Forgotten Victory - The First World War: Myths and Reality

by Gary D. Sheffield

The First World War is arguably the most misunderstood event in twentieth-century history. In a radical new interpretation, leading military historian Gary Sheffield argues that while the war was tragic, it was not futile; and, although condemned as 'lions led by donkeys', in reality the British citizen army became the most effective fighting force in the world, which in 1918 won the greatest series of battles in British history. A challenging and controversial book, FORGOTTEN VICTORY is based on twenty years of research and draws on the work of major scholars. Without underestimating the scale of the human tragedy or playing down the disasters, it explodes many myths about the First World War, placing it in its true historical context.

Genres: History, World War I, Nonfiction, Military History, Military Fiction, War, Reference

384 pages, Paperback

First published June 14, 2001

About the author

Gary Sheffield is Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. He is President of the International Guild of Battlefield Guides and a Vice President of the Western Front Association. He has published widely on the First World War and regularly broadcasts on television and radio as well as contributing to numerous journals, magazines and newspapers. Previous books include the acclaimed Forgotten Victory and The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army, which was shorlisted for the presigious Duke of Westminster's Medal.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Revived review to mark 100 years to the day after the outbreak of WW1. And this is a very interesting book about that dreadful conflict.


REVISIONISM – NO, DON'T LOOK LIKE THAT, IT’S QUITE INTERESTING

There are good revisionists and evil revisionists. The good ones take the standard government-issue version of history, the stuff we all know, and go to town on it. They dismantle all those easy myths, both patriotic and otherwise, and sometimes as they do so they howl with pain. Here are a couple of Good revisionists that spring to my mind –

Khruschev’s revision of Stalinist Soviet history – wow, that was a blast

Charley Gerard and others’ revision of jazz history, putting the great white musicians back into jazz – hmm, controversial!

Elijah Wald and others’ revision of our clichéd ideas of what blues singers were all about - very refreshing

Revisionists have exhumed the buried voices of those who the standard histories have considered to be beneath notice – women! Black people! Gay people! They have all now been invited into the history party, finally. This is all good. But revisionism can be mad, bad and dangerous to know too – the Afrocentrism of Martin Bernal for instance, a remarkable example of special pleading morphing into crazy falsification. And then we get to the beyond-the-pale nutjobs like the Holocaust deniers.

Gary Sheffield is a World War One revisionist. He is here to tell you that all that stuff you know is wrong.

- if you thought it started because of political incompetence and could have been avoided you were wrong;

- if you thought it had no clear aims you were wrong;

- if you thought it was futile you were wrong;

- if you thought it was conducted by incompetent upper-class sociopathic generals who sipped wine and chugged caviar in chateaus far behind the front line as they sent thousands of brave British boys walking into the serried ranks of German machine guns to be butchered meaninglessly and repeatedly then well, er, you were partly right but, er, but mostly wrong.

Revisionism does do things to your head that might make you dizzy and a bit ill because it poses the difficult question – where do you get your information from anyway? Why is this stuff in your head as a fact anyway? Whose fact was it? When did you accept this fact so uncritically? In the foul rag and bone shop of my mind it now seems like everything has been left here by someone else, none of this rubbish is mine, I have not chosen any of it. People just left all these heaps of stuff here. And now it seems like every fact is in contention, everything I knew I don’t know, nothing is resolved, all that is solid melts into the air. I want my lions and donkeys back. I want some firm ground to stand on. I’m sinking.

THE RATHER POOR REPUTATION OF WW1

GS tells us that at the time the war was seen as justified and worthwhile. All this futile & meaningless stuff came later, and for most of the actual war, morale was not a problem. But there was a profound shift of opinion later - it took 10 years. Why? Well, there was a growing realisation of the sheer number of men who had been killed. Like people stunned by a great disaster, and they had no tv in those days, the enormity took a long time to sink in. Then also, they began to notice that Britain had not been transformed into a land fit for heroes, as had been the boast. And furthermore, that the war had not, in fact, resolved anything – the problem of German bellicosity had not gone away. So these thoughts were steaming and bubbling away, and then came the publication of the famous war poets (who according to GS give us “a limited and skewed view”), and the agonising memoirs by Robert Graves, Sassoon and so forth ; and also the book & Hollywood movie All Quiet on the Western Front – that was a real big one.

But GS is quite right to point out that WW1 did not turn Britain or anyone else into pacifists – once appeasement of Hitler had failed, the next war, a mere 21 years after 1918, was accepted as necessary, and men volunteered in their thousands.

ORIGIN OF THE WAR : COMPRESSED VERSION

Germany under Kaiser Bill was (according to our author) the guy who walks into the bar looking for a fight, and if you make eye contact even for a second, YOU’LL DO! He’ll be over in a flash saying “Oi, who you lookin at??” and then you’ll have a problem. Historians call this militarism in a nation. In the days when tiny Portugal and tinier Holland had empires, Germany didn’t, and it felt shut out, and disrespected. It was getting up such a head of steam about this that it was obvious the whole thing was going to blow. But – we know this – everyone in 1910-14 was thinking it would be a short sharp affair. No one had any idea what was in store.

(Except the Devil. He knew, and he was chuckling to himself as he threw some left-over nuns into a blazing cauldron and gave them a poke with a poker.)

Here’s one of GS’s big arguments – it is said that Britain could have kept out of this European affair (the phrase used at the time was “splendid isolation”) . But – here’s the thing – it was believed by the politicians and the generals in Britain that Germany would win any war with France & Russia. The alternative, therefore, was not war or peace, it was war now, which would be reasonably winnable, or war later with Germany occupying most of Europe including the coastal bits of the channel which would make the future war ten times harder. Oh and Britain would have no allies in the future war, because Germany would have conquered all of them.

The war was sold to the people as a war to save democracy; they couldn’t really ask young men to fling themselves into the charnel house to preserve the balance of power in Europe. But that’s what the war was for. And Gary Sheffield is okay with that. And he thinks we should be too.


ATTRITION

You want the clean knock-out, you don’t want the points decision after 12 rounds. It’s brutal, it makes you realise how disagreeable humans are. GS admits that WW1 was a war of attrition – for him that’s not an admission, that’s the way it had to be, considering how rubbish the British Army was in 1914. They just managed to stop the German advance, but it was a close-run thing. Then they got into the serious shelling, machinegunning, poison-gassing and wholesale murder, for four years. The generals were in the business of chipping away at the enemy, bit by bit. It was never going to be a pretty war. They were calculating that if they lost 20,000 men in a particular battle and the German army also lost 20,000 men, that was good for the British because they could replenish their soldiers easier than the Germans. This does not make us modern types happy, in fact it makes us violently squeamish. These days we want to have computer-game type wars, with as few casualties as possible, preferably NONE for our side. Shock & Awe was the apotheosis of this thinking. Look at the figures (between 20 March and 1st may 2003):

US troops killed : 139
Iraqis killed : between 6 and 7 thousand, precise figures unavailable

Now that’s more like it! Much better than WW1!

A REASONABLE COMPARISON BETWEEN WW1 AND WW2

British troops killed in WW1 : 947,000
British troops killed in WW2 : 264,000
Big beast in WW1 : Kaiser Wilhelm II
Big beast in WW2: Adolf Hitler

You can see there’s no comparison – in WW2 the Allies had a far more evil force to fight and they did so with less than a third of the casualties.

TRENCH WARFARE

Kitchener himself predicted stalemated trench warfare in 1908. But there was also a belief derived from the Boer War and the Russian-Japanese War that if your side’s firepower was superior, you could suppress your enemy’s capabilities to the point where your infantry could walk across the zone of death (as it was called, no hype there) and attack with machine-gun and bayonet. It was understood that this would involve heavy losses. GS says that the failures of 1914 were due not to this doctrine being wrong but being performed ineptly. Well, yes. I’d say inept, too.


THE WRAP-UP

Well.

I remain unpersuaded. I see now that WW1 was unavoidable in some form. But O, did it have to be like that? Really?

Maybe it's true. But I don't accept it. I reject this truth.

A quote to end with

Lieutenant General Sir John Monash of the Australian Corps, in 1918 :

A modern battle plan is like nothing so much as a score for a musical composition, where the various arms and units are the instruments, and the tasks they perform are their respective musical phrases. Each individual unit must make its entry precisely at the proper moment, and play its phrase in the general harmony.


************

POSTSCRIPT - AN UNFORTUNATE LAPSE

Sometimes you read stuff which makes your brain boil over and you have to hit the pause button and vocalise in stentorian astonishment :

WHAT??

WHAT??????

WHAT??????????????????

On page 30 the author is describing the politics of the German Empire leading up to 1914, and how undemocratic Germany was compared to Britain because Germany was not a constitutional parliamentary monarchy. He quotes a former historian as follows:

John Rohl, one of the leading historians of Wilhelm and his court, has painted the dreadful consequences of Germany's archaic political system. Germany's decision to go to war was taken by a small clique with disregard for the consequences of such an awesome step : "a constitutional monarchy with a collective cabinet responsible to parliament and the public would not have acted in such isolation and ignorance and, for this reason alone, would have decided differently."

Now, this book was published in 2001. In 2003 Britain was undoubtedly a constitutional monarchy with a collective cabinet responsible to parliament and the public, and yet - nevertheless - a small clique headed up by Tony Blair decided to go to war with Iraq with (I would say) a criminal disregard for the consequences of such an awesome step.

The irony of this paragraph is truly gob-smacking.

Tony didn't come to the House of Parliament and say "Well, we're thinking about invading Iraq because of all these WMDs, what do you think?". He came & said "Look, it's back me or sack me time, Saddam's a world menace, you have to vote for this, I beseech thee, your families beseech thee, let's get the bastard, come on lads & lasses, once more unto the breach, 9/ll, St George and all of that!"

The vote for war was rammed through the House of Commons while a million people had marched through London with big signs saying "DON'T ATTACK IRAQ!" and "NOT IN MY NAME".

So..... with respect.... I think that in this instance, these vaunted historians have overestimated the loveliness of democracy. Somewhat.

Just somewhat!

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The impending 100th anniversary of the Armistice led me to pick up this 2001 book.

The front cover has a comment from Niall Ferguson describing the book as “an iconoclastic tour de force”, a generous comment given that Prof. Sheffield completely disagrees with Ferguson’s own view that Britain could and should have stayed out of WW1. The book is certainly iconoclastic, and I agree that it is skilfully argued.

Whereas most countries suffered much higher casualties in WW2 than in WW1, in Britain and France (and the British Dominions) the reverse was true. As the author explains, a glance at any British War Memorial tells the story. The village where I live has a population of around 200 today. The village church commemorates the names of 8 villagers who fell in WWI, there are none from WWII. The nearest town to me has a population now of 10,000 (it would have been less in 1914). The local war memorial contains 112 names from the First World War, 24 from the Second. The First World War still plays a big part in the national psyche, and TV, film and print media project a very strong impression of a futile and pointless conflict, one in which incompetent generals sent huge numbers of men to unnecessary deaths.

I’m doing Prof. Sheffield a disservice by reducing his complex arguments down to 3 basic themes, but I would say they are:

Firstly, Britain had no choice but to join the war. Had it not done so, Germany would have defeated the Franco-Russian alliance and would have come to dominate Europe, with very negative effects for Britain’s economy and security. It would have meant Britain eventually having to fight Germany without allies, a war it would not have been able to win.

Secondly, that whilst the generals made mistakes, they were not as incompetent as usually portrayed. He quotes Lord Kitchener as saying of Britain’s politicians “Did they remember, when they went headlong into a war like this, that they were without an army, and without any preparation to equip one?” Prof. Sheffield argues that Britain had to create both an army and a war economy, and that it took until the third year of the war to fully achieve these aims. Thereafter, he argues the BEF continually improved its tactics and performance, as it grew in experience.

Lastly, that the victories of the British and Dominion forces during the “hundred days” of Aug-Nov 1918 are today largely ignored because the story of innovative tactics and careful planning that led to these victories doesn’t fit the popular narrative of WW1. He highlights that whilst there were big official commemorations of Gallipoli, the Somme, Passchendaele etc, the UK Government had to have its arm seriously twisted to hold a similar event to mark the Battle of Amiens of 8 August 1918, what Ludendorff famously referred to as “the black day for the German Army.” Prof. Sheffield argues that the victories of the “hundred days” should really rank alongside Blenheim and Waterloo as the greatest achievements of the British Army (he also highlights the contribution of Dominion forces).

I think there’s much to be said for this book. Counter factual history will always be open to argument and we can never be sure about the “what ifs” of 1914, but I think Prof. Sheffield has got it right about the “national amnesia” that is applied to the last months of 1918. I thought his book was full of insight.

[Gavin Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always interesting to get a different perspective on established opinion. My knowledge of the First World War has always been far inferior to my knowledge of the Second World War. As, I'm sure, is true for a lot of people my age, most of that knowledge comes from long passed down common wisdom filtered through pop culture rather than any primary sources. I found Sheffield to be an interesting and very readable guide through the BEF's experiences in trench warfare. He cites a wealth of sources to build a case for his argument that the much derided generals of The Great War were in fact dealing with a completely new kind of conflict and that, actually, they performed reasonably well given the near-impossibility of the task. My lack of study involving the First World War meant that I didn't really have an educated opinion with which to challenge Sheffield's thesis. Overall though, Forgotten Victory... provides a balanced and convincing argument. Military history isn't a genre that I have read much before, but I would definitely be interested in reading more if this book is indicative of the general standard.

I do have one negative comment to make though. While the content of the book is great, there were multiple problems with the text and layout of this Kindle edition. Typing errors abounded, rendering a handful of sentences into incomprehensible messes. The formatting in general left a lot to be desired, often looking a little like an early 90s web page. Unfortunately it seems that the lack of proper editing that has long infected online journalism has also found a home at certain ebook publishers.

[Roy Szweda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the latest Kindle version of this book so it lacked images and maps etc but the latter has some links included at the back. Not sure this is going to please everyone but for the most part I got through without recourse. This book flows well and then at the end the author explains his motives and motivations which I enjoyed - much as I do listening to his lectures on Youtube - and his summary of the Great War as a truly "world" war as opposed to previous wars no doubt... no idea of the etymology of World War tho the Hun once used something like it... Weltkrieg or some such... Have never been that clear on this so that chapter or appendix summed things up nicely. After all much of the Pacific and South America was not or only incidentally involved perhaps with naval stuff like Q-ships. On the latter point I might have missed it but this book does not cover much of the naval warfare which I thought was kind of essential especially the transports over the Channel and blockades but he does do Jutland of course. But it has taken me months to finish this book.... apologies.
Planes are well covered which is nice. Some books seem to have forgotten the twenty minuters et al.
And I know GS is a Haig fan. For me the man is inexplicably enigmatic but fascinating so the jury is out... one day I hate him then have to admit to respect. Like Winston perhaps he was the man of the moment... Both had the habit of showing insight and grit then tripping themselves up... maybe that is a sign of genius. The trick is to end up on the winning side and Dougie certainly did. Oh for some video interviews with the great man or even audio recordings...
Now then... hmm, WW1 has been a fave area of reading since "Pillars of Fire" at last a book about WW1 success! I have read it three times now. Haig facilitated that and other successes like Vimy Ridge but am unsure whether he deserves total credit for it. There's the rub.
But the vox pop have their own impressions of the conflict and I doubt much can be done to change that. Over ten years of reading countless books etc and watching documentaries and lectures have not resolved it for me so I doubt that the ingrained notions of the majority of folk will be dispelled. When you have the likes of Blackadder etc with all its impact and resonance (with preconceptions, gossip, half-truths etc) great books like Gary's have a big job on their hands. I reckon you would have to not only give the vox pop the book but tie them down and read it to them in a dark room... and even then I doubt they would care much.
It also occured to me that with Wikipedia we can all conveniently read up on just about any and every aspect of the Great War so there is no excuse for not finding out the facts. However, the scale of the thing makes it a toughie to get under the skin of and this is where Prof Sheffield's books (and others) have their role. They (and their teams) do firsthand and archival searches so as to gather the results for their papers, theses and books for the vox pop. It takes some skill and the task would daunt me so well done ladies and gentlemen, you do us and the heroes at the front much service and respect.
His dismay at the paucity and bias in recent commemorations does not surprise me. But it is the way of the modern world I am sorry to say. People are too preoccupied and beset with life's avalanche of bright things for doings a hundred years ago to spare the considerable time to absorb let alone understand what too often is immeasurably complex. Nice try Gary! Looking forward to your next opus!

[Rue Baldry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is so poorly proofread that it is frequently (every couple of pages) distractingly annoying. It could really do with an index and page numbers on the contents list, too. Some reprints of maps in the relevant places instead of just a list of web addresses at the back would have been helpful. It is just not a user-friendly object.

That said, it is well-researched and full of facts. The first half contains an interesting survey of popular current British attitudes to the Great War and a refutation of the view that it was futile and poorly managed.

The second half is less readable and more strictly historical, covering the events of the war chronologically. This contained some interesting details, but was naturally repetitious (lots of descriptions of rather similar battles, but that’s inevitable as that’s what the Western Front campaign consisted of) and included too many numbers which rather blurred together (some could have been in more of the numerous footnotes).

Overall, Sheffield proves his point that the war was necessary. He seems to be on shakier ground when it comes to showing that it was not mismanaged. His arguments are basically that the last six months were very successful strategically and that there are excuses for why the first couple of years were a bit of a disaster in that area.

What I have learned: tanks were in their infancy and so not as useful as you might have thought, communications was the great area of technological weakness, both tanks and communications had greatly improved by the 2nd world war, war poets were a rather atypical group whose opinions have been overvalued (& repeated in popular culture such as Oh What A Lovely War and Blackadder), Haig wasn’t too bad at organising war, successful fighting involves the coordination of infantry, artillery and cavalry (or vehicular replacement), Canadians are skilled at hiding behind trees, the inside of a tank smelled dangerously strongly of petrol. Probably some other things but those are at the forefront of my mind.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting pieces of information I didn't know about. However I don't buy the main premise of this book; that there was no option other than following a costly war of attrition to win the war. Yes, the BEF started off inexperienced, small, lacking in supplies, etc, but that doesn't excuse the mass casualty battles of the Somme, Cambrai, Ypres, over the next four years.

The allies won, but what a lot of people don't remember is that in the last year of the war the Germans and their allies very nearly won. Russia was knocked out of the war. Many divisions came over from the Eastern front and the German spring offensive made massive territorial gains, the kind of gains that allied generals could only dream of. How did the Garman army force a breakthrough when the allies could not? Because they copied the tactics of the successful Russian Brusilov offensive from 1916 (short focussed artillery fire, highly equipped smaller groups capturing weak points in the enemy line, bypassing trenches with waves of infantry mopping up afterwards, etc). Germany quickly became expert at defence in depth (Hindenburg line) and when they went on the attack they didn't just throw waves of men at barbed wire and machine guns. They had adapted. They ultimately failed for logistical reasons; ironically advancing too quickly that they outran their supplies.

The fabled "100 days offensive" by the allies which forced Germany to the negotiating table was only because the enemy had basically given up the fight by this time. US troops were pouring into France. Germany was outnumbered and starving.

I write this as someone from the UK.

[David Howells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Typos are irritating!

An in depth revisionist view of WW1 that is presented in a very objective critical way. Thoroughly readable, informative and well laid out. Concentrates mainly on the war in Europe but every theatre of war gets a little mention somewhere even if it is at the end.
I enjoyed this book immensely and valued the amount of research done by the author.

The book gets 5*....however the publisher gets 0*. It is mentioned with other reviewers, why o why in the modern world do we get typo errors in a digital formatted book? It is so common these days it is unbelievable. In the days of printed editions I just don’t recall seeing any but I lost count of them in this book. It is so obvious the book was not proof read...

[Shane Goodyear · Rating 4 out of 5]

* Arguing that Britain’s involvement in ww1 was not futile
* Also the solodiers where not lions led by donkeys
* Two periods in ww1 1914-16 where the military command was learning modern warfare
* 1917-18 where the lessons had been learned but where bloody
* 3 tried and tested military tactics Calvary, artillery, infantry,
* Ww1 missing Calvery which was replaced by the tank and better versions of them in ww2
* Had to go to war to stop militarism in Germany and hold the balance of power
* 1914-16 bloody lesson for the BEF
* But lesson learnt
* War of attristion , especially when sides are evenly matched in all areas of infantry Calvary and artillery
* BEF learnt lessons faster than the German army as it was on the defensive defending the land they have taken

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking, preconception-challenging study of Britain (mainly) on the Western Front during the First World War.

There's a fair amount of assumptions being de-assumed, almost to the point that you start to rebel a bit and ask, 'so, everything we thought we knew is wrong? Everything?'

I've read a fair amount of military history over the last thirty years, perhaps less so on the First World War, but I'll be following up on a number of Professor Sheffield's assertions with further background reading.

[Nick Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good revisionist account of WWI. The perspective is largely British, and th objective is mainly to puncture the popular "Blackadder" view of "Lions led by donkeys". The BEF is seen as following a learning curve in which the dreadful losses of the Somme and earlier engagements eventually bore fruit in mid 1918 in an "all arms" integrated fighting force that rolled out victory after victory in the last 100 days of the war.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A provincial bureaucrat who was asked to do more "publishing" before getting more money from the taxpayer's pocket into his. And this is the work: WWI was a good thing, I mean without it so many of the Brits would have been alive! And think of the millions they have killed later. Can you imagine a world in which there wouldn't be any WWII movies that make overweight white males like Sheffield feel proud to be a subject of the Crown?

[Eyre]

Thought the analysis of the political side of the 14-18 War to be a little unclear and weak even if I still agree with most of the claims made. The military analysis is very strong and does a standout job of explaining many Allied schemes and tactical developments throughout the war. Definitely tears down many popular myths while also giving a good showcase of modern research on the First World War. Enjoyed it quite a bit.

[David Bisset · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rational revisionism

The book appeared some time ago. This edition has a valuable afterward. Gary Sheffield argues that the war was a result of German militarism which had to be defeated; that he did not merit the way he was criticised; that the war was much more than a bloody and mindless conflict. His thesis is convincing.

[Mdaly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic concise book dispelling many of the myths about the First World War.
Sheffield's case is that the First World War had to be fought and that the scale of the confrontation was such that there was no easy solution given the German's ambitions and that it took some time for the hard lessons of battle to be learned and applied.
Well researched and compassionate.

[Wayne Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

Very informative. The author gives a concise view of the political, social and economic conditions that prevailed prior to war breaking out as well as an insight into how our views of The Great War have been shaped.

[Davey71 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not an easy read.

Not a easy read but interesting also.
Gives a different insight in to several areas that are nornamly regarded as facts and held to be inviolate.

[Jody Nicholson · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I tried so hard, but it was just too dull.

[J S · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent revisiting of many of our received wisdoms about the First World War. Interesting new perspectives

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyed the author's take on the realities of the First World War compared to the collective lore so common in most writing. A worthwhile book to round out a Great War reading list.

[Errol Cavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another brave book from a leading proponent of the revisionist school of Great war History. Prof Sheffiled is no strnager to denigration, and yet nost of thje criticisms made of his and others such as John Terraine do not couinter his arguments, but mnerley object to them being put forward in the first place, a dangeous modern tendency leadinbg to a 'cancel culture'.

I was brought up on the War Poets and Oh! What a Lovely War, and for many years uncritically subscribed to the lions led by donkeys school of thought. Reading Terrain, Sheffield and others, however, has led me radically to change my opinions on many facets of the war. Tragic it was, futile it was not, and to defeat tyranny in modern mass warfafre terrible sacrices have to be made. The Frist World War was not a 'bad' and unnecessary conflict but like the Second (of which it was in some respects the second act) was impelled upon the allies by acts of unwarranted aggression. Undoubtedly huge mistakes were made in both conflicts, but ultimatley victory was won against German agression.

Likewise the Ukranians are fighting a frightful but necessary war in the defence of their counrty against Russian aggression. Tens of thousands have dies, and more will follow but waht is the alternative? Let evil triumph?

And so, before accpeting the easy nostrums of accepted wisdom, read books by Terrain such as Smoke and Fire, this one by Sheffield. Both provide short chapters on many of the myths and offer an alternative point of view that is at least worth considering before condemning out of hand.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent review of some of the myths of the Kaiser’s War.

[Matt Caris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good set up of the arguments against the conventional wisdom surrounding World War I (particularly on the Western Front) but, given the weight of scholarship that has appeared covering each individual "myth" since the Sheffield first made these arguments, provided relatively little that anyone well-versed in World War I history would find particularly enlightening.

[Chris Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. Gary Sheffield is correct in his central contention that "The First World War was a tragic conflict, but it was neither futile nor meaningless. Just as in the struggles against Napoleon and, later, Hitler, it was a war that Britain had to fight and had to win. This achievement has become obscured by myths…..the image of the British army of 1914- 18 as being inept, 'lions led by donkeys', is highly misleading. In fact, against a background of revolutionary changes in the nature of war, the British army underwent a bloody learning curve and emerged as a formidable force. In 1918 this much-maligned army won the greatest series of victories in British military history."

It seems clear that the war was fought over substantive issues, and the popular consensus that sees it as a tragic waste owes more to literature than it does to the historical reality that emerges from an archive-based 'scientific' approach to the writing of history. The reality seems to be that Britain had little real prospect of standing on the sidelines in 1914; that there was no real alternative to the Western Front; that the BEF painfully but successful ascended a learning curve at a time of profound military change; and that the British army deserves huge credit for its stunning achievement in the late summer and autumn of 1918.

In the 1960s, John Terraine advanced the theory that when Douglas Haig pursued a strategy of attrition, it was the only possible strategy given the circumstances, which wore down the German army and prepared it for the coup de grace delivered by the Allies in 1918. As Dr. Sheffield comments, his fundamental thesis, although frequently assailed over the last forty years, has yet to be demolished.

This is thoroughly stimulating, readable and enjoyable work of revisionist history that seeks to do justice to the reality of the First World War. The scale of the casualties and suffering was unprecedented and horrific, but this was no tragic and wholly avoidable waste. To present it as such does a profound disservice to the men who fought it, and I am glad that Dr. Sheffield wrote this book in an attempt to correct that injustice.

"The years 1914 to 1991 can be seen as one discrete period, dubbed by historians the ‘Short Twentieth Century’. It was a time of confrontations between ideologies, dominated by war and its aftermath, distinctly different both from the 'Long Nineteenth Century' (1789- 1914) that preceded it, and the world at the turn of the twenty - first century….it is certainly the case that since 1914 liberal capitalist democracy has endured the assaults of three powerful foes - autocratic and then Nazi Germany, and Soviet Communism - and emerged victorious. Moreover the record of the twentieth century would suggests that democracy plus welfare capitalism is a good, although imperfect, recipe for stability and prosperity…..To claim that the First World War was 'futile' because it was succeeded within twenty years by an even worse conflict is akin to proclaiming the Second World War futile because dissension among the victors led to the Cold War. In both cases, the victories over Germany produced 'negative gains': in other words, they prevented something from happening…..The First World War was a just and necessary war fought against a militarist, aggressive autocracy. In Britain and the United States it is a forgotten victory. It has remained forgotten for too long."

My detailed summary of the book is available here

[Niall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brisk and readable revisionist account of the First World War. It’s revisionist in the sense that he questions many of the ingrained popular assumptions about the war – that Britain needn’t have fought, that the anti-war poets were/are an accurate reflection of veterans’ attitudes to the war, that it was the result of historical forces rather than individual decisions, that the Germans were not beaten in the field, and above all that the British Army were “lions led by donkeys”. Sheffield shows quite convincingly that the war was largely Germany’s fault, and makes a powerful argument against the “Better Off Out” position (to which I am sympathetic), on the grounds that Britain had a long-standing strategic interest in the independence and freedom of the Low Countries and France, and a moral imperative to resist the belligerence of a militaristic and quasi-authoritarian Germany.
The majority of the book is taken up with a determined, though necessarily qualified, defence of the BEF’s conduct of the war on the Western Front, from the largely well-conducted (if costly) fighting retreats of 1914, through what GS calls the “steep learning curve” of the resulting years of trench warfare, to the repulsing of the Ludendorff Offensive and the subsequent skilfully led and executed counter-attacks in summer 1918. GS tries to set the record straight on Haig and his generals, arguing that while they were sometimes slow to adapt to the new conditions of warfare, they were not the cruel and unfeeling butchers of legend (I have read elsewhere that more than 200 British generals were killed in action in the war, which supports GS’s critique of the “cowering in their chateaux” line). He gives numerous examples of tactical innovation and flexibility by the BEF and its commanders, with a particular emphasis on the significant advances made in “all-arms” integration, and notes that even battles like the Somme and Passchendaele, held up as icons of futile and wasteful carnage, were not entirely unsuccessful.

[Philip Whiteland · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is never going to be a light-hearted romp but it does offer some interesting insights into a war in which the received wisdom is so well-entrenched (if you'll pardon the pun) as to be unarguable. Mr. Sheffield makes an interesting case that WW1 was far from a series of pointless and bloody battles waged over muddy fields but was, in fact, a terrific learning curve for the British Army as it came to terms with the new, industrialised, form of warfare. As the war progressed, useful lessons were learned which evolved into a relatively sophisticated battle plan and which led, eventually, to an Allied victory. This book has to be commended for taking a brave stance against the generally held beliefs. Whether the vast loss of life was really worth the eventual victory is something for debate and reflection for many years to come, I suspect.

[Robert Grantham · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best book on WW1 bar none. A must for anyone

[David Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best general book on the First World War.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book, one that challenges the accepted version of history.

[Terry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A first class read with deep insights into WW1. The causes, reasons, attitudes etc.. Would recommend to anyone interested in this era.

[AskHistorians]

Offers a welcome but measured rejoinder to the sort of narratives noted above, albeit from a primarily operational standpoint.