I dont want to start a huge debate but to suggest Haig is a butcher end of would be similar to when someone comments that football is a bit like 22 grown men running around and kissing each other, its just too over simplistic, (albiet that war has far more serious consequences than football I know)
A war in which 6 million men were in Khaki and 5 out of 6 came home, while many were traumatised by events they witnessed, that is common place among any generation that witnesses combat from Roman times to the current day, it was a truly industrial war where casualties on a mass scale were sadly inevitable, in 1918 victory at a huge cost was delivered by Haig and his men, as a commander it is hard to evaluate him against anyone else, Montgomery, Wellington and Marlborough had miniscule armies compared to Haig. In Russia Zukof suffered 21 million casualties but is regarded a hero, Haigs army suffered 713,000 British war dead, incredibly this is fewer per head than any other participating nation, 12.3% compared to 37% Turkish for example, sorry to waffle but I am a military historian by trade and you will not find a single credible one that subscribes to the Butcher theory.
I lost five uncles in the Great War so share the sadness of everyone with regards to the Great War but as someone who knew numerous veterans of the war, interviewed them and visited their old battlefields with them what was clear was they wanted empathy not sympathy and they hated their efforts and losses regarded as a waste by our generation who never witnessed the threat to thier way of life from the Kaisers Army, hope that doesnt offend anyone and I will go back into my box now and turn back into a footy fan.......oh Man City have just scored
I brought my poppy today. It's on my noticeboard at work as I have some strange dislike of pinning things to my clothes. Lots of lovely young armed forces men at London Bridge today, I wanted to go and buy a poppy from each and every one but I would have been bankrupt!
Well thats all very well but as my Grandfather saw Haig as a butcher i`ll agree with him, he was there, he lost his brother , was wound twice and received the Metorious Service medal (which i have).
I dont want to start a huge debate but to suggest Haig is a butcher end of would be similar to when someone comments that football is a bit like 22 grown men running around and kissing each other, its just too over simplistic, (albiet that war has far more serious consequences than football I know) A war in which 6 million men were in Khaki and 5 out of 6 came home, while many were traumatised by events they witnessed, that is common place among any generation that witnesses combat from Roman times to the current day, it was a truly industrial war where casualties on a mass scale were sadly inevitable, in 1918 victory at a huge cost was delivered by Haig and his men, as a commander it is hard to evaluate him against anyone else, Montgomery, Wellington and Marlborough had miniscule armies compared to Haig. In Russia Zukof suffered 21 million casualties but is regarded a hero, Haigs army suffered 713,000 British war dead, incredibly this is fewer per head than any other participating nation, 12.3% compared to 37% Turkish for example, sorry to waffle but I am a military historian by trade and you will not find a single credible one that subscribes to the Butcher theory. I lost five uncles in the Great War so share the sadness of everyone with regards to the Great War but as someone who knew numerous veterans of the war, interviewed them and visited their old battlefields with them what was clear was they wanted empathy not sympathy and they hated their efforts and losses regarded as a waste by our generation who never witnessed the threat to thier way of life from the Kaisers Army, hope that doesnt offend anyone and I will go back into my box now and turn back into a footy fan.......oh Man City have just scored
You get all sort on here, a military historian no less! Don't suppose you can recommend any single colume histories on the 7 yerars war and on the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars?
The poppy sellers are out in force in the City today. On my 8 minute walk from Cannon Street to my office I think I passed more than 12. Some really going for a hard sell too!
I dont want to start a huge debate but to suggest Haig is a butcher end of would be similar to when someone comments that football is a bit like 22 grown men running around and kissing each other, its just too over simplistic, (albiet that war has far more serious consequences than football I know) A war in which 6 million men were in Khaki and 5 out of 6 came home, while many were traumatised by events they witnessed, that is common place among any generation that witnesses combat from Roman times to the current day, it was a truly industrial war where casualties on a mass scale were sadly inevitable, in 1918 victory at a huge cost was delivered by Haig and his men, as a commander it is hard to evaluate him against anyone else, Montgomery, Wellington and Marlborough had miniscule armies compared to Haig. In Russia Zukof suffered 21 million casualties but is regarded a hero, Haigs army suffered 713,000 British war dead, incredibly this is fewer per head than any other participating nation, 12.3% compared to 37% Turkish for example, sorry to waffle but I am a military historian by trade and you will not find a single credible one that subscribes to the Butcher theory. I lost five uncles in the Great War so share the sadness of everyone with regards to the Great War but as someone who knew numerous veterans of the war, interviewed them and visited their old battlefields with them what was clear was they wanted empathy not sympathy and they hated their efforts and losses regarded as a waste by our generation who never witnessed the threat to thier way of life from the Kaisers Army, hope that doesnt offend anyone and I will go back into my box now and turn back into a footy fan.......oh Man City have just scored
You get all sort on here, a military historian no less! Don't suppose you can recommend any single colume histories on the 7 yerars war and on the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars?
The poppy sellers are out in force in the City today. On my 8 minute walk from Cannon Street to my office I think I passed more than 12. Some really going for a hard sell too!
re last paragraph ,yes they are a definite improvement on the chuggers ,actually looking at all the shapes,sizes,genders and colours of those buying them made me feel proud to be british(at least for a short while )
A good single volume history on the Napoleonic Wars would be David Chandlers classic work, try David Baugh for the Seven Years War and if the War of Jenkins Ear is more your thing then the definitive book is still waiting to be written.......Goonerhater no problem with your viewpoint especially if it was one passed down, history is all about opinions, mine is different but thats no bad thing, its interesting that if you took a straw poll of veterans of the conflict in the mid 1930's they were equal numbers fighting alongside the communists in the Spanish Civil War as there were members of Moseley's Faschist Movement...the main thing is we remember
Henry , cheers our poppies turned up today, have been running round like a loony so haven't had a chance to see them , but apparently some of them are huge?
Always wear a poppy. My grandad was in the Navy in WW2, his ship went down and he lost his brother and cousin, still has a stutter from that day on, and even today men and women much braver than me are taking massive risks for the sakes of people they don't know. Nothing but respect for them.
Just for the record, its not bad form to wear the same badge a few years in a row as long as you donate every year. EG i have an undated badge which i wear each year and just donate to the pot at work without taking another poppy.
Hmm, I work at the uni of Hertfordshire and I haven't seen a single poppy for sale. I wouldn't want to guess why... They have collections for other causes. I always buy a poppy, it's one of the few causes I support without fail.
I get them from the first day I see them on sale. Got 4 for me dart shirts this weekend at the camber open one for each comp. Again its the one cause I support without fail.
he is outside boots at cannon st. Not been to stall, just read about on millwall site about the millwall poppies. Point wasn't related to millwall, more about football allegencies becoming involved. The poppy to me is pretty sacred and shouldn't be messed about with imo
I've actually got a Glasgow Rangers style poppy badge, and I know the proceeds went to the RBL, so no issue with it.
Hmm, I work at the uni of Hertfordshire and I haven't seen a single poppy for sale. I wouldn't want to guess why... They have collections for other causes. I always buy a poppy, it's one of the few causes I support without fail.
Oh what a surprise..........not
I have a metal badge, but I always buy 2 or 3 paper ones each year as well, and being a member and former committee member of my local RBL donate in lots of ways each year.
Hmm, I work at the uni of Hertfordshire and I haven't seen a single poppy for sale. I wouldn't want to guess why... They have collections for other causes. I always buy a poppy, it's one of the few causes I support without fail.
Maybe you could sell them. Like MIA has shown not that difficult to get some. Maybe a lot more people would buy them given the chance.
Always wear a poppy. My grandad was in the Navy in WW2, his ship went down and he lost his brother and cousin, still has a stutter from that day on, and even today men and women much braver than me are taking massive risks for the sakes of people they don't know. Nothing but respect for them.
My dad served in WWII and always sold poppies, even after he went into a care home. Will be the first remembrance day since he died so wearing a poppy this year will be especially poignant.
Also, raised the issue of a plaque for the three players who died listed by SE7to above and idea was met with approval. Still a lot to do but I hope that if we need to raise some money I can ask here for help.
Petitioning to make it illegal to burn one is just daft, as far as I am aware one of the reasons given to wear a Poppy is because our freedoms were saved by the soldiery of yore. This is as fascist an idea as those we fought against in WWII.
I agree mainly with Robert Fisk on this issue as he wrote in the Independent last week.
Robert Fisk: Do those who flaunt the poppy on their lapels know that they mock the war dead?
I turned on the television in my Damascus hotel room to witness a dreary sight: all the boys and girls of BBC World wearing their little poppies again.
Bright red they were, with that particularly silly green leaf out of the top – it was never part of the original Lady Haig appeal – and not one dared to appear on screen without it. Do these pathetic men and women know how they mock the dead? I trust that Jon Snow has maintained his dignity by not wearing it.
Now I've mentioned my Dad too many times in The Independent. He died almost 20 years ago so, after today, I think it's time he was allowed to rest in peace, and that readers should in future be spared his sometimes bald wisdom. This is the last time he will make an appearance. But he had strong views about wearing the poppy. He was a soldier of the Great War, Battle of Arras 1918 – often called the Third Battle of the Somme – and the liberation of Cambrai, along with many troops from Canada. The Kaiser Wilhelm's army had charitably set the whole place on fire and he was appalled by the scorched earth policy of the retreating Germans. But of course, year after year, he would go along to the local cenotaph in Birkenhead, and later in Maidstone, where I was born 28 years after the end of his Great War, and he always wore his huge black coat, his regimental tie – 12th Battalion, the King's Liverpool Regiment – and his poppy.
In those days, it was – I recall this accurately, I think – a darker red, blood-red rather than BBC-red, larger than the sorrow-lite version I see on the BBC and without that ridiculous leaf. So my Dad would stand and I would be next to him in my Yardley Court School blazer at 10 years old and later, aged 16, in my Sutton Valence School blazer, with my very own Lady Haig poppy, its long black wire snaking through the material, sprouting from my lapel.
My Dad gave me lots of books about the Great War, so I knew about the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo before I went to school – and 47 years before I stood, amid real shellfire, in the real Sarajevo and put my feet on the very pavement footprints where Gavrilo Princip fired the fatal shots.
But as the years passed, old Bill Fisk became very ruminative about the Great War. He learned that Haig had lied, that he himself had fought for a world that betrayed him, that 20,000 British dead on the first day of the Somme – which he mercifully avoided because his first regiment, the Cheshires, sent him to Dublin and Cork to deal with another 1916 "problem" – was a trashing of human life. In hospital and recovering from cancer, I asked him once why the Great War was fought. "All I can tell you, fellah," he said, "was that it was a great waste." And he swept his hand from left to right. Then he stopped wearing his poppy. I asked him why, and he said that he didn't want to see "so many damn fools" wearing it – he was a provocative man and, sadly, I fell out with him in his old age. What he meant was that all kinds of people who had no idea of the suffering of the Great War – or the Second, for that matter – were now ostentatiously wearing a poppy for social or work-related reasons, to look patriotic and British when it suited them, to keep in with their friends and betters and employers. These people, he said to me once, had no idea what the trenches of France were like, what it felt like to have your friends die beside you and then to confront their brothers and wives and lovers and parents. At home, I still have a box of photographs of his mates, all of them killed in 1918.
So like my Dad, I stopped wearing the poppy on the week before Remembrance Day, 11 November, when on the 11th hour of the 11 month of 1918, the armistice ended the war called Great. I didn't feel I deserved to wear it and I didn't think it represented my thoughts. The original idea came, of course, from the Toronto military surgeon and poet John McCrae and was inspired by the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, killed on 3 May 1915. "In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row." But it's a propaganda poem, urging readers to "take up the quarrel with the foe". Bill Fisk eventually understood this and turned against it. He was right.
I've had my share of wars, and often return to the ancient Western Front. Three years ago, I was honoured to be invited to give the annual Armistice Day Western Front memorial speech at the rebuilt Cloth Hall in Ypres. The ghost of my long-dead 2nd Lieutenant Dad was, of course, in the audience. I quoted all my favourite Great War writers, along with the last words of Nurse Edith Cavell, and received, shortly afterwards, a wonderful and eloquent letter from the daughter of that fine Great War soldier Edmund Blunden. (Read his Undertones of War, if you do nothing else in life.) But I didn't wear a poppy. And I declined to lay a wreath at the Menin Gate. This was something of which I was not worthy. Instead, while they played the last post, I looked at the gravestones on the city walls.
As a young boy, I also went to Ypres with my Dad, stayed at the "Old Tom Hotel" (it is still there, on the same side of the square as the Cloth Hall) and met many other "old soldiers", all now dead. I remember that they wanted to remember their dead comrades. But above all, they wanted an end to war. But now I see these pathetic creatures with their little sand-pit poppies – I notice that our masters in the House of Commons do the same – and I despise them. Heaven be thanked that the soldiers of the Great War cannot return today to discover how their sacrifice has been turned into a fashion appendage.
The Robert Fisk artilcle, whilst an alternative and of clear personal interest due to his fathers views, was held by a tiny number of the men who fought the war and were veterans, in any subject its useful to have an alternative view as it encourages debate and prevents an blanket acceptance of "official line".
It his however, subjective throughout and littered with cliches, it fills columnn inches at this time of year and whilst I dont doubt what he says or mock Robert's Dads view it simply does not capture the feeling of the generation who fought and does little to encourage responsible remembrance. As previously stated we all have a clear choice that we can make, in part down the sacrifices of that generation, buy a poppy or dont, its not compulsory. As an ex soldier, I know how awful war is, thats not the point, its about remembering my mates today and nothing else, political, sensational or otherwise.
Henry what is the name ofthe book about WW1 which looks at some of the "myths" i think it has poppy in the title. I know you have read it as i mentioned it on the book thread ages back and you said you had it.
Comments
A war in which 6 million men were in Khaki and 5 out of 6 came home, while many were traumatised by events they witnessed, that is common place among any generation that witnesses combat from Roman times to the current day, it was a truly industrial war where casualties on a mass scale were sadly
inevitable, in 1918 victory at a huge cost was delivered by Haig and his men, as a commander it is hard to evaluate him against anyone else, Montgomery, Wellington and Marlborough had miniscule armies compared to Haig. In Russia Zukof suffered 21 million casualties but is regarded a hero, Haigs army
suffered 713,000 British war dead, incredibly this is fewer per head than any other participating nation,
12.3% compared to 37% Turkish for example, sorry to waffle but I am a military historian by trade and you
will not find a single credible one that subscribes to the Butcher theory.
I lost five uncles in the Great War so share the sadness of everyone with regards to the Great War but as
someone who knew numerous veterans of the war, interviewed them and visited their old battlefields with
them what was clear was they wanted empathy not sympathy and they hated their efforts and losses
regarded as a waste by our generation who never witnessed the threat to thier way of life from the Kaisers
Army, hope that doesnt offend anyone and I will go back into my box now and turn back into a footy fan.......oh Man City have just scored
I brought my poppy today. It's on my noticeboard at work as I have some strange dislike of pinning things to my clothes. Lots of lovely young armed forces men at London Bridge today, I wanted to go and buy a poppy from each and every one but I would have been bankrupt!
You get all sort on here, a military historian no less! Don't suppose you can recommend any single colume histories on the 7 yerars war and on the Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars?
The poppy sellers are out in force in the City today. On my 8 minute walk from Cannon Street to my office I think I passed more than 12. Some really going for a hard sell too!
Oh what a surprise..........not
I have a metal badge, but I always buy 2 or 3 paper ones each year as well, and being a member and former committee member of my local RBL donate in lots of ways each year.
My dad served in WWII and always sold poppies, even after he went into a care home. Will be the first remembrance day since he died so wearing a poppy this year will be especially poignant.
Also, raised the issue of a plaque for the three players who died listed by SE7to above and idea was met with approval. Still a lot to do but I hope that if we need to raise some money I can ask here for help.
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/21191
The whole Poppy thing is getting way out of hand.
Petitioning to make it illegal to burn one is just daft, as far as I am aware one of the reasons given to wear a Poppy is because our freedoms were saved by the soldiery of yore. This is as fascist an idea as those we fought against in WWII.
I agree mainly with Robert Fisk on this issue as he wrote in the Independent last week.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-do-those-who-flaunt-the-poppy-on-their-lapels-know-that-they-mock-the-war-dead-6257416.html
Robert Fisk: Do those who flaunt the poppy on their lapels know that they mock the war dead?
I turned on the television in my Damascus hotel room to witness a dreary sight: all the boys and girls of BBC World wearing their little poppies again.
Bright red they were, with that particularly silly green leaf out of the top – it was never part of the original Lady Haig appeal – and not one dared to appear on screen without it. Do these pathetic men and women know how they mock the dead? I trust that Jon Snow has maintained his dignity by not wearing it.
Now I've mentioned my Dad too many times in The Independent. He died almost 20 years ago so, after today, I think it's time he was allowed to rest in peace, and that readers should in future be spared his sometimes bald wisdom. This is the last time he will make an appearance. But he had strong views about wearing the poppy. He was a soldier of the Great War, Battle of Arras 1918 – often called the Third Battle of the Somme – and the liberation of Cambrai, along with many troops from Canada. The Kaiser Wilhelm's army had charitably set the whole place on fire and he was appalled by the scorched earth policy of the retreating Germans. But of course, year after year, he would go along to the local cenotaph in Birkenhead, and later in Maidstone, where I was born 28 years after the end of his Great War, and he always wore his huge black coat, his regimental tie – 12th Battalion, the King's Liverpool Regiment – and his poppy.
In those days, it was – I recall this accurately, I think – a darker red, blood-red rather than BBC-red, larger than the sorrow-lite version I see on the BBC and without that ridiculous leaf. So my Dad would stand and I would be next to him in my Yardley Court School blazer at 10 years old and later, aged 16, in my Sutton Valence School blazer, with my very own Lady Haig poppy, its long black wire snaking through the material, sprouting from my lapel.
My Dad gave me lots of books about the Great War, so I knew about the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand at Sarajevo before I went to school – and 47 years before I stood, amid real shellfire, in the real Sarajevo and put my feet on the very pavement footprints where Gavrilo Princip fired the fatal shots.
But as the years passed, old Bill Fisk became very ruminative about the Great War. He learned that Haig had lied, that he himself had fought for a world that betrayed him, that 20,000 British dead on the first day of the Somme – which he mercifully avoided because his first regiment, the Cheshires, sent him to Dublin and Cork to deal with another 1916 "problem" – was a trashing of human life. In hospital and recovering from cancer, I asked him once why the Great War was fought. "All I can tell you, fellah," he said, "was that it was a great waste." And he swept his hand from left to right. Then he stopped wearing his poppy. I asked him why, and he said that he didn't want to see "so many damn fools" wearing it – he was a provocative man and, sadly, I fell out with him in his old age. What he meant was that all kinds of people who had no idea of the suffering of the Great War – or the Second, for that matter – were now ostentatiously wearing a poppy for social or work-related reasons, to look patriotic and British when it suited them, to keep in with their friends and betters and employers. These people, he said to me once, had no idea what the trenches of France were like, what it felt like to have your friends die beside you and then to confront their brothers and wives and lovers and parents. At home, I still have a box of photographs of his mates, all of them killed in 1918.
So like my Dad, I stopped wearing the poppy on the week before Remembrance Day, 11 November, when on the 11th hour of the 11 month of 1918, the armistice ended the war called Great. I didn't feel I deserved to wear it and I didn't think it represented my thoughts. The original idea came, of course, from the Toronto military surgeon and poet John McCrae and was inspired by the death of his friend Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, killed on 3 May 1915. "In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses, row on row." But it's a propaganda poem, urging readers to "take up the quarrel with the foe". Bill Fisk eventually understood this and turned against it. He was right.
I've had my share of wars, and often return to the ancient Western Front. Three years ago, I was honoured to be invited to give the annual Armistice Day Western Front memorial speech at the rebuilt Cloth Hall in Ypres. The ghost of my long-dead 2nd Lieutenant Dad was, of course, in the audience. I quoted all my favourite Great War writers, along with the last words of Nurse Edith Cavell, and received, shortly afterwards, a wonderful and eloquent letter from the daughter of that fine Great War soldier Edmund Blunden. (Read his Undertones of War, if you do nothing else in life.) But I didn't wear a poppy. And I declined to lay a wreath at the Menin Gate. This was something of which I was not worthy. Instead, while they played the last post, I looked at the gravestones on the city walls.
As a young boy, I also went to Ypres with my Dad, stayed at the "Old Tom Hotel" (it is still there, on the same side of the square as the Cloth Hall) and met many other "old soldiers", all now dead. I remember that they wanted to remember their dead comrades. But above all, they wanted an end to war. But now I see these pathetic creatures with their little sand-pit poppies – I notice that our masters in the House of Commons do the same – and I despise them. Heaven be thanked that the soldiers of the Great War cannot return today to discover how their sacrifice has been turned into a fashion appendage.
It his however, subjective throughout and littered with cliches, it fills columnn inches at this time of year and whilst I dont doubt what he says or mock Robert's Dads view it simply does not capture the feeling of the generation who fought and does little to encourage responsible remembrance. As previously stated we all have a clear choice that we can make, in part down the sacrifices of that generation, buy a poppy or dont, its not compulsory. As an ex soldier, I know how awful war is, thats not the point, its about remembering my mates today and nothing else, political, sensational or otherwise.
I agree Clive, BTW I tried to pick up your book but I was too early. Will try again next time.
Summer 1944
These summer days of 44,
Here on England’s southern shore,
Not in some foreign field,
But here, in England, mines were tilled.
Beneath the feet where none can see,
Lie menacing cans of T.N.T.
Overhead a seagull cries,
On the beach a young man dies.
George Hayes 1925 - 2011