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The confusion of command: the memoirs of Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow 1914 -1915
A divisional commander at the beginning of the First World War, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow saw action at Le Cateau, the Marne, Ypres, Arras and Cambrai, before leading the disastrous attack on Gommecourt on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. In this volume of memoirs, he frankly acknowledges the limitations of his own and others' command, while explaining how the totally unprecedented scale of the war made effective communication between officers almost impossible.
- GenresWorld War I
228 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 18, 2017
I have often wondered about the 'Donkey Generals' who led the 'British Lions'. This is the tale of one of them, in his own words. Snow led the 4th Division at Le Cateau in 1914, and commanded them on their retreat to the Marne. He also led the 27th Division at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. As it happens, we had a trip to Ypres last year, so the territory concerned is still fresh in my memory.
When reading of events in 1914, it is interesting to compare Snow's memoirs with those of von Kluck. Snow was falling back and von Kluck advancing for much of this period. It is interesting to note that neither of them knew where each other was. It is also interesting to note that both of them ascribe this to command failures. From reading both memoirs, it would seem the case that gripes go up the chain of command whilst orders flow down.
The events of 1915 tell a very different story. By then the war of movement had become a static war of entrenchment. In this situation, artillery came to the forefront simply because it was operating against a pinned target. My one take-away from reading this memoir is that Snow advocated withdrawing from the Ypres Salient on military grounds, whilst he was over-ruled from above on political grounds. For me, this raises the counter-factual question of whether or not fewer lives would have been lost if the military argument had won the day? I think so.
The memoirs have three concurrent themes:
1. That the pre-war personal differences within the General Staff carried over into the war and had a detrimental effect upon the conduct of the war. A picture is painted of a General Staff that had little confidence in the command structure and was occupied more with squabbling amongst itself rather than conducting operations against the enemy. Somehow, that just rings true.
2. The normal state of affairs is confusion. There were time when General Snow didn't know where the enemy was, didn't know where his troops were, didn't know the state of his troops, didn't know where his colleagues were or in what condition their forces stood. Once again, this rings true.
3. The prosecution of operations is more to do with politics than military sense. In particular, in an international alliance, problems occur when one's allies turn out to be unreliable. At Ypres, the French forces, which are painted in a pretty bad light, promised a counter-offensive which never materialised, but which prevented Snow's withdrawal, just adding to the British and Commonwealth loss of life.
The war, as painted here, consists of bickering generals who don't have any idea of what is going on and who are relying upon a set of unreliable partners. If this characterisation is anywhere near right, that describes much of the modern financial and commercial world as well as the prosecution of the First World War.
I did enjoy this book. It filled a gap in my knowledge and started to paint in the characters who, prior to this, have been nothing more than cartoons. I'm not sure that I have changed my perception of the General Staff, but I have started to understand the world in which they operated. I do find it interesting that today, 100 years later, they are still blaming each other.
When reading of events in 1914, it is interesting to compare Snow's memoirs with those of von Kluck. Snow was falling back and von Kluck advancing for much of this period. It is interesting to note that neither of them knew where each other was. It is also interesting to note that both of them ascribe this to command failures. From reading both memoirs, it would seem the case that gripes go up the chain of command whilst orders flow down.
The events of 1915 tell a very different story. By then the war of movement had become a static war of entrenchment. In this situation, artillery came to the forefront simply because it was operating against a pinned target. My one take-away from reading this memoir is that Snow advocated withdrawing from the Ypres Salient on military grounds, whilst he was over-ruled from above on political grounds. For me, this raises the counter-factual question of whether or not fewer lives would have been lost if the military argument had won the day? I think so.
The memoirs have three concurrent themes:
1. That the pre-war personal differences within the General Staff carried over into the war and had a detrimental effect upon the conduct of the war. A picture is painted of a General Staff that had little confidence in the command structure and was occupied more with squabbling amongst itself rather than conducting operations against the enemy. Somehow, that just rings true.
2. The normal state of affairs is confusion. There were time when General Snow didn't know where the enemy was, didn't know where his troops were, didn't know the state of his troops, didn't know where his colleagues were or in what condition their forces stood. Once again, this rings true.
3. The prosecution of operations is more to do with politics than military sense. In particular, in an international alliance, problems occur when one's allies turn out to be unreliable. At Ypres, the French forces, which are painted in a pretty bad light, promised a counter-offensive which never materialised, but which prevented Snow's withdrawal, just adding to the British and Commonwealth loss of life.
The war, as painted here, consists of bickering generals who don't have any idea of what is going on and who are relying upon a set of unreliable partners. If this characterisation is anywhere near right, that describes much of the modern financial and commercial world as well as the prosecution of the First World War.
I did enjoy this book. It filled a gap in my knowledge and started to paint in the characters who, prior to this, have been nothing more than cartoons. I'm not sure that I have changed my perception of the General Staff, but I have started to understand the world in which they operated. I do find it interesting that today, 100 years later, they are still blaming each other.
August 14, 2021
This book contains the memoirs of a relatively little known WWI British General from his time as a Divisional Commander first with the 4th Division and later after recovering from an injury, as commanded of the 27th Division at Ypres.
Not actually planned for publication, although in his notes General Snow gives permission to his relatives to later publish the book if they thought it would be useful. General Snow’s narrative is personal, conversational, as well as being humorous in places and cynically critical in places. It’s those two narratives that make the book worth reading and are highly entertaining as well as informative but the book is padded out by various other sections of notes and commentary correcting some of the details and facts and putting the incidents General Snow describes in their wider context. It also has various appendices giving relevant facts and figures, all of which would be of interest to a serious researcher or student of the war, but they are thee really just to pad out the book and it’s the verbatim narratives from General Snow that make the book an entertaining read and worth the effort.
Not actually planned for publication, although in his notes General Snow gives permission to his relatives to later publish the book if they thought it would be useful. General Snow’s narrative is personal, conversational, as well as being humorous in places and cynically critical in places. It’s those two narratives that make the book worth reading and are highly entertaining as well as informative but the book is padded out by various other sections of notes and commentary correcting some of the details and facts and putting the incidents General Snow describes in their wider context. It also has various appendices giving relevant facts and figures, all of which would be of interest to a serious researcher or student of the war, but they are thee really just to pad out the book and it’s the verbatim narratives from General Snow that make the book an entertaining read and worth the effort.
May 8, 2022
2.5/5 rounding down for Goodreads. Would not recommend.
Short memoir split into 2 parts: the 4th Division during the retreat from Mons in August 1914 and the the 27th Division at St Elois during Second Ypres in the Spring of 1915. The main content written by General Snow himself is about 100 pages in length. The rest is very detailed explanatory notes and plenty of (quite good) appendices by the people editing the book. The big theme of the book is basically about the fog of war and the difficulties of communications as well as the difficulty in sending out orders and recieving accurate info. I didn't enjoy the book much as a lot of it was boring "I ordered this battalion to this area". And because of the difficulty in communications and orders Snow didn't seem that important. Although I did enjoy the Second Ypres bit more than the Mons section.
I wouldn't recomend the book even if you are a WWI nerd unless for whatever reason the specific units or battles I've mentioned really interest you.
Short memoir split into 2 parts: the 4th Division during the retreat from Mons in August 1914 and the the 27th Division at St Elois during Second Ypres in the Spring of 1915. The main content written by General Snow himself is about 100 pages in length. The rest is very detailed explanatory notes and plenty of (quite good) appendices by the people editing the book. The big theme of the book is basically about the fog of war and the difficulties of communications as well as the difficulty in sending out orders and recieving accurate info. I didn't enjoy the book much as a lot of it was boring "I ordered this battalion to this area". And because of the difficulty in communications and orders Snow didn't seem that important. Although I did enjoy the Second Ypres bit more than the Mons section.
I wouldn't recomend the book even if you are a WWI nerd unless for whatever reason the specific units or battles I've mentioned really interest you.
May 18, 2020
An interesting book providing an insight into the problems faced by the senior officers during World War One, well researched and presented as always by Dan Snow.
August 27, 2016
It is pretty rare now for the personal memoirs of senior officers from the First World War to be published for the first time, so it is very welcome for the memoirs of Thomas D'Oyly Snow to appear. Snow was GOC 4th Division in 1914, so led his formation during the Retreat from Mons. Badly injured when his horse fell on him in September 1914, he was soon given command of the new 27th Division, which he formed and took to France, commanding it through 2nd Ypres until mid-1915. Although he continued to serve on the Western Front until early 1918, as a corps commander, these memoirs cover only his period as a divisional commander.
Dan Snow, the general's great-grandson, entitled the volume 'The Confusion of Command', as this was a phrase used in the memoirs and presents a continuing theme. Not only does the account repeatedly note the difficulties that commanders had in knowing what was going on, in terms of their own units and the formations beside them, let along about the enemy, but it also highlights the carelessness of GHQ and other higher formation staffs in passing on information to their subordinates, combined with their willingness to issue detailed orders even in times of ignorance of the situation. Linked to this, Snow frequently complained at the tendency for higher commanders to ignore the practicalities of command, grouping disparate units under commanders on an ad hoc basis without any consideration of either the basic need for signals companies and staffs to support the commander, or of the risk of conflicting orders being received from different headquarters, as none were entirely clear which units were under whose command. What comes across is a sense of senior officers who were almost totally ignorant of the basic processes of commanding large forces and who were therefore learning as they went, the price being paid in the deaths of thousands of irreplaceable Regular soldiers.
As an aside, I was repeatedly reminded of parallels with the situation in 1940-41, when both the BEF in France and Eighth Army in the Western Desert virtually dissolved the formal command structure and relied instead upon multiple ad hoc formations. The German Army thrived on this kind of adaptation to circumstances. It brought the British Army almost to its knees.
The book itself is well presented, with the basic text of the memoirs supported by extensive notes and a number of appendices. In order to maintain the flow of the narrative, the supporting end notes are not referenced in the text itself, which actually severely hampered the flow in practice, due to the constant need to check when the next note was due - I ended up marking the notes in the text. Bizarrely, a number of footnotes are included, most of which add almost nothing to the unmarked end notes.
In summary, an insightful account by one of the important but comparatively unknown figures of the early BEF, well presented and supported. Definitely an interesting read, both for the specific battles covered, but also for the issues of command.
Dan Snow, the general's great-grandson, entitled the volume 'The Confusion of Command', as this was a phrase used in the memoirs and presents a continuing theme. Not only does the account repeatedly note the difficulties that commanders had in knowing what was going on, in terms of their own units and the formations beside them, let along about the enemy, but it also highlights the carelessness of GHQ and other higher formation staffs in passing on information to their subordinates, combined with their willingness to issue detailed orders even in times of ignorance of the situation. Linked to this, Snow frequently complained at the tendency for higher commanders to ignore the practicalities of command, grouping disparate units under commanders on an ad hoc basis without any consideration of either the basic need for signals companies and staffs to support the commander, or of the risk of conflicting orders being received from different headquarters, as none were entirely clear which units were under whose command. What comes across is a sense of senior officers who were almost totally ignorant of the basic processes of commanding large forces and who were therefore learning as they went, the price being paid in the deaths of thousands of irreplaceable Regular soldiers.
As an aside, I was repeatedly reminded of parallels with the situation in 1940-41, when both the BEF in France and Eighth Army in the Western Desert virtually dissolved the formal command structure and relied instead upon multiple ad hoc formations. The German Army thrived on this kind of adaptation to circumstances. It brought the British Army almost to its knees.
The book itself is well presented, with the basic text of the memoirs supported by extensive notes and a number of appendices. In order to maintain the flow of the narrative, the supporting end notes are not referenced in the text itself, which actually severely hampered the flow in practice, due to the constant need to check when the next note was due - I ended up marking the notes in the text. Bizarrely, a number of footnotes are included, most of which add almost nothing to the unmarked end notes.
In summary, an insightful account by one of the important but comparatively unknown figures of the early BEF, well presented and supported. Definitely an interesting read, both for the specific battles covered, but also for the issues of command.
June 24, 2011
This book, although listed as 228 pages really only contains two short journals written by Lt General Sir Thomas Snow. The first journal covers the retreat from Mons and the Battle of Le Cateau. The second journal covers the Second Battle of Ypres. Detailed notes provided by the author’s follow both journals within the book. Overall the book offers an interesting insight into the problems with command and control on the Western Front during the early stages of the Great War.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews