust; no Cold
War.
The centenary of the war has
produced a flood of new books. Many of these focus on the causes of the
war and
reengage with the debate as to whether the war was inevitable or a colossal
snafu and the
related debate as to whether Germany was really to blame. The
consensus that developed following the publication in 1961 of Fritz Fischer's Germany's
War Aims in the First World War - that Germany
precipitated the war in
order to pre-empt Russia's growing economic and military power has come
under
attack in recent years and does suffer from the fact that no coherent war aims
can be found to
have existed prior to September 1914.
In 1914 - The Year the World Ended Paul Ham argues that "the Great War, in
short was an avoidable
exercise in collective stupidity...launched by
profoundly flawed ...men..." Ham is
a reliable guide in
most cases but this judgement seems a little glib. In The
War that Ended Peace Margaret
Macmillan
offers a more nuanced analysis based on a detailed survey of the
economic and political developments
in each of the main protagonists in the
generation leading up to the war. She emphasises how the
motivations and
historical experiences of each of the major players interacted to narrow
options and
make war more likely. Max Hasting's Catastrophe provides
a relatively concise overview of what he
describes as "the most complex series of happenings in history"
before moving on to a detailed account
of operations in the balance of 1914.
His view is that Germany and Austria bore primary responsibility
and that the
war had to be fought to prevent the Kaiserreich dominating continental
Europe.
The debate about the causes of
World War One is essentially impossible to resolve because each step in the
descent into the abyss was a necessary but not sufficient cause. Current events
in Europe do however
make one hope that the lead up to the war receives the
attention it deserves.
Once the war began its history
is necessarily military history and this can be something of an acquired
taste.
Partly that is because the subject matter - killing and destruction on an
industrialised scale - is
inherently repulsive. But on the other hand without
military history it would be impossible to
understand how the carnage went on
for four years. Nor would the societal dislocation that it caused be
explicable.
Les Carlyon’s Gallipoli is a well written conventional narrative
history which places the campaign in
its strategic context and provides
considerable information about Turkish as well as Allied motivation
and
objectives. Patsie Adam-Smith’s Anzacs is a history of the first AIF
with insights into matters such
as the comparative rates of venereal disease in
the allied armies. The Australians led the way in this
area as well as on the
battlefield. Somme Mud by EFP Lynch is the memoirs of an Australian infantry
man, written in 1921 but only recently rediscovered and published for the first
time. This appears to be
the genuine article – the forward is by the respected
military historian Bill Gammage – and is that rare
thing: a detailed first hand
account by an intelligent and thoughtful observer who somehow forced
himself to
confront and record the appalling reality he experienced.
The starting point for reading
on the first AIF and in many ways the originator of the Anzac ‘legend’ is
CEW
Bean’s Official History of the Australia in the war of 1914-1918. At
twelve volumes and in
amazing detail – often actions are recounted at the
platoon level with individuals being named -
this is
not for the faint hearted. Bean was not jingoistic and was
careful to discount exaggerated claims as to
Australian martial prowess but he
is also assiduous in finding admiring commentary from both allied and enemy
observers. The overall effect is somewhat adulatory. Bean also wrote an abridged
version of his history
Anzac to Amiens which is rather more
approachable.
A somewhat less uplifting impression is conveyed by The
Broken Years a selection of Australian soldier’s letters home, edited by
Bill Gammage, many of which depict the brutalising effect of incessant
slaughter on the correspondents. Particularly by 1918 the Australians hated the
enemy and exalted in their destruction. It was this hatred which seems to have
driven the Australians to perform so well in the critical battles of 1918.
Many of those battles were directed by an Australian – John
Monash. Roland Perry’s Monash: the Outsider who Won a War makes a pretty
big claim for its subject in its title. In March and April 1918 Australian
troops under the command of Monash, stopped the last great German offensive of
that war from taking Amiens and splitting the British and French armies. It was
the last throw of the dice for the Germans and it nearly came off. On 8 August of that year 100,000 Australian
troops, again commanded by Monash, and supported by Canadians, smashed the
German defences south of the Somme and
advanced 8 kilometers in two days. At least 6 German divisions were effectively
destroyed. Ludendorff, the German supreme commander called it his worst
experience of the war and thereafter became convinced the war was unwinnable.
Monash is a fascinating figure
on several levels. As a Jew of German birth he encountered real but
subtle
prejudice, particularly as he was promoted into the highest ranks of the army.
His outstanding
ability as an organiser, his considerable personal charm and
his ability to attract mentors, including
George V meant that none of this
detained him for long. But whether he won the war as Perry suggests
is
definitely open to debate. Like a lot of successful military commanders Monash
understood the value of public relations and one must be careful not to swallow
his PR whole.
John Laffin’s The Battle of
Hamel focuses on the first major set piece conducted by Monash which
prefigured his later successes and set the pattern for the defeat of the
German’s on the Western front.
British writers tend to be less effusive about Monash.
Indeed since the 1980s there has been the development of a revisionist school
which seeks to rehabilitate the reputation of the likes of Douglas Haig. Walter
Reid's Architect of Victory Douglas Haig makes the case for the
rationality of Haig's leadership and the centrality of his contribution to
devising the improved operational methods which eventually permitted the Allies
to break the stalemate in 1918.
Readers
of Patrick Lindsay’s Fromelles will struggle with this view. Frommelles
was the first battle in which Australians were involved on the Western Front
and was the a textbook example of the horrors of trench warfare. Over 5,000 of
the 7,000 attackers were casualties including over 2000 dead.
Les
Carlyon's The Great War is a sound over view of 1916 to 1918;
written from an Australian perspective it places it in the broader context of
the war's strategic and tactical evolution.
Because evolve it did. Contrary to the classic
image of repeated suicidal frontal attacks as shown in films such as Paths to Glory and All Quiet on the
Western Front, the commanders of both sides had grasped by the
end of 1914 that there was no point in committing infantry to wave attacks against
entrenched opponents. Over the next three years the respective protagonists
sought to develop techniques that would permit infantry to capture and hold
opposing trench systems. Many of the techniques that produced the Allied
breakthrough of August and September 1918 - the creeping barrage, smoke,
counter battery fire, and tanks were already in use by 1916. The problem was
that it took nearly two years of trial and error and the consequent appalling
casualties to perfect the combination.
In Beaten Down by Blood Michelle Bomford gives us a tightly focused
account of the First AIF’s last great battle in September 1918 at Mont St
Quentin Peronne. Bomford draws on eye witness accounts and battalion war
diaries and citations as well as the microscopic history of CW Bean to give a
detailed account of the battle.
There is
a brief but perceptive treatment of the military ‘strikes’ (usually called
mutinies) that followed the battle in late September and a balanced treatment
of whether the battle was militarily justified or as CW Bean alleged a product
of Monash’s thirst for military prestige. Bomford comes down on the side of
Monash and concludes the battle contributed to hastening the German withdrawal
to the Hindenburg line and materially shortened the war.
The Great War also generated a lot of literature albeit of
varying quality. The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry is a good
illustration of this. The work of Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert
Graves has stood the test of time but a lot of their compatriots produced
jingoistic doggerel. The war poets may not however be a reliable guide to how
the bulk of the population viewed the war. Atypical perhaps, but Robert Graves'
memoir Farewell to All That is a wonderful insight into the world of a
public school educated British officer. For a much less ambitious but still
valuable account of a "typical" Australian see An Anzac's Story by
Ron Kyle.
In the late 1920s novels drawing on war experience began to
be published. Ernst Junger's Storm of Steel gives a nihilistic German
perspective. Klaus Maria Remarque's All
Quiet on the Western Front is a far more perceptive book and of course a
classic of the genre. Flesh in Armour by Leonard Mann has some interest
for its candid descriptions of Australians in frontline combat but suffers from
being neither true history nor well written fiction. Frederic Manning's The
Middle Parts of Fortune is a similar attempt from a British perspective and
Generals Die in Bed by Charles Yale Harrison from the Canadian. The problem
can be seen in the cliché that war is 99 per cent boredom and one percent
terror. A novel that attempts to reproduce this experience cannot be truthful
without risking narrative momentum and acquiring an episodic, directionless
character.
One writer who has successfully negotiated this difficult
terrain is Pat Barker. Her magnificent Regeneration trilogy by combing
the stories of Owen, Graves and Sassoon with a hyper realistic depiction of the
front is a triumph.
The Great War continues to affect us in personal ways. The
development of Anzac Day as a response to a collective yearning for meaningful
national ritual; as opposed to a spree for returned soldiers, is only the most
obvious example. Then there are the direct effects. Had my great grandfather
not been killed in April 1917 my great grandmother would never have emigrated
from Scotland to Australia; someone else would be writing this article. Many
Australian families are still marked by the effects of the 250,000 casualties
(some 69,000 deaths) through the impact on our grand parents and parents.
The resurgence of interest in family history evident in both
television and on the internet is testimony to this and also suggests that
Hobsbawm may not have got everything right. The trick will be - and this is the
true role of history - to ensure that the past we rediscover is not merely a
fantasy designed to serve our contemporary narcissism.
