Haking: a dutiful soldier

[David Filsell]

Steven,

Its certainly in the book above in regard to the 1st ANZAC Corps !

Regards

David

[Herekawe]

Hi

I got this book on Kindle. It is a good book, especially his dealings with the Portuguese but I do feel in the critical area of assessing the impact of Fromelles that the author does lose his objectivity slightly. I agree that there was obvious confusion about whether or not the attack should go ahead, and this is not a problem of Haking's making.But it does leave the situation open for him to be decisive and say "No".

 

When discussing whether or not the attack  resulted in keeping German forces in place he seems to think this was achieved, but many of the sources he quotes were made during or shortly after the war . Concurrently I was reading Jim Beach's "Haig's Intelligence" , one thing Beach makes clear is that in July 1916 the British had no idea of the extent of German reserves, the British it appears were expecting the Germans to collapse at any time. We now know what the German depositions were, at the time the British thought the Germans were milking troops from other parts of the line due to lack of replacements, in retrospect they had considerable reserves.

 

Given that the Germans did have considerable reserves one attack by British and Australian troops which despite its bravery was contained, repulsed and shot to pieces by the units in place seems unlikely to result in holding back substantial reserves. 

 

Finally I  found his comment that the Australian actions may have had a different outcome had the Germans moved troops from the Fromelles sector to be unconvincing. " 1 ANZAC lost 23,000 men during the fighting around Pozieres. If the Germans had received additional reinforcements from the Fromelles sector that number could have been much higher". Well maybe, or maybe not. The Germans have lots of options regarding where to send their troops, and as Senior has explained we now know there are several divisions around. IMHO I think this is a bit too speculative for an otherwise pretty objective book, after all Senior pulls no punches about Hakings unattractive traits.

 

 

Edited 11 March , 2017 by Herekawe