[lit-ideas] Don't think you know better than Haig
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 17:44:03 -0700
I ordered another book by Rick Atkinson, the second in his "Liberation
Trilogy," but in the meantime picked up another of the books I've resoled to
read on World War One:
From the Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell, pages 16-17:
"During the last half of 1917 the Germans had been quietly shifting their
eastern forces to the Western Front. Their armistice with the Bolsheviks
gave them the opportunity of increasing their western forces by 30 per cent.
At 4:30 on the morning of March 21, 1918, they struck in the Somme area, and
on a forty-mile front. It was a stunning victory. The British lost 150,000
men almost immediately, 90,000 as prisoners; and total British casualties
rose to 300,000 within the next six days. The Germans plunged forty miles
into the British rear.
"The impact of this crisis on home-front morale can be inferred from London
newspaper reaction. The following is typical:
Text Box: WHAT CAN I DO?
How the Civilian may Help in this Crisis.
Be Cheerful
. . . Write encouragingly to friends at the front
. . . Don't repeat foolish gossip.
Don't listen to idle rumors.
Don't think you know better than Haig.
"Haig, back-pedaling, felt sufficiently threatened to issue on April 12 his
famous 'Backs to the Wall' Order of the Day. This registered the insecurity
of the British position in some very rigid and unencouraging terms: 'Every
position must be held to the last man. There must be no retirement. With
our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one
must fight on to the end.' In its dogged prohibition of maneuver or indeed
of any tactics, this can stand as the model for Hitler's later orders for
the ultimate defense of positions like El Alamein and Stalingrad. . . ."
"Hardy would have been pleased to know that of this famous order one
corporal noted: 'We never received it. We to whom it was addressed, the
infantry of the front line, were too scattered, too busy trying to survive,
to be called into any formation to listen to orders of the day.'"
Lawrence Helm
San Jacinto
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