Michael Gove Makes Excuses For The First World War

[Zaune]

BBC News

A row has erupted between Sir Tony Robinson and Michael Gove after the education secretary claimed "left-wing academics" were using Blackadder "to feed myths" about World War One.

Sir Tony, who played Baldrick in the BBC series, said Mr Gove was essentially "slagging off teachers".

But Mr Gove said Sir Tony - a left wing activist - was "wrong" and he had not been attacking teachers, just "myths".

The row comes ahead of centenary commemorations for the outbreak of WW1.

The final series of Blackadder - set in the trenches of WW1 - depicts Britain's military leaders as cowards and buffoons, in common with earlier fictional accounts of the conflict such as the 1960s musical farce Oh, What a Lovely War!

'Catastrophic mistakes'

Mr Gove told the Daily Mail on Thursday, that people's understanding of the war had been overlaid by "misrepresentations" which at worst reflected "an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage".

"The war was, of course, an unspeakable tragedy, which robbed this nation of our bravest and best," wrote Mr Gove.

"But even as we recall that loss and commemorate the bravery of those who fought, it's important that we don't succumb to some of the myths which have grown up about the conflict."

He added: "The conflict has, for many, been seen through the fictional prism of dramas such as Oh, What a Lovely War!, The Monocled Mutineer and Blackadder, as a misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite.

"Even to this day there are left-wing academics all too happy to feed those myths."

Some scenes in Oh, What a Lovely War! were based on historian and Conservative politician Alan Clark's revisionist history of WW1, The Donkeys, which is credited with starting the trend for unflattering portrayals of WW1 top brass.
Alan Bleasdale's The Monocled Mutineer was also in Mr Gove's crosshairs Alan Bleasdale's The Monocled Mutineer was also in Mr Gove's crosshairs

Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Sir Tony, a former member of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee, said: "I think Mr Gove has just made a very silly mistake; it's not that Blackadder teaches children the First World War.

"When imaginative teachers bring it in, it's simply another teaching tool; they probably take them over to Flanders to have a look at the sights out there, have them marching around the playground, read the poems of Wilfred Owen to them. And one of the things that they'll do is show them Blackadder.

"And I think to make this mistake, to categorise teachers who would introduce something like Blackadder as left-wing and introducing left-wing propaganda is very, very unhelpful. And I think it's particularly unhelpful and irresponsible for a minister in charge of education."

The actor and Labour activist said it was "just another example of slagging off teachers," adding: "I don't think that's professional or appropriate."

But a spokesman for Michael Gove hit back at his comments.

"Tony Robinson is wrong. Michael wasn't attacking teachers, he was attacking the myths perpetuated in Blackadder and elsewhere," said the spokesman.

"Michael thinks it is important not to denigrate the patriotism, honour and courage demonstrated by ordinary British soldiers in the First World War."

Earlier, shadow education secretary and TV historian Tristram Hunt also criticised Mr Gove's "crass" comments.

In an article in The Observer, the Labour MP wrote: "The reality is clear: the government is using what should be a moment for national reflection and respectful debate to rewrite the historical record and sow political division."

In October, BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman, who has written a book to tie in with the centenary of the start of WW1, criticised schools for relying on episodes of Blackadder Goes Forth to teach pupils about the conflict.

The following month, Conservative defence minister Andrew Murrison, a former Royal Navy surgeon, said: "We risk disconnection from a defining event of our time and an opportunity, perhaps, to balance the Oh! What A Lovely War/Blackadder take on history, that has sadly been in the ascendant for the past 50 years."

Oh, and guess who we're putting on the new £2 coin. Lord Kitchener! The face on all those famous recruiting posters, and the man who invented the concentration camp.

Nothing else for it.

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[Eternal_Freedom]

Thing is, I can understand both sides of this. Yes, using Blackadder and similar is a good way to introduce children to the war without being too horrifying. And yet, I can understand Gove's point, there are myths and exaggerations about the war and it's commanders.

This probably wouldn't have been news if it wasn't a right-wing minister arguing with a left-wing activist.

[Grumman]

Mr Gove told the Daily Mail on Thursday, that people's understanding of the war had been overlaid by "misrepresentations" which at worst reflected "an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage".

There is honour and there is honour. Letting a prisoner of war return home to see his dying mother, and then that prisoner returning to captivity so that that same privilege might be extended to others, is honourable. "Honour" as a tool to shame young men into diving into a pointless meatgrinder is not honourable.

[K. A. Pital]

"Honour" as a tool to shame young men into diving into a pointless meatgrinder is not honourable.

In fact, making people die for the expansion of your dominance in the world in general is not really "honourable" at all. Conscripts didn't even have a choice.

[Siege]

It stings the out-of-touch elite that they are considered an out-of-touch elite.

More seriously, there's myths and exaggerations about every war, every conflict and every pivotal moment in history. And there probably will be forever because wars and conflicts and revolutions and politics are maelstroms of chaos and confusion involving many, many people driven by a host of different motivations and imperfect recollections.

Since a crystal clear view of the war in all its facets is impossible and the centenary commemorations are coming up I feel it would be much more classy to focus on the pointlessness of the war and the horror of the mass murder, instead of spouting empty feelgood rhetoric about 'the virtues of patriotism, honour and courage'. What the fuck does that even mean to the tens of thousands of people machinegunned to death for a few square meters of French or Belgian countryside? I'm sure it took real courage to run into Imperial German artillery fire. Also it was all completely pointless and the world ended up worse off for it as a result. And that at least is a point that Blackadder, for all its mockery of General Melchett, makes very well.

But I suppose that's not a nice thing to hear when you fancy yourself in Melchett's boots.

[Fiji_Fury]

Speaking of myths about World War 1, Michael Gove is repeating the government/media point about 'the virtues of patriotism, honour and courage" despite how soldiers actually felt about the events. Battling in the trenches was horrific and it's a sad testament to the fact that fighting in trenches was better than fighting in the open. Any time an offensive was launched by the combatants on the Western Front (regardless of whether it be France, Britain, Germany or any of the colonial forces) casualties on the attacking side spiked dramatically.

Historians John Keegan and Jack Beatty (two I've recently read; I'm certain there are dozens of others including the documents and historians they cite in their own works) both include records of the animosity soldiers had toward government and civilians, even early into the war (1915). Statements about 'the virtues of patriotism, honour and courage' became offensive tripe that men in the trenches would deliberately wipe their asses with. Soldiers couldn't stomach that nonsense because it was so chaotically at odds with their experiences in the trench lines. British media (and French, German for that matter) basically censored themselves and kept the scale of death and destruction obscured from the public until after the war had ended.

Gove's not mistaken to point out that myths exist about WWI and frankly comedy shows like Blackadder feed off some of them and represent only part of the situation, but what he's suggesting was the "real" message or lesson of WWI is also patently mythical. 'Patriotism' was not well served in the Battle of the Somme, Verdun or at Paschendaele. Soldiers were deliberately fed into a "meat grinder" that killed thousands in minutes. Vicious, impersonal and tragic slaughter was the chief result of these offensives. Gove calling such things 'the virtues of patriotism, honour and courage" is not only revisionist, it's ignorant.

[Patroklos]

Anomosity towards the top brass is pretty much a universal trait of any military, even in peace time. This is because it is a job where most people are not in charge of the decisions affecting them, and most jobs share that trait to some degree. Its obviously exacerbated when you might die due to the decisions of your bosses, but lets not pretend to be surprised it existed.

[Zixinus]

Is it left-wing propaganda to consider people that died on a large scale for a reason that is still nebulous to most people today? Is it left-wing to consider the thousands of conscripts to be people who did not want to die (but were practically forced to), rather than turn them into vague icons filled with meaningless bullshit?

To be honest though, I am curious as to why Blackadder was chosen. Is Blackadder particularly well researched in terms of historical accuracy?

Of course, as a Hungarian what I'll get is a revival in the topic of goddamn Triannon and how much of an injustice it was. Along with the not-so-subtle suggestion that the territories lost by Hungary should somehow be restored, no matter how impossible that would be.

[Siege]

The longer I ponder Mr. Gove's opinion that Blackadder and media like it represent "an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage" the less sense it makes.

In the trenches of WW1 you could be the most virtuous, honourable and courageous patriot in the history of the British empire, hell you could be Lancelot incarnate, and it still would have amounted to nothing because the second you go over the top you're just as likely to be killed as the fearful conscript nobody next to you. All that virtue and courage and good-spirited Britishness or whatever gone to waste because somebody ordered it to run up to a German machine gun nest.

In the final episode of Blackadder Goes Forth - spoilers - it turns out that it ultimately doesn't matter if you're an honest strapping lad like George or a coward (for given values of cowardice anyway) like Blackadder because bombs and bullets don't distinguish between heroes and cowards. Everybody dies equally. What's the myth there exactly? Because that looks like a pretty accurate description of war to me, and one we would do well to impress upon as many people as we can.

Frankly anybody who disagrees with Blackadder's sentiment that war is terrible and the best and most sensible idea is to do your utmost to get away from it as soon as possible is someone who should be deeply mistrusted.

[K. A. Pital]

But if war is terrible, it follows that it should be avoided, and if war is averted then its good. Especially a war of conquest that is not immediately tied to defending your own people. This may undermine the narrative for a whole lot of wars, even including World War II which is like the holy grail.

When your people get this idea that war and massive slaughter which accompanies war is bad, you lose a lot of previously righteous history that becomes wrong all of a sudden.

[Grumman]

But if war is terrible, it follows that it should be avoided, and if war is averted then its good. Especially a war of conquest that is not immediately tied to defending your own people. This may undermine the narrative for a whole lot of wars, even including World War II which is like the holy grail.

No, that doesn't undermine World War II, unless you're looking at it from the Axis side. Between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, the Axis powers were attacking everyone. The only major power they weren't trying to invade was the United States, and even that got fucked up by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

[Eternal_Freedom]

For all the arguments against Gove's statement, I question the thread title, I really don't see how he is "making excuses for WW1." To me, "making excuses" would imply suggesting it was all Germany's fault or similar, not saying that we should avoid perpetuating myths.

I suspect he used Blackadder as an example because in that the two Generals we see (Melchett and Haig) are total dicks who are either insane or totally uncaring about their troops. Which is not true for many of the WW1 generals. Hell, Haig was (IIRC) so apalled at the losses on the Somme (or was it Passchendale?) that he offered to resign. Plumer, the General in command of Passchendale tried to avoid casualties if at all possible. Granted, some of the Generals were nutters, or more accurately hopelessly out of touch with how warfare had advanced in the 15+ years since they last saw combat. But not all of them were insane or callous, which is, I think, what Gove was saying. That continuing the myth of the insane general is unfair to those who were not insane.

That being said, I can overlook Blackadder's use of the insane general because it was funny.

[Irbis]

The longer I ponder Mr. Gove's opinion that Blackadder and media like it represent "an unhappy compulsion on the part of some to denigrate virtues such as patriotism, honour and courage" the less sense it makes.

In the trenches of WW1 you could be the most virtuous, honourable and courageous patriot in the history of the British empire, hell you could be Lancelot incarnate, and it still would have amounted to nothing because the second you go over the top you're just as likely to be killed as the fearful conscript nobody next to you.

Fuck, maybe someone should point out a name to mr Gove, a certain Englishman named Henry Moseley. He sadly bought into the "patriotism, honour and courage" manure wholeheartedly, and look where it got the UK (and the whole world, for that matter). And he is only one of the most famous, there could be any number brighter than him but unknown yet sent there, too, on both sides.

He would be much better candidate for that £2, but it would step on a lot of right winger toes.

[Siege]

For all the arguments against Gove's statement, I question the thread title, I really don't see how he is "making excuses for WW1."

I do agree, I don't think Mr. Gove was "making excuses" for WW1. But I don't agree with what he did say either.

I suspect he used Blackadder as an example because in that the two Generals we see (Melchett and Haig) are total dicks who are either insane or totally uncaring about their troops. Which is not true for many of the WW1 generals. Hell, Haig was (IIRC) so apalled at the losses on the Somme (or was it Passchendale?) that he offered to resign.

The Somme offensive took place mid-1916 though. I'm not a big WW1 strategy buff but I do know that by that point the war had been going on for two years and by that time literally millions of French, Russians and British (not to mention German, Ottoman, Austria–Hungarian, etc.) soldiers had died. From where I'm standing it's looking pretty insane for Haig to be appalled that his offensive into German lines cost tens of thousands of lives -- insanity after all being popularly defined as trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

I don't doubt that Haig really was appalled by the results - in that sense I'll readily admit that Blackadder's portrayal of the man is probably unfair - but in the end he was still doing the same thing everybody had been doing since the start of the war, namely some variation on sending hundreds of thousands of young men into the killing fields in the hopes that this time the result would be different.

That is the real insanity of the war. It isn't so much that the generals and politicians were monstrous raving lunatics, it's that they weren't and they still sent all those people to die pointless deaths. That's the real failing, and if Mr. Gove wants to do right by all the poor bastards buried in continental war cemetaries he would in my opinion be better off trying to address the fundamental senselessness and horror of WW1.

But instead he's criticizing a satirical show for being satire and vapidly firing off meaningless rhetoric about patriotism and courage. In effect he's using millions of murdered people as fuel to drive the same kind of jingoistic flag wavery mechanism that got those people murdered to begin with, and it's utterly abominable to behold.

[Ahriman238]

This is the same jolly 'ol England that tied up Parliament for some weeks in debates over issuing helmets to soldiers, because wounded men need to be hauled to safety, treated and often get a pension, whilst dead soldiers cost the state only a funeral, yes?

[Flagg]

I honestly believe that WW1 was the single stupidest conflict in human history. It's reasons were petty, it's generals wrongheaded, and it directly led to the single worst conflict in human history. We're still dealing with the repercussions.

[Simon_Jester]

The Somme offensive took place mid-1916 though. I'm not a big WW1 strategy buff but I do know that by that point the war had been going on for two years and by that time literally millions of French, Russians and British (not to mention German, Ottoman, Austria–Hungarian, etc.) soldiers had died. From where I'm standing it's looking pretty insane for Haig to be appalled that his offensive into German lines cost tens of thousands of lives -- insanity after all being popularly defined as trying the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

I don't doubt that Haig really was appalled by the results - in that sense I'll readily admit that Blackadder's portrayal of the man is probably unfair - but in the end he was still doing the same thing everybody had been doing since the start of the war, namely some variation on sending hundreds of thousands of young men into the killing fields in the hopes that this time the result would be different.

That is the real insanity of the war. It isn't so much that the generals and politicians were monstrous raving lunatics, it's that they weren't and they still sent all those people to die pointless deaths. That's the real failing...

The purely technical problem is that after each disastrously failed offensive, the nation responsible would revise its tactics and methods just enough to give them hope that this time they'd pull it off... but not enough to actually break the stalemate in any real way, not until the tanks and Stosstruppen tactics reached maturity in late 1917-18.

For instance, Haig started the Somme offensive with the most devastating artillery attack the world had ever known, thinking that surely it would flatten the German defenses. No such luck.

And perhaps that is how nominally sane men act in an insane way- by changing things just a little and persuading themselves that it matters. When in fact it's all an act of denial, and they need to rethink their entire approach from the ground up.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Also, Haig wasn't in command for the first year of the war at least, Sir John French was in charge of the BEF until mid-1915 at least IIRC, I can't remember exactly when he was sacked. As Simon pointed out, for the Somme he had a massive collection of artillery and ample shells, something not possible before due to the "Shell Crisis" where the British armaments industry couldn't keep up with the suddenly expanded scale of the army. So he could drop far more artillery shells on the target than ever before, and if the Germans hadn't built their newer defense lines it may well have been effective. But the Germans did build new lines, something hard to discover when aerial reconnaissance was in it's infancy.

Also, he was forced to attack two weeks earlier than he planned, thanks to Marshall Joffre begging him to attack to relieve pressure on Verdun. So as with most things, it's a lot more complicated than "haha dumb general never learned."

Like I said earlier, all the generals on both sides were trained in an earlier era of war, when combat was fluid and cavalry charges still carried the day. Sir John French IIRC was the commander of the last successful cavalry charge in British warfare. So the Generals are confronted with an entirely new situation they've never encountered, on an unprecedented scale and with new technology that overshadowed every tactic they'd ever learned. Yes, they were slow to adapt. Yes, they could have changed faster, but it's very easy to say that in hindsight.

Certainly Gove's comments are in poor taste, but there's enough to criticise without making shit up about him making excuses.

[Siege]

Like I said, I'm sure Haig felt real bad after he tried the next variation on the thing his team had been trying for two years and found out that gosh darnit, not only did it not work but also another million people were dead.

I first visited the war graves at Douaumont when I was I think eleven or so years old; when you're staring at thirteen thousand white crosses it doesn't take genius to figure out that something had gone terribly wrong there. How a continent's worth of very intelligent men could pretend they were doing the right thing for four years is something I still can't figure out. Yeah, I know that hindsight is 20/20 but I still don't give a hoot about Haig's tarnished reputation when he got to be a war hero, live to 66 and die peacefully in a bed somewhere back in Britain.

[Simon_Jester]

Me neither.

I can understand the forces that led Haig to collaborate in acts of murderous folly over and over, to the great detriment of his nation. But that is not an excuse, both he and the political leaders he worked for should have been smarter than that, and more responsible.

At the very least, someone should have had the sense to say "look, we need to stand on the defensive until genuinely new weapons and tactics are devised to beat the trenches."

[K. A. Pital]

Does it even matter if they used state of the art war techniques or not? I mean, fundamentally war is shit. Even if your commanders learn all the cool tricks and then proceed to smash armies of several nations to the ground, war is still shit. Germany learned a lot of lessons from WWI and started with some of the most inventive tactics when they entered World War II.

It doesn't change the underlying truth: war is bad. A person who excels at war is essentially a person who excels at murder for goals of the state. It is a rare coincidence when it is truly in the interest of the people that the war is waged to victory.

[Thanas]

The real offensive thing is that the British are putting Lord Kitchener on a coin, he of the "war crimes? What war crimes? Just punitive expeditions, m'dear" record. The face of British imperialism alongside Cecil Rhodes, and he is to be commemorated by being put on a coin? What a load of fascist crap that is.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Me neither.

I can understand the forces that led Haig to collaborate in acts of murderous folly over and over, to the great detriment of his nation. But that is not an excuse, both he and the political leaders he worked for should have been smarter than that, and more responsible.

At the very least, someone should have had the sense to say "look, we need to stand on the defensive until genuinely new weapons and tactics are devised to beat the trenches."

I recall a Bitish Major-General (I can't remember his name off hand) that protested how absurd the "advance into machine gun fire" tactic was, he was immediately sacked by the government.

And yes, Thanas, I agree that Lord Kitchener on a coin is a bad idea. Britain has plenty of other noble and worthy historical figures without resorting to men with such a...questionable career is the nicest way I can put it I think.

[Simon_Jester]

Does it even matter if they used state of the art war techniques or not? I mean, fundamentally war is shit. Even if your commanders learn all the cool tricks and then proceed to smash armies of several nations to the ground, war is still shit. Germany learned a lot of lessons from WWI and started with some of the most inventive tactics when they entered World War II.

I suppose it's like this to me:

There are two separate failed duties here.

One failed duty is strictly a professional one- the military officers of World War One failing to do what they were supposed to and find a way to win the war without wrecking their country. This is the criticism on the strength of which we say that the generals were donkeys, or portray them as bloodthirsty madmen. It is that they were hired to do a certain duty on behalf of their country, were entrusted with great resources to do it well, and failed to do it properly- and that their failure brought tremendous suffering down upon the people who trusted them to do it.

This is separate from the question of whether the whole war was a mistake and a wrong (it was). You can have competent generals who do not fail their professional duty, and still have these generals be evil ogres who deserve to be shot for war crimes in the aftermath. On the other hand, you can have a quite well justified war in which your generals act so incompetently that they have utterly failed their professional duties.

So there is also the other failed duty- the duty of statesmen (and, in a democracy like 1914 Britain, the electorate) to accurately weigh the costs of war, compare it to the cause for which the war is being fought, and decide whether or not to pursue war. In this duty, too, you can make a case that World War One Britain failed*... but in that case the failure is not on the part of the generals, unless you think it should be common that military officers refuse to fight on behalf of the state in whose armed forces they serve. Which lends itself to problems, if civilian control of the military is to be maintained.
____________

*Although I find it interesting- would you also say that this failing applies to France? Because the French were directly invaded and spent practically the entire war fighting on their own soil against a German army occupying parts of it. We can hardly say that the French were wrong to do that, even if in the long run they'd probably have been better off just surrendering in 1914.

I recall a Bitish Major-General (I can't remember his name off hand) that protested how absurd the "advance into machine gun fire" tactic was, he was immediately sacked by the government.

Er... without more details I'm going to have to write this one off, or at least not treat it as basis to condemn anyoen. Especially since your idea of "advance into machine gun fire" may not line up with what British tactics of the time actually were.

I have plenty of criticism and condemnation in reserve for WWI officers, especially the senior officers. But at the same time, the sheer scope of the pointless destruction in that war has created a myth of officer incompetence that outstrips the reality in some cases.

And yes, Thanas, I agree that Lord Kitchener on a coin is a bad idea. Britain has plenty of other noble and worthy historical figures without resorting to men with such a...questionable career is the nicest way I can put it I think.

I agree with this part SO MUCH.

[Thanas]

How much power can you really give the electorate in a democracy like Britain, what with its rotten boroughs and media manipulation history?

IMO at least as much as the German and French electorates, who were just as "democratic" as Britain was at the time...