The Old Contemptibles

by Robin Neillands

  Johnnie Hamilton plumped for going to Amiens as soon as possible. Then desultory strategy (some thinking Liège was in Holland) and idiocy. Kitchener plumped for Amiens but wanted to get in closer touch with the French; suggested they should send over an officer.

  Question then arose on what strength the BEF should be. Winston in favour of sending 6 divisions as naval situation most favourable owing to our having time to prepare. Lord Bobs agreed. Decision taken that we should prepare at once for all six (infantry) divisions. All agreed. A historic meeting of men, mostly entirely ignorant of their subject. (35)

  Wilson's opinion of his colleagues and superiors did not change in the next few days. Kitchener assumed charge at the War Office on 6 August and promptly revoked the order for the dispatch of all six divisions. Now only four would go, plus the cavalry division, with a fifth to follow later; embarkation would begin on Sunday, 9 August.

  Wilson, now appointed Sub-Chief of Staff at BEF headquarters and promoted to major-general, continued to deal directly with the French. On 7 August, Colonel Huguet returned from Paris, where he had been in discussions with Joffre. He went directly to see Wilson, who briefed him on the War Council meeting and let him go back to Paris- without meeting Kitchener. The Secretary of State was naturally anxious for some direct contact with the French, and Wilson's action provoked a flaming row. Kitchener, wrote Wilson, '...was angry because I let Huguet go and angrier still because I had told Huguet everything about our starting on Sunday. I answered back, as I have no intention of being bullied by him, especially when he talks such nonsense as he did today.' (36)

  Callwell's comment on this exchange is interesting. Normally sycophantic towards his subject, Callwell now writes, 'It must be allowed that even on his own showing, Wilson adopted a tone towards a superior that any superior would be justified in resent­ ing and which to a man of Lord Kitchener's record and tempera­ ment was bound to give serious offence.'

  Falling out with his superior officer hardly mattered now. Wilson's work was done and his time at the War Office was over. A week later, on 14 August, Henry Wilson crossed to France with Sir John French's Expeditionary Force Headquarters.

  The bulk of the BEF had already preceded him, the front-line units and supply trains following the plans Wilson had worked out in such detail since 1910. His arrangements stood up to the test of war and delivered the BEF to that place on the left wing of the French Army where Wilson and Foch had agreed it should go years before.

  The role of Henry Wilson was crucial to the dispatch of the BEF to France in 1914. The course of Anglo-French relations is clear from 1898; Fashoda was a turning point. Both nations felt in need of friends as the new century dawned and ancient enmities were put aside with the 1904 Entente Cordiale. A subsequent series of crises- Tangier in 1905, Agadir in 1911-kept the British interest in the Entente alive and inspired the French desire to turn it into a firm and open military alliance.

  At this point British and French interests began to diverge. The British position is laid out most clearly in that subcommittee report of 1909 which concluded that any decision on British involvement in a continental war would be left to 'the Government of the day', but because that Government might indeed decide to get involved the staff 'conversations' started in 1906 were valuable and should continue.

  This policy reflected the British position until the outbreak of war: sitting on the fence, putting off the day of decision while hoping that it might not arrive - while allowing for a degree of preparation in case it did. However, implicit in continuing the 'conversations' post-1909 was the point endlessly reiterated since 1906: that the 'conversations' were not, and must not become or be seen as steps towards, a formal alliance.

  Given the French determination to overturn this latter point, maintaining the British position was always going to be difficult. Even so, it might have been managed and the BEF deployment remained a dusty plan in some War Office pigeon-hole but for the advent as DMO of Brigadier General Henry Wilson. Wilson's weight tipped the scale in favour of the French position. Indeed, had the British Government deliberately intended to undermine its own policy it could not have done more than appoint Henry Wilson to the post of DMO and keep him there when his intentions became plain and his methods obvious. Lacking any firm control or political direction, Wilson took over the show and built his DMO job into a position of influence.

  Williamson quotes a 1911 comment by Sir Arthur Nicholson, Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, to the effect that 'although there had been a certain amount of desultory talk with the French', Nicholson doubted that 'a concerted plan of action will ever be settled'. Williamson then comments that 'Nicholson, like his superiors, had misjudged the character, ability and ambitions of Henry Wilson'. (37)

  Bramall and Jackson endorse this point, stating that after Wilson's triumph at the CID meeting in August 1911 'British strategic policy in the run up to the First World War was thus to be based upon one brilliantly partisan exposition by Henry Wilson'. (38) The conclusion has to be that Henry Wilson played a major, indeed a decisive, part in the departure of the BEF to France in 1914. Why he did so is fairly clear: an engrained Francophilia, an overwhelming admiration for Ferdinand Foch, contempt for his political and military superiors in Britain, personal arrogance, and a sense of mission.

  These were Wilson's convictions and characteristics. They provided a personal motivation, but that alone would not have achieved Wilson's desired objective. For that he needed the context of European affairs, post-Fashoda, and that chronic dichotomy in the British Government's position. From these he gained the freedom to develop and implement a logistical plan for moving the BEF to France on the left wing of the French Army- and nowhere else.

  The WF plan and Wilson's preparations to implement it, described earlier, were a miracle of organization. The plan worked perfectly; the BEF move to France was accomplished swiftly and without problems. Moreover, the existence of a complex, workable, logistical plan gave Wilson a great deal of influence in the pre-war period. His actions from 1910 and their outcome in 1914 provide a classic example of the effect one determined individual, even in a relatively junior role, can have on a government's political and strategic policies.

  Whether Wilson was right is another matter. It can be argued that if France and Germany were to go to war Britain must inevitably become involved, if only to protect her strategic position.

  That being so, preparations for a full commitment of the BEF were both necessary and wise.

  This view now seems correct, but fails to make Wilson's case, that the BEF should mobilize at the same time as the French and form up on the left wing of the French Army to help stem the German advance towards Paris. The British Army was too small to make any decisive intervention and in the event did little to impede the progress of the German armies to the Marne -losing many good men in the process.

  There is one final point about the BEF deployment which strikes at the root of the British Government's pre-1914 position- and Wilson's actions during that period. The British Government's reluctance to face up to the prospect of a European war with all it might entail, and Wilson's determination to commit the BEF to France at the start of the struggle, combined to create a tragedy. The British Official History claims that the BEF that went to France in 1914 was 'the best trained, best organized and best equipped British Army that ever went forth to war'. (39) Then comes the qualification ... 'except in the matter of numbers; so that though not "contemptible" it was almost negligible in comparison with continental armies, even of the smaller states. In heavy guns and howitzers, high explosive shell, trench mortars, hand grenades and much of the subsidiary material required for siege and trench warfare it was almost wholly deficient. Further, no steps had been taken to instruct the army in a knowledge of the probable theatre of war or of the German Army.'

  Wilson's planning, so detailed and so central to his main ambition, left out these essential provisions. The result was the events that followed
: the rapid destruction of the BEF, starting at the Battle of Mons in August, culminating with the terrible losses incurred at the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914. These losses and the destruction of that Army can largely be attributed to the pre-war actions of the British Government and Henry Wilson.

  The Government was responsible for sending the BEF to fight the kind of war for which it was woefully ill equipped, and Wilson's obsession with the French blinded him to the fact that the BEF was not designed for a continental struggle. If, instead of working hand in glove with French intentions, he had devoted his formidable energies to bringing the state of the BEF to public attention, or doing something about it in the War Office, matters might have gone differently after the BEF went to France in August 1914.

  Mobilization, Transport and Logistics 1911-1914

  In most military books strategy and tactics are emphasized at the expense of the administrative factors ... Bear in mind when you study military history or military events the importance of the administrative factor, because it is where most critics and many generals go wrong.

  General Sir Archibald Wavell, Generals and Generalship, p. 11

  Before following the BEF to its first engagement at Mons it would be as well to look briefly at the logistical arrangements that brought these British soldiers to the firing line. As the previous chapters will have indicated, the process of getting the BEF to France took years and an immense amount of planning and preparation. This task tested Henry Wilson's capabilities to the limit, and his achievement cannot be fully appreciated without an understanding of logistics, that part of the military art concerned with the problems of movement and supply.

  That this subject needs a closer look is revealed in an address by Major-General Sir Percy de B. Radcliffe, KCMG, CB, DSO, following the publication of the first volume of the British Official History:

  Certain passages in the Official History appear likely to give quite a false impression of the extent and thoroughness of the preparations made by the British Naval and Military Authorities for the embarkation of the British Expeditionary Force and its concentration in the theatre of operations.

  On page 25, it is true, it is stated that a scheme had been elaborated between the General Staffs for the concentration of the British Expeditionary Force between AVESNES and LE CATEAU. On the other hand, from the account of the meetings at the War Office on the 5th and 6th August, the casual reader might infer that the whole plan of concentration was evolved and decided upon at these meetings.

  It would be a very bad thing indeed if the idea should be allowed to gain ground that the movement of a large force from its place of mobilisation in the United Kingdom to the ports of embarkation- its transport by sea, its disembarkation in French ports and movements thence by rail to the concentration area, allwithin a period of 14 days, could be improvised on the spur of the moment. (1)

  Major-General Radcliffe gives much of the credit for the rapid mobilization of the BEF to Henry Wilson as DMO and is clearly unaware that Wilson was acting without any official sanction, with a very small staff and obliged to keep these plans and preparations secret, not least from the Cabinet and Parliament.

  At the start of the twentieth century the science of logistics was essentially new, though the problems of military supply had existed since armies were created. However rudimentary the supply structure, an army's logistical arrangements remain fundamental to military success. Without adequate supplies of men, food, ammunition and transport an army cannot function for long, and the advent of advanced technology at the end of the nineteenth century, the growing size of armies and the complexity of their equipment had only added to the problem. This much applied to all European armies, but the problems facing Henry Wilson when he decided to send the BEF to France- and nowhere else- in 1911 were more fundamental than mere supply.

  To begin with the British Army of 1914 was small, fully volunteer, largely deployed overseas and composed of men on a twelve­ year engagement. As explained earlier, seven years would be spent with the Colours and five on the reserve; the bulk of the Army consisted of reservists. Infantry regiments were organized on a two-battalion basis. One battalion would be fully up to strength- 978 rifles - and serve overseas. The other would remain in the UK depot, training recruits and sending drafts abroad to top up the ranks of the first battalion.

  Periodically these battalions would change round, but the home battalion was always under strength, and it was these home battalions that had to provide the teeth of the British Expeditionary Force in war. To a greater or lesser extent, the same circumstances applied to the cavalry regiments and the artillery, where the mobilization problem was compounded by the need for an abundance of horses.

  Each infantry division comprised three brigades, each of four battalions, plus 'divisional troops' - artillery, engineers, supply and transport lines, medical units and mounted troops- giving a division a strength of some 18,000 men, of whom 12,000 were infantry and 4,000 were artillery, manning the division's seventy­ six supporting guns (fifty-four 18-pounders, eighteen howitzers and four 60-pounders). The machine-gun scale was two per battalion or twenty-four in a division. A cavalry division was smaller, consisting of four brigades, each of three regiments, plus 'divisional troops' as above; a cavalry division mustered around 9,000 men with 10,000 horses, twenty 13-pounder guns of the horse artillery and again twenty-four machine guns.

  The first task for the army staff on receiving the cabinet order to mobilize was to recall the reservists and form the divisions. Across the army as a whole, 60 per cent of the BEF soldiers that went to France in 1914 were reservists, so each home infantry battalion needed around six hundred men to bring it up to strength on mobilization. This could take time, for even the home battalions were not necessarily at their depots.

  To give just one example: the depot of the 1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders was at Aberdeen in north-east Scotland, but in August 1914 the battalion was stationed in Plymouth in south­west England. The mobilization order was received at the Gordons' depot at 1720 hours on 4 August and telegrams went out to 531 reservists. These men had to travel to Aberdeen from all over Britain and pick up their kit before heading for Plymouth at the other end of.the country. The battalion was not fully mustered for another four days. (2) This ate considerably into the twelve days allotted by the WF plan for the mobilization of the entire BEF and its arrival at the forming-up position in France.

  The number of reservists who had to be recalled to their depots and clothed, armed and equipped before they could join their battalions to complete the 160,000-strong BEF amounted to some 98,000 men. This was a complicated administrative task, and none of these reservists could be recalled until the cabinet decided to mobilize the army- a political decision over which Wilson had no control.

  However, the most pressing need on mobilization was for horses; without horses the army could not move. Horses were not on any War Office list and could not be kept in reserve, but they were essential for early-twentieth-century warfare, not least for the movement of guns across country. An account of the logistical problems facing Wilson and the BEF should therefore begin with a study of the artillery, and in particular of the artillery's dependence on horses.

  In 1914 the majority of European armies relied on horse transport. Horses were needed for pulling guns and transport wagons, for mounting the cavalry, much of the artillery, some infantry officers and most of the staff. The strength of the British Expeditionary Force on a six-division scale is shown in the table on page 84, (3) which notes an immediate need for 60,368 horses.

  According to Robert Grey, (4) in August 1914 the British Army had only 25,000 horses, a fact confirmed in the British Official History; (5) the rest had to requisitioned from riding schools, hunts, private individuals and public companies. The official pre-war estimate was that, allowing for casualties, the Army would need 165,000 horses in the first three months.

  During the first two weeks of the war the British A
rmy purchased some 140,000 horses - including all the tram horses from Morecambe and many other seaside towns (6) - and within twelve days had distributed 120,000 horses to the units. But simply finding horses was not the complete answer- not all horses were suitable for army use, and some units had particular requirements.

  Every gun in the horse artillery- which in war supported the cavalry - was pulled by six horses. Guns and limbers have no brakes and the horses work in three pairs; the two 'leaders' have to be bigger and faster than the rest for they set the pace; the two 'centres' provide stability and keep the gun team balanced; and the two 'wheelers' have to be smaller and stronger for they are responsible for stopping the gun and slowing the entire team. Clearly, just any horse will not do, and once recruited these horses had to be trained.

  According to Captain Neil Cross, a section commander with The King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, the last unit in the British Army equipped with horse-drawn guns (7) finding suitable troop horses is not easy. They have to be selected for size and temperament, and in 1914 training a troop horse would have taken between one and three months, depending on the horse and what it had been doing before enlistment.

  This brings the matter back to the question of numbers. The pre-war army ran its artillery batteries on a 'low establishment', with four guns to a battery. The 'higher establishment', when units were brought up to strength in preparation for war, called for six­ gun batteries, and the 'war establishment', while still employing six guns, needed more men and more horses. A field artillery battery in 1914 had 119 horses on low establishment, 158 on high establishment and 198 on war establishment. These would include fifty-four draught horses, towing guns and ammunition wagons, eighteen riding horses for the NCOs and other ranks, plus six officer horses and one draught wagon for general stores (GS), tents, bedding and baggage. To this can be added other horses for towing food, troop stores, fodder, cooking equipment, the battery office and farrier equipment. (8) Battery commanders were always very anxious to keep up their horse strength. Captain Cross of The King's Troop estimates that a battery on war establishment might have up to 250 horses, since the officers would bring their own riding mounts, some of them hunters, and retain any issued horses they could get.