The Great War, The War to End All Wars, The First World War, but especially The Ultimate Infantry War

Many scholars, including myself, spent many years carefully avoiding much of what had been written about the First World War. After all, what could you learn about a muddy bloodbath in which armies of lions were led by donkeys as line after line of infantry marched blindly into massed rows of machine guns?

Of course, in recent years we have discovered that there is actually a great deal to learn from study of the Great War as both revisionists and counter-revisionists conducted new research, old manuscripts and books were rediscovered, and a more thorough and professional study and analysis of the subject emerged. This re-assessment came with new attention to first hand material – the memoirs written by the actual combatants.

I have three such works on my shelf and recently read them as a part of a study of the changing life and evolving times of the modern (20th and 21st Century) infantryman. Two are the memoirs of British officers and the third is an English translation of a German officer’s memoirs. I strongly recommend always reading sources from both sides of any battle, campaign, war, or conflict as the best possible way to get a complete and well rounded understanding of the subject. While none of these fully reflects the experience of the enlisted soldier, as officers their authors are in a better position to tell us not only what happened but what was supposed to have happened.

Good-bye to All That, Robert Graves, © 1985 Robert Graves, Anchor Books Edition, 1998, New York, ISBN: 0-385-09330-6

A Passionate Prodigality, Guy Chapman, © 1966 Guy Chapman, Fawcett Publications, Greenwich,

The Storm of Steel, From the Diary of a German Storm-Troop Officer on the Western Front, Ernst Jünger, 1996 printing, Howard Fertig, New York

Robert Graves served as a rather un-regular Army officer in a very regular army battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Guy Chapman was one of Kitchener’s New Army volunteers in a wartime battalion of The Royal Fusiliers. As a result, the two memoirs reflect the differing attitudes and atmosphere between these two British Army communities and their sometimes-strained relationship. Ernst Jünger served in the 73rd Hanoverian Fusiliers. The Hanoverians were a regular army regiment though not Prussians. The 73rd Hanoverian Fusiliers, in fact, wore a “Gibraltar” battle ribbon on their coat sleeves commemorating their role as one of the defenders of that British outpost during the period of the American Revolution when both realms were under the rule of the House of Hanover. This gave them a peculiar relationship with their British foe and offered British Army personnel a surprise either on the battlefield or when encountering Hanoverian prisoners or captors.

Graves was a prolific novelist, poet, and translator, which is reflected in particular in this memoir by its treatment of his life both before and after the war and his many encounters with other British literary figures in and out of the Army. Chapman, who would go on to a writing career of his own as a historian and publisher, concentrates more on the war and his experiences in it. The former entered the war directly from school at about the age of 20 while the latter was in his mid-20s. Their initial experiences of army life were fairly similar as they completed officers’ training and then fulfilled various brief temporary duty billets before finally reporting to their respective regiments in France.

Both memoirs are replete with detailed accounts of battle and descriptions of life in the trenches, every bit as harrowing and at times monotonous as we might expect, as well as those often extended interludes behind the lines. Many of these anecdotes and episodes will not belie the traditional view of the war as one of bloody, mindless slaughter in the mud – but both officers also describe their efforts and the efforts of their superiors (at most levels) to try and find other, new ways of war that would protect the lives of the men under their charge (and their own for the front line officers as the deaths among the officer ranks are more frequently reported in detail).

Ernst Jünger, by contrast to our two British amateurs, was an accomplished soldier as well as subsequently successful author, earning Germany’s highest decoration – the Pour le merite – for his First World War service. He was a leader of the "storm trooper" assault formations that were critical to Germany's late war successes, though he does not go in to great detail on their training. He was also a recognized conservative and nationalist, though one who was never comfortable with or reconciled to the Nazis and their regime. Nevertheless, these war memoirs were very popular in both Weimar and Nazi Germany, with their air of youthful ardor and emphasis upon the manly martial virtues.

All three books capture the boredom of trench life and its punctuating moments of terror, as well as the frenzied ennui of life behind the trenches, usually soothed by alcohol. Jünger makes a particular emphasis upon the amount of drink consumed during these rear area respites from the horrors of war, but all three authors make it clear that Post-traumatic Stress was not an unknown reality during the First World War.

"Watch them words, watch them words!"

Tom Ricks, the Washington Post’s Military Correspondent, has a knack for getting my attention with the items he shares from his wide-ranging contacts with members of our armed services. The latest such tidbit was a short note on how American military personnel have picked up Inshallah as part of their everyday vocabulary. Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (www.m-w.com/ which includes an audio guide for pronunciation) defines it to mean “God willing,” or “if Allah wills it.” What is not yet clear is the degree to which the appearance of the phrase in regular usage also reflects the adoption of some related degree of fatalistic thinking among the troops about their mission’s chances for success.

Of course, this is not the first time that American troops have taken up foreign words and phrases as a result of their exposure to foreign climes. I was very much reminded of this last Memorial Day as a friend and I drove into Washington DC to participate in the Annual Memorial Day Parade. As he described some office project to me, he made some reference to boo-coo problems – and hearing this legacy of the Vietnam War really caught me off-guard. In part because I hadn’t heard it in so long, was entirely unaware of the nature of his connection to that war, and perhaps because we were both wearing Union Army uniforms (reproductions) for the parade at that particular moment. (By the way, at least one of my sources suggests that the Yanks had previously captured the word in France during the First World War – perhaps it was sent back home during the Depression. One can only wonder at what forgotten lessons the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War learned from their French comrades-in-arms?)

Another piece of linguistic booty that I learned long before I knew its origin is boondocks to refer to remote, rural regions. This is a legacy of the Philippine Insurrection that followed our occupation of the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. Also picked up during that conflict was the word bolo, the Spanish language name for the large machete like knife used by the guerrillas. This reportedly survived in a First World War reference to the men who did not perform well on the rifle range as ‘the bolo squad’ (apparently suggesting they would be better armed with bolos than rifles) and most recently during Desert Storm in the ‘bolo badge’ nickname for a Purple Heart badge awarded for a wound that was received under particularly foolish circumstances. Interestingly, stockade is of Spanish origin but has been in English usage for so long that it appears to date from pre-American Revolutionary contacts between American or British and Spanish forces in Europe or North America.

However, in spite of all of this entertaining trivia, the reported usage of Inshallah does warrant reflection on what this conflict is doing to the military now and in for the future. For most of the 19th Century, French offered the strongest impact on the speech of American soldiers since we and everybody else took Napoleon and his Grande Armée as our model for military perfection. French was the first foreign language taught at West Point. With the rise of Prussia in Europe, after our American Civil War, German words entered the military vocabulary as our officers sought to master a more theoretical approach to war based upon the study of Clausewitz and the application of his ideas by German generals. This influence survived right up to the verge of the Cold War when Russian began to exert a greater influence. As the post-Vietnam War army refocused on a possible conflict with the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact, German re-emerged in words like schwerpunkt to mean strongpoint or center of gravity, for example, as American forces studied how to fight a war in Europe against a modern technologically advanced and larger opponent. Words do have meaning and attention to the evolution of military vocabulary offers insight into what is happening on the battlefield as well as what is happening in the higher headquarters both in the field and in Washington, DC.




“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and misapplying the wrong remedies.”
Groucho Marx

Repitition is the Mother of Learning - even in History?

It is widely said that there is an ancient Chinese proverb to the effect that “a fool learns from experience, a wise man learns from the experience of others.” Whether or not this is correctly quoted, President Bush appears to have learned one way or the other about the uncertainties of war given his statement a while ago that “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” This phrase refers to a military aphorism attributed to the 19th Century Prussian Field Marshal and Chief of the General Staff, Helmut von Moltke (the elder). While von Moltke may not have said it in exactly those words, the idea is reflected in several places in his writings and the wisdom therein is thus on offer to the wise man who wishes to learn from the experience of others.


This brings us to the possibility of learning useful and even important lessons from the study of history, something long advocated for students of military affairs by figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte and our friend von Moltke. Many people, especially politicians, are demonstrably fond of citing various lessons from history to support whatever action – or inaction – they are advocating. But as most historians (and some politicians) know, history can be a slippery instructor and it is often hard to be certain that the right lesson has been learned.


For those interested in knowing more about the possible uses and abuses of history and its lessons, there are two books in particular that should be looked for:

“Historians’ Fallacies, Toward a Logic of Historical Thought” by David Hackett Fischer, (1970, New York, Harper & Row, LoC 69-15583), and,

“Thinking in Time, The Uses of History of Decision Makers” by Richard E. Neustadt and Ernest R. May, (1986, New York, The Free Press/Macmillan, ISBN 0-02-922790-9).


In the first book, historian David Fischer attempts to set out a disciplined and logical approach to the study of history and the analysis of historical events – and in the process examines the myriad ways in which historians and others can get it wrong. He hangs this attempt upon a list of fallacies that he has found committed by historians and the users of history, grouping this list into 12 categories each with some 10 to 12 member fallacies: Fallacies of Question-framing; Fallacies of Factual Verification; Fallacies of Factual Significance; Fallacies of Generalization; Fallacies of Narration; Fallacies of Causation; Fallacies of Motivation; Fallacies of Composition; Fallacies of False Analogy; Fallacies of Semantical Distortion; and Fallacies of Substantive Distraction. Personally, I find it difficult to find any of the listed fallacies that cannot be used in connection with much of the debate in recent years over the war on terror, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and even the debate on who demonstrates the greatest support for the troops. Nevertheless, I would draw the special attention of the reader to the Fallacies of False Analogy, Fallacies of Question-framing, Fallacies of Verification, and Fallacies of Causation.


Richard Neustadt and Ernest May based their 1986 work, “Thinking in Time,” on their experience teaching an innovative course at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, in which they sought to instruct high-level public officials and their aides on how to use history in their decision-making. The book discusses some 30 historical case studies used in their classes to reflect upon the misuses of historical analogy and on proper ways to draw upon historical examples in addressing contemporary issues. The selected case studies range from the secession crisis leading up the outbreak of the American Civil War, the creation of Social Security in 1935 and separately its reform in 1983, the question of defending South Korea in 1950, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and the subsequent 1979 issue of the presence in Cuba of a Soviet military brigade, and a number of cases relating to different aspects of the conflict in Indochina that became the United States’ Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. The book includes appendixes providing additional detailed information regarding the catalog of case studies, the analytical methods presented in the course of instruction, and discussion of the different courses that the authors have prepared and taught drawing upon these ideas.


A central argument almost inevitably raised in any discussion of the use of history in decision-making or the making of historical comparisons in discussing contemporary issues is the idea that history does (or does not) repeat itself. Personally, I am not in complete disagreement with either side of this debate. On the one side, I have to agree that history does not appear to have ever repeated itself exactly, despite the fact that people confronting the same or similar problem or challenge will often respond in the same or similar ways. But it is this very observation that leads me to counter-argue that “No, history does not repeat itself, but people do.”