I am not, and do not intend to
become, a First World War wargamer. There are a number of reasons for this, as
I have noted before, along the lines of the sheer size of most of the Western
Front battles, and the horrid experiences of the participants. I do accept that
the Western Front can be wargamed, it is just not for me.
However, the memorials of the events
are now passing us by, and there is a debate to be had over the ‘meaning’ of
those events. Was the Battle of Jutland a victory for one side or the other, or
a defeat, or a draw? What could have happened if the battle had gone in a
different direction? A similar debate is raging about the Somme. Some argue
that it was wasteful and tragic but not futile. Others claim that it was all
three. All seem to be seeking some sort
of meaning in the destruction and loss of life involved in both battles, and,
for the matter of that, in the whole war.
There are historiographically, a
number of views which can be taken, but broadly the debate splits into two. Firstly
there is the idea that the whole war and the Somme in particular, was a huge
waste of effort and of lives. This is broadly speaking the view of many First
World War poets and the ‘Lions Led by Donkeys’ and ‘Oh What a Lovely War’ sorts
of commentary. It is possibly worth noting that this view did not really gain
purchase in the popular consciousness until the 1920’s, with such texts as
Robert Graves’ ‘Goodbye to All That’ and Siegfried Sassoon’s ‘Memoirs of an
Infantry Officer’. Possibly we could
also add to that list ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. The point is that the
cultural interpretation of the war shifted from it being a victory to it being a
disaster.
At alternative ‘revisionist’ view
of the Somme is that it was a vital learning curve for the massed British Army.
The historians who support this view regard the battle as part of the learning
curve for the generals and the units involved in how to win a battle in the
military and technological context of the early Twentieth Century. They observe
that while Haig did make mistakes, the army as a whole did learn how to do
things better, from artillery barrages to communications, the introduction of
the tank different ways of assaulting enemy trenches. They point out that, in
fact, British troops did not just climb out of their trenches and walk across
No Man’s Land into a hail of machine gun fire. The precise tactics adopted
varied unit by unit, and was not imposed by high command.
Was the battle a disaster? Well,
it depends on what you mean. For those involved it most likely was a disaster,
but the British Army was not broken by 1st July and the battle kept
going into the autumn. Politically, of course, the British had little choice.
The French (who were meant to be more heavily involved than they were) were
being bled dry at Verdun, which is a fact that rather few British historians
care to recall. For the British to stop an offensive while their allies were
attempting to stem the German assault (and later recapture ground where the
Germans had gone onto the defensive) would probably have been alliance-suicide.
Only the alliance of Britain and France was going to enable victory; Haig had
to keep the alliance intact.
There is a further view that the
Somme made the German High Command take notice of the British Army, which they
had previously rather disregarded. The later withdrawal to the Hindenburg line
is taken, by revisionist historians at least, as evidence that the German High
Command had decided that the British were a potent enough threat to require
special handling. Alternatively, of course, the withdrawal can be taken as
strategic, freeing units from the German Army to be transferred east to knock
the newly revolutionary Russia out of the war entirely. In that sense, of
course, it was successful and the troops were then transferred back west for the
1918 spring Offensive.
Is there a wargaming way of understanding
this? To some extent, there might be. For example, what might have happened in
1st July if Gough’s Reserve Army had been ordered forward rather
than stood down? An optimistic view suggests that while gains may have been
limited, ground would have been gained and held. A pessimistic view would argue
that the ground had been so badly damaged that any reserves would not have made
any difference and possibly been destroyed in attempting to reach the new front
lines. As it is, it seems likely that Haig was not aware of Rawlinson’s order
standing down Gough’s army, but it does seem that the impact of this could be
wargamed and a view taken as to the impact of the decision.
A wargaming answer to these sorts
of questions is, of course, speculative. But is it possible that something
along the lines of Phil Sabin’s ideas about mapping out the possible result and
parameters could be achieved here? It could certainly be argued that, at least,
careful and creative wargaming of the battle could provide models for the
arguments about the possibilities and mistakes that were made. While we cannot,
of course, base our historical assessment on wargaming alone, we might at least
develop some models of what happened and why, rather than relying on the
arguments of historians which are becoming, to be honest, rather sterile, in
that one side says ‘X’ and the other says ‘Not-X’, and there the debate gets
stuck.
So, there you are, all you modern
wargamers, a real challenge. What would have happened if Gough’s army had
advanced at, say, midday of 1st of July? Would be be celebrating a
British victory, albeit at heavy cost, of an even more tragic waste of life?
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