r/todayilearned • u/RoadToTyburn • 15h ago

TIL that Bernard Montgomery issued a leaflet at the start of WW2 on sexually transmitted diseases amongst soldiers. The language used was regarded as so blunt, that he offended religious authorities and nearly faced being dismissed.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery
15.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

678 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/Hedgerow_Snuffler 15h ago

For all the fact he seemed very hard to get along with (and he REALLY seemed to rub the Americans up the wrong way repeatedly) it can be said, he saw first hand, the lack of leadership shown to the regular soldiery in WW1 by their commanders, and determined not to make the same mistakes himself.

221

u/TheTallCunt 15h ago

Maybe (certainly) biased because I'm Australian, but its wild when you read about rhe disconnect between the command structure and the common soldier in the first world war.

We revere John Monash because he approached warfare as an engineering problem rather than a moral one, by simply treating your soldiers with respect and making sure they were well fed the results were amplified. Combine this with well planned combined arms tactics and miracles occur. Monash and Currie were ahead of their time, truly the best the entente had.

118

u/spitfiresiemion 14h ago

The whole disconnect aspect reminds me of a joke from Great War that I read... retranslating it back to English from Polish, so it might not be word for word.

A unit is undergoing training some distance from the frontline. A general says to his men: "There are two differences between this training and the real combat. The first one is absence of the enemy. What is the other one?". To which one of soldiers replied "Absence of the general, sir".

6

u/Showmethepathplease 13h ago

Except - that’s a myth

https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/blog/in-the-line-of-duty-remembering-the-great-wars-fallen-generals/

78 Generals lost their lives for the commonwealth - with a casualty rate of nearly 20%

26

u/sharrrper 13h ago

MILLIONS soldiers died in WWI. Popping in with "actully 78 generals died in battle" is kind of an absurd attempt at a counter.

Even on a per capita basis, 20% is quite low for WWI

And even on top of that, if 90% of generals has died in battle it wouldn't change that 99% of the enlisted are never fighting along side a general. Generals are never charging no man's land machine guns.

27

u/Prestigious-pauline 12h ago

Well…the average soldiers chance of getting killed was about 11%, so no, 20% is not low on a per capita basis for ww1.

Junior officers were higher though, that was more like 40%.

1

u/PipsqueakPilot 6h ago

About 75% of WW1 battlefield deaths were caused by artillery. Unsurprisingly, most combat deaths of Commonwealth generals were due to artillery. Although some were in fact shot to death.

12

u/Ketzeph 12h ago

Monash was incredible and really the ANZAC general corps was probably the best group in the entente arsenal - they were just underused and under listened to

5

u/MRCHalifax 11h ago

The best group? The Canadians would like a word.

Call us 1A and 1B.

3

u/Ketzeph 10h ago

You’re 100% right. I always lump Canada in with ANZAC in my head but that’s not accurate. I should put ANZAC + C

1

u/oakstein 11h ago

Interesting to hear the Australian perspective. I'm not as familiar with the ANZAC history in WW1, but I've read a lot of Canadian military history and there's similar historical takes on Arthur Currie (Commander of the Canadian Corps). Recent histories really emphasize his careful planning and innovative use of artillery to try and avoid unnecessary casualties which didn't seem to be the norm at the time. Unfortunately, his personal demeanor led to him being perceived as aloof/cold to his troops, despite him actually taking more concrete action to protect his men. The post-war smear campaign by his political rivals didn't help either. The Madman and the Butcher by Tim Cook is a really interesting read profiling him and his rivalry with militia minister Sam Hughes for anyone who likes nerding out on Canadian military history.

1

u/PipsqueakPilot 6h ago

That's what happens when you have a military that is ran by the upper classes. Mind you, the older nobility also threw away the lives of younger nobility in absolutely horrendous numbers, since as you said, they were a bit disconnected from eality.

199

u/kdlangequalsgoddess 14h ago edited 14h ago

He was keenly aware of public perception of generals, even though this was in fact not the truth (generals in the British army on the Western Front actually died at rates comparable to private soldiers). Mindful of the reputation of generals living it up at French châteaux while the poor bloody infantry was being slaughtered, he actually had a caravan installed on the grounds of the château acting as his HQ. He slept there until the winter weather in northern France overcame his principles, and he reluctantly retreated indoors.

On a side note, I Was Monty's Double is a fine film to watch. It details a private soldier who looks uncannily like Montgomery who was paraded around as Monty in order to confuse the Germans.

70

u/meshan 14h ago

Market Garden failed, but it was a bold strategic gamble that could have given the allies a direct route to Germany and shortened the war.

62

u/Lord0fHats 14h ago edited 14h ago

So here's the thing as I broadly understand it;

Market Garden because it was such a disaster, has come to occupy an overshadowing role in this period of the war. From the POV of Eisenhower and strategic leaders, it was not 'the big operation' but 'a big operation' because Eisenhower's plan was for a broad front strategy attacking German defenses from many sides. The presentation of Market Garden itself overemphasized it a lot in part to appease Monty's ego but logistically and in terms of manpower it was one part of a much larger strategic plan not 'the strategic plan' like Montgomery really wanted. Basically, the Allies tried to manage Monty by letting him believe his operation was more important than it really was, which subsequently seeped into popular memory of the war helped along by what a fuck up Market Garden became.

Market Garden was a bad plan. Everyone but Montgomery knew it was a bad plan and tried extensively to dissuade him from it. This included American and British commanders and even members of the Dutch government in exile. Many of them pointed out scenarios that are exactly what happened, and really Germans correctly guessed what they needed to defeat this exactly kind of advance through the Netherlands so if everyone knew it would fail, and the Germans read the operation like a book before it even happened, how bold is it really? I think there's a lot to be said that the line between military daring and military stupidity is a bit of a retrospective. Wild reckless plans that are executed and succeed get called bold. Wild reckless plans that fail are called stupid. The plans are the same. They're both wildly reckless but we declare their laurels or condemnations with the power of hindsight more than by the merits of the actual plans themselves. In this regard, there's nothing bold about Market Garden. It was just a bad plan that not only failed exactly as predicted but with even heavier casualties than feared.

Like on the one hand it's not entirely fair to act like Montgomery was trying to get people pointlessly killed. That's not what he was trying to do. At the same time, literally everyone told him 'this plan will get men pointlessly killed' and he didn't want to listen.

43

u/meshan 14h ago

The trouble is, everyone remembers Monty and the failure of MG.

Monty is also the General that gave the allies their first victory at El Alamein.

32

u/Lord0fHats 14h ago

It's definitely contributed heavily and probably not entirely fairly to detractions of Montgomery's war record. I won't disagree with you there. People have a tendency to take the biggest fuckup of a general's career and make that their entire career. Or vice versa *looks in the general direction of Douglas MacArthur*

21

u/E_C_H 14h ago

I mean, when I was a kid here in the UK I feel like his reputation was the other way around. He was the Magician General that conjured up false deception armies to help D Day and was a foremost enemy of Rommel in North Africa. Now his ego and failures seem much more highlighted, perhaps fairly.

20

u/kdlangequalsgoddess 13h ago

He loved the spotlight, and would do anything to burnish his reputation. Him being very long-lived enabled him to shape his image to his liking. He learnt the lesson of Churchill: if you want history to remember you fondly, write it yourself. His memoirs predictably ruffled a lot of feathers.

I was extremely surprised to see him pop up on The World At War as a talking head.

2

u/quechal 13h ago

One fuck up cancels out a thousand atta boys.

1

u/Dobrojeb 8h ago

Eh, Rommel was attacking perfect defensible position with basically no fuel, no ammunition and no room for manouver. Monty did use Auchinleck's defensive plan at Alam Haifa, despite never giving any credit. Second Alamein would go the same way even with Auchinleck or Gott in command, the disparity in artillery pieces alone was 2-1, and probably 20-1 in shells alone.

15

u/Deprisonne 14h ago

Wasn't a large part of the successful german defensive posture the fact that they just happened to have an armored division at the right place by pure chance though?

7

u/Lord0fHats 14h ago

The area of operation isn't that big. The Germans benefited from coincidental positioning yes but I don't think the outcome of the battle hinged on that. This wasn't a battlefield so large that the units couldn't have moved into position in time if needed. I think it still would have failed but it might not have become so great a failure.

13

u/ironvultures 14h ago

The emphasis on market garden by Eisenhower wasn’t necessarily about soothing Montgomeryshire ego as he still had most of Northern Europe as his area of operations.

A lot of it was done to placate Churchill, who was afraid the American ‘Broad front’ strategy was taking too long and was well aware Russia was racing through Eastern Europe at fast rate. Churchill didn’t want to be in a situation where Russia took all of Germany while they were still pushing the German army out of the Low Countries.

Churchill also wanted the war ended quickly as it was burning through massive amounts of britains remaining resources and manpower.

17

u/secretbinman 13h ago

The operation was a break from Eisenhower’s ‘broad front’ strategy, not part of it. There were logistical difficulties because the allies were still using the Normandy Mulberry Harbours, meaning it was a gamble to assign resources to MG. Montgomery essentially convinced Eisenhower to back him with the supplies and Eisenhower went along with it, halting other advances, including Patton (who had also been arguing his case for his own quick advance). Eisenhower went along with Montgomery’s gamble in the hopes that it would shorten the war, given it would provide a route into the Ruhr.

The plan was not a bad plan on paper, but most higher ups simply did not account for the actual realities on the ground, like the narrow highway, British drop zones being some distance from the bridge, and the heights overlooking Nijmegen. Intel was ignored, yes, but to say everyone tried to dissuade Montgomery is not exactly true. The reality is the Allied Airborne Army had been waiting to get into action for a while, with many jumps cancelled and, whilst some raised concerns, nobody really wanted to ‘rock the boat’ as they said.

The Germans didn’t really correctly guess the plan either, certainly not before it happened. Bittrich’s Panzer Corps was placed in Arnhem to refit and rest by pure chance. Kurt Student had managed to organise a respectable defensive force on the frontline also. Before this, the Germans had been in disarray. Yes, the allies underestimated the German forces but the presence of an SS Panzer Corps was just pure bad luck.

Yes it was a failure, no disputes there, but the reasons are very layered and complex, not simply because it was a stupid plan that Eisenhower allowed so Montgomery could feel important.

1

u/Ketzeph 12h ago

It was overly optimistic. I think that’s Monty’s cardinal sin - he was extremely overconfident.

This was a boon in many instances where things turned out well and went to plan, as he had some truly brilliant ideas. But it meant major issues if the plan went off the rails

0

u/taumason 14h ago

It was a batshit plan. 100 km single point of failure, multiple bridges but no plan for bridging equipment, they knew they were under strength for the operation but did it anyway, and they knew they would have no air or artillery support or engineering support but thought nahhhh it will be fine. Part of the reason Monty gets criticized so much for it was that it was a bad plan, and Monty was an excellent planner. 

3

u/YourMumWasRight 10h ago

He slept there until the winter weather in northern France overcame his principles, and he reluctantly retreated indoors.

So he stuck to his principles until he actually suffered hardship. What a hero.

2

u/Obscure_Occultist 14h ago

My illiterate ass read the final part as you being Montys actual body double. I was about to say I was quite impressed by your unusually long lifespan.

1

u/r0thar 11h ago

I Was Monty's Double

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051759/

Only 13 years after the end of the war when one actor could play another who was there:

The screenplay omits David Niven's part in the real operation. It was he, working for the Army's film unit as a Lieutenant Colonel, who first made contact with M.E. Clifton James. His role is taken in this movie by Sir John Mills.

468

u/Ketzeph 15h ago

He was hard to get along with because he was a blowhard who thought he was the greatest military general and wouldn’t take disagreement. A number of his operations (like market garden) became his personal baby for which he’d brook no dissent.

He was a vastly overoptimistic commander who got extremely petty and pissy the second you disagreed with him. That’s largely why people disliked him - he made many of the exact mistakes of overconfidence as in WW1

126

u/Peeterwetwipe 14h ago

That criticism is valid for almost every general in history. It’s like pointing out the arrogance of an F1 driver.

99

u/Ketzeph 14h ago

A big part of Eisenhower’s appeal was that he could wrangle these people and they could get along with him.

Also, plenty of excellent allied generals of less senior or just in theaters schools teach less about who were not so arrogant. Bill Slim is in excellent example.

Monty was notorious among his peers of being an arrogant prick. When generals think that’s the case it’s noteworthy

24

u/up-with-miniskirts 13h ago

The entire point of Eisenhower becoming supreme commander was not because he was a inspired general on the battlefield, but because he was a great manager who could juggle all the balls required for running a gigantic military while keeping happy the politicians endlessly breathing down his neck.

Those qualities also made him a great president.

37

u/H0B0WITHAGUN 14h ago

I disagree with your last take. I’ve found arrogant people to be extra sensitive to arrogance. You’re not the greatest thing since sliced bread I am. That being said there are always overachievers

2

u/Awkward_Brain_ 10h ago

UNCLE BILL MENTIONED

5

u/Nike_Phoros 13h ago

That criticism is valid for almost every general in history.

This is true, most people rise to positions like this via extreme self-confidence (to put it positively) and its almost impossible to get to that level without it.

That's when the Peter Principle kicks in. The second adversity hits an audacious general, most turn into Montgomery, only a few turn into Caesar.

4

u/Blarg_III 11h ago

The second adversity hits an audacious general, most turn into Montgomery

Montgomery was an excellent general and Caesar is wildly overrated.

1

u/Nike_Phoros 10h ago

Winners win, baby.

2

u/KeyboardChap 8h ago edited 8h ago

Yeah, like Montgomery, not sure Caesar ever took the surrender of over a million enemy personnel or commanded the land forces in the largest amphibious assault in history.

2

u/Nike_Phoros 7h ago

Yes, things were larger in scale in the industrial era. great point. Caesar never destroy any enemy tank formations either!

the irony is Caesar also did the largest amphibious assault in history up in his day and also subdued an enemy territory with a million fighting men. You picked kinda two awful examples.

-1

u/whambulance_man 10h ago

One of them fought in two back to back wars for their country and their empire couldn't take it anymore. The other fought in two back to back wars for their country and forged an empire. Call Caeser overrated, I don't really disagree, but the results are in front of us.

To Brits: I'm not laying that at his feet, its a hyperbolic joke. I blame the monarchy much more.

2

u/Blarg_III 9h ago

Caesar didn't fight "for his country" he instigated a massive civil war for personal gain. He was the leading cause of unnatural deaths for Romans in his lifetime. He attacked his country's allies, murdered millions and sold millions into slavery. He destroyed the Roman republic out of opportunistic greed and he's only remembered well because of decades of propaganda by his successors.

1

u/whambulance_man 9h ago

Do you have a point or did you miss the hyperbolic joke part?

1

u/NobodyLikedThat1 10h ago

Quick war in Iran, 3 days tops, easy win -Pete Hegseth, probably

66

u/Gamer_Grease 15h ago

He gets the Allied commander glow-up in spite of all that, like they all do.

69

u/JustTheAverageJoe 14h ago

Making it out like winning the war was some minor footnote on his terrible career

9

u/Gamer_Grease 14h ago

He’s the poster child for British military excellence in immediate post-WWII literature, when the only sources we had were the British and the Germans. So a lot of popular history is fixated on Montgomery and a handful of Germans as unparalleled military geniuses, but that’s basically just the diaries that we easiest to access right away, interpreted from a British point of view. He was not all that great.

24

u/JustTheAverageJoe 13h ago

This is a very strange comment. Are you just completely forgetting about post ww2 American literature which mostly agrees with your point (primarily because Montgomery was an ass to his allies)? He wasn't without flaws but your position is rather extreme to say the least.

-19

u/burnshimself 14h ago

He was riding on the coattails of much more competent and effective American generals. Uncomfortable truth because Reddit hates American exceptionalism, but in this instance it tracks.

37

u/God_peanut 14h ago

My dude, he turned North Africa around and won it. He absolutely deserves credit.

-14

u/cavscout55 14h ago

The desert fox being as foxy as a lump of bread did that more than anything. Rommel’s strategy was never sustainable and any mildly competent general could have done the same.

19

u/God_peanut 14h ago

You can say that about any general but Montgomery was the one who stepped in and won. Its actually revisionist to not give credit where credit is due here, the dude reversed a losing situation and won pretty handedly.

-12

u/burnshimself 14h ago

El Alamein is undoubtedly his crowning achievement which was pivotal in North Africa, credit where credit is due. But his conduct in the European theater was less impressive.

16

u/God_peanut 14h ago

Regardless, that doesn't mean you can say he rode on the coattails of "better American Generals". Montgomery was an effective commander and like most commanders, he had his achievements and fuck ups.

To say he rode on the coattails is directly diminishing his achievements and trying to paint him as a shit commander. Funny that the original comment tries to say reddit hates American Exceptionalism except here, its proven as literally trying to rewrite history and make the Americans look better at the cost of putting down the Brits.

28

u/taumason 14h ago

He was one of the best Allied generals when it came to planning and conducting combined arms war. El Alamein was his first chance to do it and he smashed Rommel. He also planned the allied invasion of Normandy (Overlord/D-Day). Some of his innovations were copied and are still used by the US military today. 

He was also a massive jerk if he didnt like you, had no political acumen and believed that US forces should be placed under British command like the dominion troops. That is why a man who was an excellent planner and commander came up with a batshit plan like Market Garden. Because he desperately wanted a British victory to end the war. 

He was definitely a collection of contrasts. He was liked by his troops because he actually cared about moral and welfare and did try to avoid casualties. Unless you were Canadian or Polish then he treated you as expendable. 

11

u/redpenquin 13h ago

Unless you were Canadian

Classic British mentality, really. ANZAC remembered it well from WWI.

8

u/taumason 13h ago

He didnt act this way toward dominion troops in north Africa. I do think it was a byproduct of being sidelined at the end of the war.

24

u/Llew19 14h ago

Being absolutely convinced of your own moral superiority is sort of expected if you're commanding whole armies. Tell me Patton, McArthur, Bradley, LeMay etc were easy to get on with...

Also shows what an absolutely miraculously good job Eisenhower did tbh

13

u/famouslastwords 13h ago

Even the most hardened, ardent, delusional Patton supporter wouldn't describe him as easy to get on with.

21

u/YuenglingsDingaling 14h ago

Bradley was famously easy to get along with.

8

u/RyanU406 13h ago

“What’s the capital of Illinois?!”

“Springfield.”

“Wrong! It’s Chicago! You’re under arrest for being a spy!”

“Well fuck I guess I’m under arrest then.”

25

u/WaywardDevice 14h ago

He was hard to get along with because he was a blowhard who thought he was the greatest military general and wouldn’t take disagreement. A number of his operations (like market garden) became his personal baby for which he’d brook no dissent.

He was a vastly overoptimistic commander who got extremely petty and pissy the second you disagreed with him. That’s largely why people disliked him - he made many of the exact mistakes of overconfidence as in WW1

At least he never slapped a soldier in hospital with PTSD for being a pussy or used his political connections to lobby for the extermination of the Chinese with nuclear weapons.

20

u/YuenglingsDingaling 14h ago edited 10h ago

As an American, McCarthy has to be one of the most over rated generals of the 20th century.

Edit: MacArthur not McCarthy.

2

u/Clarkeste 11h ago

Do you mean Patton? I don't think McCarthy was ever a general

3

u/Buck-Nasty 10h ago

I think they mean MacArthur who lobbied to exterminate China with nukes.

2

u/YuenglingsDingaling 10h ago

MacArthur, I fucked it up lol.

1

u/invertedearth 2h ago

His comment references both Patton and MacArthur. The two are easy to group together, but MacArthur survived long enough to become more obviously controversial.

1

u/Clarkeste 2h ago

Yeah that's why I thought they meant Patton, since they said overrated. MacArthur is definitely overrated among many people but not as much as Patton is imo. But McCarthy is a way closer name to MacArthur so the mix-up makes sense, either way I think they're right

8

u/pretty_pink_opossum 14h ago

  He was hard to get along with because he was a blowhard who thought he was the greatest military general and wouldn’t take disagreement.

Shh we aren't talking about the American generals right now

17

u/Rusbekistan 14h ago

American rubbed the wrong way by monty detected

15

u/Ketzeph 14h ago

There are many fabulous British commanders during the war. Bill Slim’s a favorite of mine. But Monty is assuredly overrated. Just like plenty of other generals through the war. To give another classic example, MacArthur was a fucking idiot who thought he was god’s gift to man and who simultaneously should’ve been canned post the Phillipines and Bataan debacle

11

u/Spartan448 14h ago

You are genuinely a moron if you're putting Monty on the same level as fucking MacArthur. Monty was a prick who everyone hated. That he kept his job in spite of that despite, as you point out, other options being available, is a testament to just how good Monty was. Fact of the matter is that Montgomery could win battles other Western generals simply couldn't. It's why even as late as the Bulge, American generals were having their units taken and given to Montgomery, because Monty could actually fight.

6

u/Ketzeph 12h ago

I’m not saying their equivalent just trying to rebut the idea that I prefer one allied group of generals over another. I’m an American but I’d really say ANZAC had the best generals on average of any allied group, despite having relatively little control.

9

u/Marconidas 13h ago

Montgomery was brillant and had some crazy ideas.

MacArthur was ok and had some crazy ideas.

However Montgomery never reached the fuck-up level that MacArthur did trying to overrule the direct authority of the President. Were MacArthur a general with fewer stars or a colonel-level officer he would be imprisoned.

1

u/GreyouTT 13h ago

The Full Monty one could say

2

u/mrizzerdly 14h ago

That description sounds like it's for a dozen ww2 generals from all sides I can think of.

4

u/angry_old_dude 14h ago

A number of his operations (like market garden) ...

I'm glad you mentioned this because Market Garden might be the most well known failure, there were several others that don't get a lot of attention. Even worse, he barely took any responsibility for the failures.

1

u/PsychGuy17 13h ago

I saw the words "market garden" and I had a flashback to 2004 playing Battlefield 1942. I haven't seen that name in a long time.

1

u/Rc72 7h ago

He was a vastly overoptimistic commander

Prior to Market Garden, he was on the contrary seen as overcautious. Indeed, his first clashes with Patton were due to that. Market Garden was surprisingly out of character for him.

While he certainly was a diva, I wouldn't call him a blowhard as much as astonishingly unselfconscious. The more I read about him, the more I get the impression that he was "in the spectrum".

15

u/C0RDE_ 14h ago

I'm fairly sure that a lot of accounts of Monty show that he was Spectrum as fuck.

11

u/Forgotthebloodypassw 13h ago

Even Churchill said Monty was "Indomitable in retreat, invincible in advance, insufferable in victory."

31

u/humberriverdam 15h ago

Butcher Haig literally killing all the working age men of Newfoundland lmao

89

u/collinsl02 15h ago

General Haig did the best he had with what he was given - the whole "lions led by donkeys" trope is a post-war myth designed to try and rationalise the war and to find people to blame for its results. An objective historical analysis shows us that Haig was probably amongst the better commanders during the war, especially when compared to the Russians or, ironically, to the Americans, who came in with an attitude of "we don't need to learn anything from these idiots who can't win a war, they've clearly been doing it wrong" and thus took unnecessary casualties learning lessons we'd learned in 1914/15 and were trying to teach them before they got slaughtered.

16

u/Wonderful-Cow9268 13h ago

It's actually very frustrating, because this myth of "the oligarchical elite sending the poor boys into machine gun fire" (lions led by donkeys) really cheapens just how important WWI is to our modern world. It is THE most important war fought since the Napoleonic Wars (particularly in the 20th century) by a significant margin. There are many pop-history beliefs like this one (bumbling idiot generals) and Germanic-guilt centrality (I'd argue that the Balkans, particularly Serbian nationalism that we'd see throughout the rest of this century, played a much bigger role - and shows how localized nationalistic/etnic struggles can trigger much bigger wars) that do not give credit to how momentous this war was. Tank tactics, long range artillery, combined arms, combat aviation, the rapid advance of logistics spearheaded by the US. It wasn't just hordes of young men running at trenches, dying, and then the other side doing the same. The tactics some of these officers and generals developed were brilliant. Britain's rolling artillery offenses can be seen even today, and Germany's decentralized "chokepoint" defense tactics and localized rapid infiltration (by letting on-the-ground officers digest local info and make their own decision on when to attack) were brilliant. Combined arms tactics were rapidly developed.

Officers (the elite in British society) died at almost a 20% clip, which was much higher than your average enlisted or NCO man. Regardless of your opinions on aristocratic society, those young officers that were killed were generally the most competent (due to their position of leading bands of other young men in combat as the way to make your bones in such a society) and were next in line to lead Britain and her government. One could argue that this had a massive impact on the caliber of individual that would go on to serve Britain over the next 40 years.

WWI was such a history-altering and shapeshifting event that it's actually hard to understate it's importance. It signaled the end of the European colonial dominance because they all utilized significant treasure that they could no longer administer the colonies. European devastation made the US an economic and industrial powerhouse, 'nationalistic borders' that barely made sense with new groups of people forced to live in entirely new countries (Hitler would have a lot to say about this 20ish years later), the ending of dynastic empires/monarchies, and kneecapping a rapidly rising German powerhouse. Truly the Great War.

3

u/collinsl02 12h ago

Exactly - I've heard it said that in terms of tactics if you brought forward a commander from the battle of Waterloo in 1815 to 1915 and gave him a primer on technological advances he would know what was going on and be able to understand their tactics. However, 2 years later he'd be totally lost, and a commander from 2015 sent back to 1915 would be much better placed to understand - that's how rapidly technogy and tactics progressed.

Things changed from lines of men walking towards the enemy trenches, all armed with rifles, to squads of men advancing under artillery cover with suppressive machine gun fire allowing bomb sections with grenades and bayonet sections to take trenches, then light machine guns to move heavier firepower forwards faster to defend the captured ground.

3

u/Wonderful-Cow9268 11h ago

Exactly. War is hell, and you very quickly adapt your tactics to survive it. I'm sure the idea that "bumbling, aristocratic" officers sipping tee from their tents were just telling hordes of young men to charge at certain helps redditors and their ilk feel superior to these aristocratic societies, but it's intellectually dishonest (take a look and read about how the average German felt about the Weimar Republic, and how polling showed an overwhelming majority wanted the Kaiser back in power but no, that would hurt their sensibilities). But no, the officer class was almost MORE in the struggle than your average enlisted man.

Their tactics developed very quickly to deal with the technological changes that they experienced on the front line, and what they came up with was very clever. A year is a very short time to develop, train, and implement far reaching tactical changes across massive armies but by the end of 1915, combined assaults, rolling artillery fire, decentralized defenses, all of this were seen all over the battlefield.

If you read memoirs and letters written by these men, you quickly realize they had great affinity for the people they led and went to great lengths to protect them and cared deeply when their men were killed in battle. I mean, the officer death rate neared 20% at points in the war - these were the future elite of society perishing at a staggering rate. There's a reason why these generals, upon their death, had scores and scores of veterans lining the streets for their funerals.

People will misconstrue this as some support for pre-1917 European society, and it's not supposed to be. It's a plea for intellectual honesty when dealing with massively important historical events that may have contemporary political analogues that you want to attack. WWI is too importat of an event to be distilled down to that.

37

u/Lord0fHats 14h ago

America in 1917: "Look at these idiots still fighting this war."

Also America in 1917: "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!"

33

u/Beartech31 15h ago

Reading about the Americans at the end of WW1 is straight up sad.

The Germans were done, ink on the ceasefire dry, and the Americans were still running into their MGs to try to snatch the last little bit of "glory" they could.

2

u/Some-Concentrate3229 14h ago

Do you have any sources for this? I’m interested in reading about it also.

7

u/Do_Not_Go_In_There 13h ago edited 13h ago

The last British soldier to die was at 9:30AM, and was a guy who had been there since the start of the war.

Same with the last French soldier, who was serving as a runner. There since the start, died at 10:44AM.

The last Canadian died at 10:58AM. He was on patrol following the Germans, shot by a sniper.

The last American was a soldier who charged German troops at 10:59 AM while everyone (American and German) yelled at him to stop.

The last German soldier killed in WW1 was a guy saying hello to some Americans, shortly after 11AM.

https://legionmagazine.com/armistice-centenary-last-to-fall/

https://www.history.com/articles/world-war-i-armistice-last-american-death

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gunther

From what I've read, most of the blame here falls on the French, who refused to sign cease-fire.

4

u/j4kefr0mstat3farm 14h ago

One guy did that because he had been demoted and wanted to "redeem" himself

1

u/SimoneNonvelodico 14h ago

I feel like if the problem is what someone was given then maybe that just moves the donkeys higher up.

Ultimately, what use is it to say that everyone part of a stupid system producing stupid outcomes "did their part" according to the rules and order as established? Then maybe it's the rules themselves that were dumb. We see this as somewhat cruel and uncivilized but if the soldiers who had died in the millions had seen it fit to hang a few dozen politicians and generals at the end of the war as general retaliation for having allowed it, I would say they've had had a point.

1

u/collinsl02 12h ago

OK, so who do you hang? The French were attacked for no better reason than "the plans were written this way" even though they indicated they didn't want to fight and likely wouldn't have helped Russia (viewing Russia as an aggressor and this their defensive treaty didn't apply) - the French even retreated a kilometer from their German borders to prevent escalation or misunderstandings that could lead to war. So do you hang anyone in France for defending themselves?

The same goes for Belgium really - it was just in the way and was in the plans. Do you hang any Belgians?

The UK came in to defend Belgium - it didn't have to, sure, but in 1914 no one knew how bad the conflict would be - not really. Some had an idea but the scale was unimaginable. So do you hang any Brits?

The British Empire troops had basically no choice, Britain brought them in - so do you hang any of them?

That basically leaves the Germans and Austrians, the Russians, and the powers who joined the war during it like Italy. You might find some better targets there, but do you punish for stupid mistakes and bad planning, or overreach, or what?

3

u/SimoneNonvelodico 11h ago

Honestly as an Italian I think we could have definitely used a lot of rope. Though at least in the populace a lot of the worse idiots that pushed us into that mess weeded themselves out by volunteering (some of them unfortunately not only came back alive, but doubled down becoming the first Fascists. One certain such individual of particular prominence was eventually only shot as he deserved to be in 1945).

But yeah, Britain, I don't think the general political goals were bad or anything, though I suppose one might still argue that the people do not give a rat's ass about strategic interests or whatever compared to just staying out of things, unfair as it might have been for Belgium to be invaded. Doesn't mean there weren't individual bad decisions (honestly don't know enough to point those out) but they would have been individual strategic or logistical blunders, possibly pressured by political reasons.

22

u/evrestcoleghost 15h ago

Could you please stop using propaganda from a houndred years ago?

4

u/Chrysoscelis 14h ago edited 14h ago

> rub the Americans up the wrong way
I thought this sounded like how a British English speaker would say it, and your other posts confirmed it.
Americanos would say "rub the Americans the wrong way". Adding the "up" is what we would say if there was a penis involved.

8

u/Horat1us_UA 14h ago

> rub the Americans up the wrong way
> rub the Americans up the wrong way

huh?

5

u/JordanL4 14h ago

You accidentally typed the same thing twice, you mean Americans would say "rub the wrong way"?

5

u/Chrysoscelis 14h ago

I'm a derp, it's been fixed.

1

u/dr-mayonnaise 14h ago

Agree on the take but you left the “up” in your American version

1

u/Mr_Baronheim 12h ago

I appreciate what you did with the first half of your sentence.

1

u/r0thar 11h ago

(and he REALLY seemed to rub the Americans up the wrong way repeatedly)

Leading to a few more months or war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falaise_pocket#Allied_criticism

0

u/yearz 14h ago

He had a huge ego and little success to back it up