Bloody Victory - the Sacrifice on the Somme

[Marilyne]

Thanks to my very personnal librarian - my mum and Bookworld Espana - I got today a copy of William Philpott's "Bloody Victory". Considered "required reading" by Richard Holmes, winner of the templar Medal 2010.

I don't know when I'll have time to read it ... I'll put it somewhere in the pile - but once done, I'll write the review. Or has anyone read it before??

Greetz from warm and sunny Spain !!

Marilyne

[Alan Tucker]

Best book on the Somme

[JimSmithson]

Excellent book. Scholarly whilst at the same time a good read! Just the correct mix of fact, analysis and a smattering of personal extracts without overdoing them (which so many books do).

[phil andrade]

Especially deserving of praise on account of the attention paid to the role of the French. High time, too !

Phil (PJA)

[geraint]

Yes Phil Yes!!

Why has British Military history for the Great War disregarded the French to such a degree?

(As OWALW's Haig says "We all know about your bike holidays in France Wilson")

[squirrel]

Yes Phil Yes!!

(As OWALW's Haig says "We all know about your bike holidays in France Wilson")

IIRC it was French who made that comment to Wilson in the film.

[truthergw]

Yes Phil Yes!!

Why has British Military history for the Great War disregarded the French to such a degree?

(As OWALW's Haig says "We all know about your bike holidays in France Wilson")

Perhaps the British historians thought that the French were more than capable of writing their own history of a war in which they were a major combatant and where the major action took place in their country.

[geraint]

Yes Squirrel -French!

Tom - its the interaction between the French and British on the western front for four years that seems to me to have been largely ignored.You could be forgiven for thinking that the western front consisted of the Ypres Salient, connected to the Somme with Loos and Arras attached. General English medium sources are very superficial regarding the French / British connection apart for the near French collapse affecting the Somme push. Perhaps I'm wrong, and its that I'm unaware of any serious writing on the subject.

[truthergw]

This is not an area which I specifically investigated but there seems to have been as little interaction as possible. All for very good reason, of course. I am thinking of Loos and the Somme where interaction seems to have been more or less confined to artillery co-operation. In the Salient at various times, there were several cases of interaction but that seems to have been mostly a question of forces coming under a commander's orders rather than co-operating. I am quite sure there are many cases of interaction of which I am not aware but I do not think it was very common. At least, not common enough to deserve a special book. After all, the Great War is notorious for lack of lateral communications and that is between units of the same nationality, never mind the nightmare of trying to co-operate with people who refused to speak English. ( The Bounders!)

[nigelcave]

In general it does seem a matter of the French not being wildly interested - the same applies, perhaps to a lesser degree, to the Arras front. The weight of interest seems to lie with Verdun. You would never know that (so I believe) that the cemetery [as opposed to cemetery + ossuary] at NDdeL is the largest French one on the WF, for example. Even going around the Historial at Peronne you would be forgiven for thinking that the French were only bit partners in the fighting in the area. And what about Hebuterne 1915? A big action almost completely ignored - in fact the only reason there is a French National cemetery on the Serre Road there is that the CWGC built it and maintained it into the 30s. It was an absolute disgrace until the last year or so when major renovation took place - horticulturally well maintained but the crosses were in a dire state; whiulst the little memorial chapel there was put up by the Parish Priest of Hebuterne, I think it was. So, different nations, different values, I suppose.

When you think of the scale of the French casualties in the Arras battle area 1914-1916 it seems, at the least, strange that the only museums are privately owned or put ogether by Associations [Wellington Cave falls into a category of its own] - very good in their own, idiosyncratic way, but French government initiatives at both local and national level just do not seem to be committed to maintaining the memory in an interpretive way. One has to give them credit for the major overhaul of NDdeL in the last few years, of course. Yyou would hardly have known that the French were major players in the Salient and to the north, in 1914, in 1915 and in 1917, unless you happened to know some history yourself.

One of the problems is that the French OH is just so vast (and very impressive in many ways - the maps alone, for example); but it makes the British OH read like an Agatha Christie in comparison; it was no mandate of the British OH to write the French OH for these battles for them; they are mentioned as relevant, but the British OH had its own problems, not least the budget allocated for its work and for publication costs.

Certainly Bill's work is a very useful corrective to the anglocentric view of the Somme (just like Jack Sheldon's has helped adjust our view of the Germans in the same battle); but the fact is that there are (maybe were now?) no good, well researched, campaign studies of the Somme in French.

[bmac]

I have two modern French books on the Somme and they are almost entirely about the British fighting. There are some publications by participants and others from the 20s (Palat, Abadie and sections from other books) but these are frighteningly expensive (well they frightened my wife when I told them how much they had cost me!) and very rare. Given that the French provide free access online to all their war diaries it is all the more strange that nothing much has been published in France on the non-Verdun campaigns. I wonder if there are any similar signs of new activity - like the NA and IWM - in France centred on the 100th anniversary?

[phil andrade]

Perhaps the principal reason that the French fixate on Verdun is that ( notwithstanding marginal US engagement there in the last phase of the war) it was "their own" battle.

Too much British blood was spilled in Artois to afford Frenchmen the same sentiment about the Arras sector, even if their biggest cemetery is up there.

Phil (PJA)

[truthergw]

The French suffered great losses in Champagne. In 1915, the battles in Artois including our ' early battles' and Loos, were in support of the fighting in Champagne. The Chemin des Dames figures largely in the French history even though British forces fought there in 1914 and 1918. It was the losses there in 1917 which prompted the mutinies.

[SWorrall]

1330695570[/url]' post='1719748']

It was the losses there in 1917 which prompted the mutinies.

Mutinies Tom? Surely you mean "Certain acts of collective indiscipline" which is a translation of how the French refer to them. If you read the French writings on the period, even modern ones, you will be hard-pushed to find any mention of mutiny. Officially, it seems, it didn't happen. The scale is also played down. Reading their preferred term above you might think that a few blokes decided to stay in bed one morning. There is a collective amnesia in France about these occurences and a national acceptance of the choice of words above in almost all writing on the topic.

Simon.

[adk46canada]

One of the problems is that the French OH is just so vast (and very impressive in many ways - the maps alone, for example); but it makes the British OH read like an Agatha Christie in comparison; it was no mandate of the British OH to write the French OH for these battles for them; they are mentioned as relevant, but the British OH had its own problems, not least the budget allocated for its work and for publication costs.

I have not read the French histories but my understanding was they were written on a very different basis than was the British OH. Rather than write the history based on all the facts available at the time of the writing, the French OH was written based on the information available to the decision-makers at the time of the battle. For instance, the Canadian Official Historian was upset with the gravely inaccurate French description of the positions of the 1st Canadian Division at Second Ypres. The French reply to the Canadian complaint was that was what was understood at the time by the French commanders. The French suggested they would consider adding a footnote to explain the actual situation if another edition was ever published. This suggests the French History has to be approached carefully.

[Robert Dunlop]

All official histories have to be approached 'carefully' - the French OH not more or less so.

Robert

[truthergw]

Mutinies Tom? Surely you mean "Certain acts of collective indiscipline" which is a translation of how the French refer to them. If you read the French writings on the period, even modern ones, you will be hard-pushed to find any mention of mutiny. Officially, it seems, it didn't happen. The scale is also played down. Reading their preferred term above you might think that a few blokes decided to stay in bed one morning. There is a collective amnesia in France about these occurences and a national acceptance of the choice of words above in almost all writing on the topic.

Simon.

I agree. It was sat upon very hard until relatively recently. Quite strange in that the French reviewed many of the summary executions in the early 20s and most were ' rehabilitated '. Mind, the first French author to be given almost open access, Guy Pedroncini, refers quite openly to mutinies. " Les Mutineries de 1917" to be precise. There are quite a few books dealing with it now. Les Fusilles de la Grande Guerre" by Offenstadt and, in English, Watt's, " Dare call it treason".

[Marilyne]

Thanks for confirming this was a good choice !! It's slowly crawling to the top of the pile!!

Marilyne