Outside small military history circles, no. Of course it doesn't appear in WW1 remembrance, because clear victory in the field in the most successful campaign the British Army have ever fought doesn't fit with the tragedy narrative. Like at all./1
As for schools I can only speak to my own experience. I was taught WW1 in school, about the 60,000 casualties at the Somme, incompetent flailing generals and some vague bits on propaganda and the home front. Now being the inquisitive little troublemaker I was aged ~16/2
with a bit of an interest in military history already developing (I watched way too many 90s/00s WW2 documentaries as a kid 😂) something about the narrative being taught just didn't sit right with me. So I picked up a few books and started reading./3
First were Robert K Massie's books "Castles of Steel" and "Dreadnought", about the lead up to WW1 and the war at sea, read over the course of a holiday in Portugal. For someone whose exposure to the naval war in school consisted of memorizing the names Heligoland, Dogger Bank/4
and Jutland I can safely say that reading these deep narrative histories blew my mind. Then I began to think that if this side of the war had been covered in such a shallow and inaccurate manner what about the war on land?/5
Anyone who's seen my bookshelf will pull out two trends: naval stuff (which I studied at university) and a range of WW1 stuff, my school hobby. The eye-opening experience of doing my own research (albeit rudimentary, I was still only a teenager after all) was thrilling./6
What began to emerge was a totally different story, of the real incompetents *cough* John French *cough* being sacked and replaced by a cadre of the most professional people available to the Army at the time. People who built and sustained an army with rear support areas/7
with the population of Manchester. People who took a small colonial intervention force and built it into an army that was capable of smashing the largest and finest army in Europe to pieces./8
They built a learning organisation that progressively adapted in remarkable ways. First integrating infantry, artillery and eventually incorporating fledgling armour./9
The story of the British Army between 1914 and 1918 is a story of one of the most spectacular military transformations in modern history, done under some of the most difficult conditions imaginable./10
Unfortunately this absolutely doesn't fit the blackadder narrative of mud, blood and pointless slaughter.
It's a shame really, because the real war is a far more nuanced and fascinating story./11
Engaging Strategy, out.
It's a shame really, because the real war is a far more nuanced and fascinating story./11
Engaging Strategy, out.
