ISSUE 182 : Jul/Aug - 2010 - Australian Defence Force Journal

Somme as critical to the forging of Australia’s national identity—‘the Somme’s all-smotheringclay would cement the colony’s developing sense of national identity’—although this is a linethat may not resonate in Australia today.Philpott reserves much criticism for historians, particularly in Australia, who he argues haveunfairly blamed British generals—‘the donkeys leading lions’, as one colourful estimate wouldhave it—for poor planning and incompetent leadership, leading to vast number of troopsbeing killed during the Somme campaign. Philpott refers to… a genre of high command criticism that characterises writing on the First World War andis particularly virulent in Australia, where over the last two decades John Laffin, Denis Winter,Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson have sustained the offensive against the British Generals that wasoriginally launched by Bean.Given that Laffin’s 1988 book is entitled British Butchers and Bunglers of World War One,Philpott may have some grounds for suggesting that Australian historians have taken anarrow perspective of the Somme. However, it is hard to read British historian Denis Winter’sobservation that ‘the battle fought from July to November 1916 saw the British and Germanarmies fire 30 million shells at each other and suffer a million casualties between them in anarea just seven miles square’ 3 and not accuse the highest levels of command of a failure ofleadership.So what then of Haig? C.E.W. Bean probably set Haig’s adverse reputation early when hedescribed the battle of the Somme as ‘the logical outcome of dull, determined strategy andthe devotion of an inexperienced army’. 4 For Bean, brave men were slaughtered by a dullbut obstinate commander. In recasting the Somme as a victory, Philpott argues that Haig hasbeen unfairly treated by history and that his ‘attritionist’ approach—of attacking at everyopportunity and slowly bleeding the Germans to death—was the only credible strategy in1916, given the terrain, technology and lack of mobility faced by the allies.Philpott presents the allies’ final victory in 1918 over an exhausted German Army as a validationof Haig’s approach. Although the German General Ludendorff later admitted that his army hadbeen ‘fought to a standstill and was utterly worn out’ by 1918, 5 the question—and one thatwill continue to be debated—remains whether attrition on the scale imposed by Haig andFoch was the only solution. The French war historian Marc Ferro argues that Haig and hisFrench counterparts acted with ‘criminal stubbornness’ and that the Somme… was disastrous in the loss it caused, almost useless from the military viewpoint and merelyrevealed the vainglory of the generals. Haig’s narrow-minded obstinacy was matched by Foch’sunflinching confidence. 6Although Philpott would undoubtedly disagree, readers of Bloody Victory can make up theirown minds.93