All Quiet on the Western Front

[Richard]

This film (on Netflix) is simply brilliant. A German film (dubbed but reasonably competently) about the First World War, it is utterly horrifying, with a strong anti-war message. The action sequences are extremely well put together. Well worth watching.

[Link Prime]

Third recommendation I have recently heard for this - alright already, verdammt noch mal!

[broodblik]

I can also recommend this movie

[JohnW]

I said on another thread that it's a good enough movie but a poor adaptation.
There are German film critics howling about how it neuters the book and ignores both its tone and its themes, and I can see their point.

[Richard]

Well I haven't read the book so I can't comment about that. But the film is pretty hard-hitting nonetheless, and is quite uncompromising on the themes it does have -- the brutality and inhumanity of war, and the shocking indifference of the generals to the lives being lost for literally no reason.

[JohnW]

And although you didn't mean to, and although you're talking about a film, you've only just gone and woken my big WW1 bugbear.

the shocking indifference of the generals to the lives being lost for literally no reason.

Yes, there was plenty of sub-par generalship in that war, but what the film shows is a flat-out misrepresentation.
It's one of my big gripes about Charley's War too.
The generals didn't make the war: that was the statesmen. The generals had to play the hand they were dealt, and they'd have been doing a poor job of it if they'd allowed themselves to get all emotional over the bloodier aspects.

To anyone who blames the horrendous death rates on 'the generals' I ask:
Which generals are we talking about – or are you having a go at everyone promoted above regimental command?
Were they so markedly worse than the generals of any other war you'd care to name?
And the big one:
How would you have done it differently?

In short, I'm no apologist for Erich Ludendorff, but 'necessary callousness' was part of the job description.

Sorry for ranting, Richard. I wasn't ranting at you.
I'm glad you liked the film. I liked it myself (up to a point). Go and read the book. I'd be most interested to hear what you think of the film then.

J. Ware, history guy and WW1 novelist

[Funt Solo]

Were they so markedly worse than the generals of any other war you'd care to name?

That's a bit silly, though, as it's the basis for a "two wrongs make a right" stance. We can't be arguing that "generals generally be shit - get used to it".

How would you have done it differently?

Also a bit silly. I'm assuming none of us are trained military tacticians. It's possible to criticize a really badly built bridge without being a bridge engineer.

I don't doubt that there are some cartoonish views of WWI generals (perhaps based on Blackadder Goes Forth). There was also a brutal, class-based military system in operation during WWI. And one reading of (for example) Haig was that he was "stubborn, self-righteous, inflexible, intolerant — especially of the French — and quite humourless".

You could counter that those are "just quirks" [thanks, Daffy] - but a lack of imagination is counted as one of the reasons for continual (and costly, in terms of lives) attacks that didn't achieve their objectives. It was a meat grinder of a war. Odd not to apportion some of the blame to those folk who were never personally in danger but had the privilege of orchestrating the strategic side of things.

[Jim_Campbell]

Odd not to apportion some of the blame to those folk who were never personally in danger but had the privilege of orchestrating the strategic side of things.

Plus, they did quite famously make a complete pig's ear of it. WWI was undeniably a 20th century war fought with 19th century tactics for much of its duration. The refusal of the senior British military to recognise for years that what worked in the Boer War and earlier campaigns was catastrophically ineffective in an entirely different environment, facing entirely different (and far more effective) weapons undoubtedly contributed to the horrific death toll.

[JohnW]

Christ – I've no aptitude or stomach for internet argument, but here we go. Let the record state that I have never even been in the Boy Scouts, let alone commanded men in battle.

We can't be arguing that "generals generally be shit - get used to it".

Circumstances generally be shit. Generals have to deal with them in a manner that loses lives regardless of how it plays out. It's a shit state of affairs, and some come out of it looking shittier than others – not always through their own fault.

That's a bit silly, though, as it's the basis for a "two wrongs make a right" stance.

This has nothing to do with wrongs and rights, but with fair balance. Why are WW1 generals vilified (even if they won), while WW2 generals tend to be looked at as national heroes? Compare their characters, compare their respective successes and balls-ups, and see if there's a justification for the differing perceptions.

Also a bit silly. I'm assuming none of us are trained military tacticians. It's possible to criticize a really badly built bridge without being a bridge engineer.

If you want to go with with the bridge analogy, imagine something hastily run up with unsatisfactory materials.
Is it safe? We'll see. Will it get the job done? We hope so. The shit circumstances mentioned above mean that sound engineering standards are a luxury we can't afford right now. If we can cross without it collapsing, hurray for us. Otherwise tell us how you can do it better under the same shitty constraints.

No, we're not trained tacticians, but hindsight is on our side. We can see what worked and what didn't. The cause of costly fuck-ups may be obvious to us, but that being the case, how would we have done it differently? Go on, choose a battle. Play armchair general. See what you come up with.

a lack of imagination is counted as one of the reasons for continual attacks that didn't achieve their objectives

I agree that lack of imagination is a charge that can be fairly levelled, but seriously – was imagination a determining factor on the Western Front?

It was a meat grinder of a war because the scale and the technology were unprecedented. No one had quite relevant experience. Both sides learned from their mistakes as they went along. The methods of 1918 differed from those of 1914, but it was a gradual rather than a dramatic evolution. Imagination played little part in the outcome. Everyone just got better at what they did, with victory going to the side with the greater resources.
Horrible missteps were made along the way, and spurious justifications were given, which doesn't make the high command look any better, but mistakes were pretty much inevitable in an undertaking of this scale. Because they are measured in lives, these mistakes appear more culpable.
Could the whole war have been sorted out more cheaply? Almost certainly. Could I have done it, knowing what I know? I dunno. Could any of us? Hence the question in bold in my previous post.

The generals are blamed because, given the human catastrophe, we need someone to blame, and they're right there—often looking like pompous pricks.

Lastly:

Odd not to apportion some of the blame to those folk who were never personally in danger but had the privilege of orchestrating the strategic side of things.

Would they have been better at their job if they'd put themselves directly in harm's way?
Orchestrating strategy was a job, not a privilege, and it had to be done from the rear. The generals might have come across as more sympathetic if they'd shared the dangers and discomforts of their men, but that wouldn't have made them better generals.

I apologise for the big wall of text, but the hard stare of your avatar was making me nervous.

[broodblik]

This is quite simple why I believe all generals irrespective sides were responsible for the catastrophic lost of human life is that they all applied the same flawed tactic over and over again with the same result. It was pure insanity. The generals themselves never had to experience the same conditions (almost like living like kings while your subjects fought over a loaf of bread). They never adopted never try to save his people. We should mark them in the history books as the monsters they where.

[JohnW]

We should mark them in the history books as the monsters they where.

All those company and battalion-level officers who were promoted during the war—did they automatically attain monstrousness on becoming generals?
I don't require an answer. I'm just asking that you think about it before you go to mark the history books.

(As for 'the same flawed tactic', I refer you to the TL:DR above. It's in there somewhere.)

[broodblik]

I don't require an answer. I'm just asking that you think about it before you go to mark the history books.

At least I do not want to burn all the books . I know this will not change a thing history is history, we just must make sure that we do not repeat it (or rather the bad parts).
 

[JohnW]

Good man.

[Funt Solo]

Orchestrating strategy was a job, not a privilege

I take a lot of your points as being fair, but here you appear to be making a quite obvious mistake, because the military of the time was class-based in terms of hierarchy. So, we can fairly say that orchestrating strategy was a job AND a privilege. One had to be socially privileged in order to have that job.

Right there, we have a core issue. Not only would the working class be the ones at the sharp end of things, but talented tacticians could not rise up through quality, whereas talentless gibbons could rise up and be in charge despite their lacks.

It tastes a little strange to be shielding these people from criticism - given the outcomes. I think it's generally well understood that if the naval blockade had been allowed to run its course, Germany would have faltered without the massive sacrifice of human lives. And some of the politicians of the time were very critical of the loss of lives - so it's also odd to try to refocus the blame from "the generals" to Whitehall (or the equivalents of other countries).

In noticing the blinkered nature of some commentators, it seems like you're accidentally walking past some mirrors.

[JohnW]

it seems like you're accidentally walking past some mirrors.

And you seem to be coming at this from a largely anglo-centric perspective.
There were generals besides British ones, and the arguments concerning incompetence and culpability apply to them too.

If the naval blockade had been allowed to run its course, Germany would have faltered without the massive sacrifice of human lives

I'm not going to dispute that
But:
Should the German high command have just thrown in the towel when the British blockade was first established?
Should the French have just waited things out, relying on the blockade to take effect somewhere down the line?
The British blockade didn't have any effect on the outcome of the war on the Eastern front, so you can't expect Russian or Austro-Hungarian generals to factor it in.

The generals had a job to do, and it was on the battlefield, and its demands were immediate.

I am not shielding them from criticism – only from biased and uniformed criticism.* What I've been railing against here is the commonplace judgement that condemns a whole group based purely on their rank.
Some were good, some were bad, and the bad ones weren't uniquely bad when you compare them to other military fuck-ups across the ages.

I have nothing to say about social class and gibbons and the like: that's a whole other argument.

Anyway, I'm a student of history, and sweeping generalisations are the enemy of study. No one here actually made any such generalisation. However, the film veers close to it by playing loose with history.
In short: hackles raised, gears ground, goat got (largely through my own proprietorial knee-jerk attitude to WW1).

*Which is not something I'm accusing you of, so be cool.