WW1

[jaffka]

I wouldn't expect any survivor from any battle to try and paint it all rosy. There is enough material out there for people to make their own minds up of the horror, if they are inclined.

As worthy said its very easy to judge yesterday with todays standards.

i don't disagree... I am not trying to judge by today's standards - but by the standards and experience of those who were there... not very many of them that I have heard speak of it anything like how Gove does... in fact - quite a lot of the people who served in WW1 that I have met, refused to speak of it very much at all...

We do agree.

See my post 3 above yours.

[Montreal Wanderer]

Gove is making a real dick of himself over this.

History is about evaluating rival interpretations - not rote learning the state-sanctioned version. The gap between his intellect and his own estimation of it might be one of the largest in public life.

I have only read his Daily Mail article and didn't see that it justified all the criticism. However, there is clearly much more to the issue than that. I have not seen his speeches for example. So I will bow out of this discussion.

That poorly written and poorly reasoned article is itself deserving of criticism.

Professor Evans serves some up pretty convincingly here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/j ... -education" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wasn't seeking to defend his views, but merely wondering whether that article warranted the vilification Gove received. I have now looked further into the matter and realize this is but one episode in the Minister of Education's war on teacher or for a new curriculum. I had to laugh as I looked at wiki before changes could be made. The article starts out:

Michael Andrew Gove (born 26 August 1967) is a British Conservative Party politician, the Secretary of State for Education and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Surrey Heath. He is a unusually popular bell-end who is unusually duck-like. He is also an author and a former journalist for The Times newspaper.[

This intro won't last long

[jaffka]

Gove is making a real dick of himself over this.

History is about evaluating rival interpretations - not rote learning the state-sanctioned version. The gap between his intellect and his own estimation of it might be one of the largest in public life.

I have only read his Daily Mail article and didn't see that it justified all the criticism. However, there is clearly much more to the issue than that. I have not seen his speeches for example. So I will bow out of this discussion.

That poorly written and poorly reasoned article is itself deserving of criticism.

Professor Evans serves some up pretty convincingly here: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/j ... -education" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I wasn't seeking to defend his views, but merely wondering whether that article warranted the vilification Gove received. I have now looked further into the matter and realize this is but one episode in the Minister of Education's war on teacher or for a new curriculum. I had to laugh as I looked at wiki before changes could be made. The article starts out:

Michael Andrew Gove (born 26 August 1967) is a British Conservative Party politician, the Secretary of State for Education and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Surrey Heath. He is a unusually popular bell-end who is unusually duck-like. He is also an author and a former journalist for The Times newspaper.[

This intro won't last long

Not on that site, it will on here though

[Athers]

Realised last year I didn't actually know too much about the politics and indeed events of WWI compared to WWII. I bought a history book but I've yet to get round to reading it. Apart from a bit on the dreadful slaughter on the Somme my formal education of modern history focused almost entirely on the Nazis and WWII. We may have done some trench poems in English though, so perhaps we saw both sides to this argument.

[Montreal Wanderer]

In thinking of politicians' understanding of WW1 I am reminded that our Minister of Defence (a decade ago) admitted to a group of WW2 veterans that he had never heard of the 1942 Dieppe raid (Canadians opening the second front a little early). "We weren't taught that in school" he wrote to the papers. He compared this to the great Canadian WW1 battle at Vimy Ridge which everyone knew about. Unfortunately he demonstrated his knowledge by calling it Vichy Ridge. I knew the man quite well as he had previously been an economics professor at my university and I suspect he often had a few to drink. So did Air Canada who threw him off one of their planes.

[mummywhycantieatcrayons]

I wasn't seeking to defend his views, but merely wondering whether that article warranted the vilification Gove received.

Regardless of what his views actually are, I don't think it's right for a Secretary of State for education to weigh in on specific debates via articles in the Daily Mail.

Doesn't decorum demand a more detached approach?!

It's also very poorly written and reasoned, in my view. I think his crude use of terms like 'Left-wing' sets him up to look petty, idelogical and partisan.

Perhaps he crossed a line by going after a Cambridge professor...

[Montreal Wanderer]

I wasn't seeking to defend his views, but merely wondering whether that article warranted the vilification Gove received.

Regardless of what his views actually are, I don't think it's right for a Secretary of State for education to weigh in on specific debates via articles in the Daily Mail.

Doesn't decorum demand a more of a detached approach?!

It's also very poorly written and reasoned, in my view. I think his crude use of terms like 'Left-wing' sets him up to look petty, idelogical and partisan.

Perhaps he crossed a line by going after a Cambridge professor...

Well he is an Oxford graduate! Are you a touch partisan?

[Lost Leopard Spot]

To be completely fair a rethinking of history is a continual process, and without condoning Gove (because he IS A TIT OF THE FIRST ORDER) thebish ain't quite correct either
Mr Patch survived and had a logically jaundiced view of all his mates dying, and the war poets were mainly active and influential AFTER the Somme and the Canadian charge at Ypres when the first ever use of chemical weapons occurred. You'll note that was 1916+ which means the early volunteers may have had a completely different attitude to Mr Patch etc. History is only written after the event

[thebish]

To be completely fair a rethinking of history is a continual process, and without condoning Gove (because he IS A TIT OF THE FIRST ORDER) thebish ain't quite correct either
Mr Patch survived and had a logically jaundiced view of all his mates dying, and the war poets were mainly active and influential AFTER the Somme and the Canadian charge T Ypres when the first ever use of chemical weapons occurred. You'll note that was 1916+ which means the early volunteers may have had a completely different attitude to Mr Patch etc. History is only written after the event

they may have done - but Gove's view and tone is not one I have ever heard from anyone I have met who served in WW1...

[Lost Leopard Spot]

One of my relatives ( a Mr George Chaney) was a Canadian caught up in the battle of Ypres and was one of the first soldiers to be gassed. 90% of his unit died and he spent many months recuperating in hospital in England (where he met and married my great aunt). I spoke to him, I read his diaries - it is quite plain that he had an entirely different opinion regarding a) the cause, b) the conduct of, c) the leadership demonstrated by, and d) the final outcome and its relevance to civilisation to Mr Owen etc.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I can if you want provide other first hand accounts. Another relative of mine was an American - a relative of Bombadier Billy Wells - the man who struck the gong on Rank films. He volunteered and fought well before USA joined the war. And he supplied to me the fact that ~60% of Americans who died in WzWI had died in the period prior to 1915.

[Montreal Wanderer]

To be completely fair a rethinking of history is a continual process, and without condoning Gove (because he IS A TIT OF THE FIRST ORDER) thebish ain't quite correct either
Mr Patch survived and had a logically jaundiced view of all his mates dying, and the war poets were mainly active and influential AFTER the Somme and the Canadian charge at Ypres when the first ever use of chemical weapons occurred. You'll note that was 1916+ which means the early volunteers may have had a completely different attitude to Mr Patch etc. History is only written after the event

I did look at "the war poets" after WtW's post and these were distinguished from the earlier poets of the war like Rupert Brooke who were termed "patriotic poets". so you could have a point, Spotty.

As for old soldiers talking about war, I have known and spoken to many from both conflicts. I believe people who join because they believe in the cause, in their country, in their government or their way of life, are not the kind of people who like talk about their war experiences. My Great Uncle was an (Acting) Lt. Col. in the Territorial Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. He was awarded the DSO at 3rd Ypres (Passchendale). I still have his medals but he would never talk about the experience. My father volunteered in September 1939 even though his job would have exempted him from service. He wouldn't talk about it either and didn't bother to collect his service medals. All I could get out of my teachers who were infantry in WW1 is that they grew mustaches so their corpses could be distinguished from other ranks. My Canadian father-in-law served on HMS Jamaica on Murmansk convoy escort and his ship was sent after the Scharnhorst. It sounded pretty interesting to me but all he said was it was too cold to think and he didn't want to remember.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

You may wonder why it is that I know this. It's because nearly thirty years ago I took up the genealogy craze. I was struck by the fact my family had come through two world wars remarkably unscathed. The first question I asked of my great grandfather was why he thought this was so. His answer to me was that there were three sorts of survivors of intense conflict: the evasive, the lucky, and the believer. I leave it to you to work out which category he classified himself as.

[Montreal Wanderer]

You may wonder why it is that I know this. It's because nearly thirty years ago I took up the genealogy craze. I was struck by the fact my family had come through two world wars remarkably unscathed. The first question I asked of my great grandfather was why he thought this was so. His answer to me was that there were three sorts of survivors of intense conflict: the evasive, the lucky, and the believer. I leave it to you to work out which category he classified himself as.

If he is anything like my family he would consider himself lucky, probably incomprehensibly so.

[Athers]

In thinking of politicians' understanding of WW1 I am reminded that our Minister of Defence (a decade ago) admitted to a group of WW2 veterans that he had never heard of the 1942 Dieppe raid (Canadians opening the second front a little early). "We weren't taught that in school" he wrote to the papers. He compared this to the great Canadian WW1 battle at Vimy Ridge which everyone knew about. Unfortunately he demonstrated his knowledge by calling it Vichy Ridge. I knew the man quite well as he had previously been an economics professor at my university and I suspect he often had a few to drink. So did Air Canada who threw him off one of their planes.

I visited Vimy Ridge last year actually and talked with the men of a Canadian family whilst walking around the trenches and lines, where were scarily close to each other. The emotion they had for the place was very apparent - one of their ancestors had fought there, but they were saying it was pretty much birth of a nation stuff.

[William the White]

I think there is a fairly obvious explanation for the seeming difference between the soldiers rushing to the colours to join Kitchener's army in 1914 and the seeming lack of enthusiasm later, that led to the necessity to impose conscription. That is the growing disillusion in the war as it settled into the murderous futility of trench warfare, matched by the 'entrenched attitudes' (one of the enduring additions to the language of the war) of military leaders and politicians. It grew harder and harder to envisage anything but the continuation of slaughter on both western and eastern fronts.

Both Rupert Brooke and Wifred Owen are genuine war poets. Both died serving their country. But they wrote of different experiences at different times. There is no Rupert Brooke type of poet after 1916. The Somme put an end to it - no more the sweet optimism of youth and the Dulce et decorum est, other than in Owen's bitter poem... This does NOT mean that soldiers who were once patriots had become anti-patriotic.

By 1917 French soldiers were marching to the trenches bleating like sheep, and large sections mutinied. They were not unpatriotic. British soldiers expressed the futility well in song: 'We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here...'

By 1917 Russian soldiers were hanging their officers and their sailors were creating a revolution in Petrograd. 'Disillusion' indeed...

[Harry Genshaw]

However, it is remarkable Britain did not have conscription until 1917.

They were awash with volunteers in the first few months of 1914/15 but as they dried up a form of conscription was introduced. It wasn't 'full conscription' by definition but it might as well have been with the folk who were excluded. I'd be more specific if I could remember the criteria. Got something about it at home that I may dig out later

Please look it up, Harry, as I am quite curious about this. Your assertion runs contrary to perceived wisdom.

Ok here goes;

5th Jan 1916 - Prime Minister Asquith only 2 months earlier had argued against conscription and here he was introducing it.
Referred to as the 'Derby scheme' it required all single men between 18 & 41 to join up. Married men were only asked to serve once all single men had signed up, so by introducing the scheme Asquith had in effect, introduced conscription.
Exemptions after this time were Civilian Employment in the national interest, men whose dependents could not survive without their breadwinner and those that could prove serious ill health.

Our approach re conscription was apparently looked at with bemusement by both our allies and our enemies. The Derby scheme led to full conscription in 1917 which was an about face from what most MPs believed in 1914. It paved the way for full conscription to be introduced in 1939 at the outbreak of WWII with very little opposition

[Lost Leopard Spot]

I think there is a fairly obvious explanation for the seeming difference between the soldiers rushing to the colours to join Kitchener's army in 1914 and the seeming lack of enthusiasm later, that led to the necessity to impose conscription. That is the growing disillusion in the war as it settled into the murderous futility of trench warfare, matched by the 'entrenched attitudes' (one of the enduring additions to the language of the war) of military leaders and politicians. It grew harder and harder to envisage anything but the continuation of slaughter on both western and eastern fronts.

Both Rupert Brooke and Wifred Owen are genuine war poets. Both died serving their country. But they wrote of different experiences at different times. There is no Rupert Brooke type of poet after 1916. The Somme put an end to it - no more the sweet optimism of youth and the Dulce et decorum est, other than in Owen's bitter poem... This does NOT mean that soldiers who were once patriots had become anti-patriotic.

By 1917 French soldiers were marching to the trenches bleating like sheep, and large sections mutinied. They were not unpatriotic. British soldiers expressed the futility well in song: 'We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here...'

By 1917 Russian soldiers were hanging their officers and their sailors were creating a revolution in Petrograd. 'Disillusion' indeed...

I don't disagree. I'm just trying to point out the futility of having one narrative for a war that lasted four years and killed millions whilst being the most technologically advanced conflict during a period when civilisation had flowered to a point undreamt of in conflicts prior. We've never had that innocence snatched from us so cruelly nor likely to again.

[Montreal Wanderer]

However, it is remarkable Britain did not have conscription until 1917.

They were awash with volunteers in the first few months of 1914/15 but as they dried up a form of conscription was introduced. It wasn't 'full conscription' by definition but it might as well have been with the folk who were excluded. I'd be more specific if I could remember the criteria. Got something about it at home that I may dig out later

Please look it up, Harry, as I am quite curious about this. Your assertion runs contrary to perceived wisdom.

Ok here goes;

5th Jan 1916 - Prime Minister Asquith only 2 months earlier had argued against conscription and here he was introducing it.
Referred to as the 'Derby scheme' it required all single men between 18 & 41 to join up. Married men were only asked to serve once all single men had signed up, so by introducing the scheme Asquith had in effect, introduced conscription.
Exemptions after this time were Civilian Employment in the national interest, men whose dependents could not survive without their breadwinner and those that could prove serious ill health.

Our approach re conscription was apparently looked at with bemusement by both our allies and our enemies. The Derby scheme led to full conscription in 1917 which was an about face from what most MPs believed in 1914. It paved the way for full conscription to be introduced in 1939 at the outbreak of WWII with very little opposition

But the Derby scheme was voluntary was it not?

The Derby Scheme was a voluntary recruitment policy in Britain created in 1915 by Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby. The concept behind the Derby Scheme was that men who voluntarily registered their name would be called upon for service only when necessary. Married men had an added incentive in that they were advised they would be called up only once the supply of single men was exhausted. The scheme proved unsuccessful and was abandoned in December 1915

I think you must mean the Military Service Act of 1916. This Act stated single men of 18-41 years old were liable to be called up - the beginning of conscription. Canada also had an Act of the same name in 1917 - hence my error on the date. Thanks,Harry.

[Bruce Rioja]

However, it is remarkable Britain did not have conscription until 1917.

They were awash with volunteers in the first few months of 1914/15 but as they dried up a form of conscription was introduced. It wasn't 'full conscription' by definition but it might as well have been with the folk who were excluded. I'd be more specific if I could remember the criteria. Got something about it at home that I may dig out later

Please look it up, Harry, as I am quite curious about this. Your assertion runs contrary to perceived wisdom.

Ok here goes;

5th Jan 1916 - Prime Minister Asquith only 2 months earlier had argued against conscription and here he was introducing it.
Referred to as the 'Derby scheme' it required all single men between 18 & 41 to join up. Married men were only asked to serve once all single men had signed up, so by introducing the scheme Asquith had in effect, introduced conscription.
Exemptions after this time were Civilian Employment in the national interest, men whose dependents could not survive without their breadwinner and those that could prove serious ill health.

Our approach re conscription was apparently looked at with bemusement by both our allies and our enemies. The Derby scheme led to full conscription in 1917 which was an about face from what most MPs believed in 1914. It paved the way for full conscription to be introduced in 1939 at the outbreak of WWII with very little opposition

But the Derby scheme was voluntary was it not?

The Derby Scheme was a voluntary recruitment policy in Britain created in 1915 by Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby. The concept behind the Derby Scheme was that men who voluntarily registered their name would be called upon for service only when necessary. Married men had an added incentive in that they were advised they would be called up only once the supply of single men was exhausted. The scheme proved unsuccessful and was abandoned in December 1915

I think you must mean the Military Service Act of 1916. This Act stated single men of 18-41 years old were liable to be called up - the beginning of conscription. Canada also had an Act of the same name in 1917 - hence my error on the date. Thanks,Harry.

So why did you ask Harry to look it up?