Thx for pointing back to the many fine comments. I've always wanted some detail on Col. Dowdy's March 2003 relief, after probing and sidestepping a Sunni Republican Guard (division?) 'defending' in the Shiite shrine city of Kut.

Gen. Mattis got his own a taste of confused commands, collatoral and casualties, in the aborted Rummy-Bush order to immediately avenge Blackwater at Fallujah-1, in March 2004. Consider the butcher bills in launching and aborting a premature assault, and then having to listen to Washington BS about 'following the advice of commanders on the ground.'

I saw no mention of the early termination of Brigadier Taguba's career, after he had the temerity to report that a 3-star investigation was needed to follow the prisoner abuse (and homicide) investigation up to Sanchez level. Many have suggested that Brig. Millers fall 2003 mission to successfully gitmo-ize Abu Ghraib was the biggest strategic blunder/defeat we suffered in this war.

Like Dowdy, Taguba did his duty as he saw it, which can have unhappy consequences.

Wasn't young George Washington relieved, for attacking the French?

Forgotten War: you'll love Ned Almond...

DANGER! Long post! My apolgies in advance.

Just my opinion about The Forgotten War - it is a comprehensive overview of the conflict from the late 40s right up the ceasefire in 53. It runs the better part of 1,000 pages. I read it about 15 years ago and haven't looked it more than once or twice since then. Maybe it's time to revisit it.

That said, I had to filter Blair's rather outspoken POV regarding the politicians. He really dislikes HST - not that he gives any quarter to the Republicans, Dean Acheson, the Dulles Brothers or any of the other Wise Men. And he doesn't mince words with MacArthur, Almond, or Mac's intelligence chief Charles Willoughby who certainly gives Almond a run for his money when it comes to incompetence, bigotry, and sycophantic behavior towards his boss. Or the generals, excepting Oliver Smith and Matt Ridgeway, who are hard to critisize. But for a more dispassionate (and more limited) reading of the events in Nov and Dec 1950 I prefer Roy Appleman's works.

It's interesting that we all ended up discussing Korea. After thinking about it I think I have some vague understanding of why we found it to be significant. WW II was a war of national and perhaps global survival. It certainly wasn't a war of choice and the stakes were so high the high command and the political leadership had no option but to get rid of incompetent generals and find people who could get the job done. There wasn't going to be an armistice, truce, ceasefire, or a declaration of victory and demobilization. Notwithstanding the [minor in my opinion] controversy around the notion of unconditional surrender, everyone knew it was a fight to the bitter end.

Korea was the first of what have become many wars of "choice." At the time it may have looked like the beginning of WW III and there is no controversy about whether N. Korea was the initial aggressor or not. But the nature of the mission was different. Although it wasn't well understood at the time - and in some circles still isn't given the idea that there could be some sort of "victory" in the same sense that the surrender on the deck of the Missouri symbolized, be it in Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq - commanders in conflicts such as those mentioned above have to have a different set of criteria for planning and conducting operations as well as how one measures their success.

Tactically Korea resembled WW II in that it was a conventional conflict with regular forces battling each other across front lines. Possession of territory and the destruction of the enemy forces in the field were the main measures of success. And that certainly hasn't been the case in the other wars of choice since then. But I would argue that their similarities outweigh their differences simply based on the notion of choice and the concept of limiting the conflict both in terms of where it is fought and how.

It could also be argued that fighting in this manner and for the reasons stated - in UN resolution 82 or the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution - whether we agree or disagree with them represents a new type of warfare. One that is only now, over 50 years after the end of the Korean War looked at as something worth training commanders of the future to understand.

I guess this is a very long-winded way of saying that measuring the success or lack thereof by a particular commander in this realm is more subjective and more of a work in progress than if was in both the world wars, the American Civil War, the Napoleonic wars and probably all wars going back to the Athenians dismal Syracuse campaign or the Hittites vs. the Egyptians. Lao Tzu applies tactically, but not strategically in these conflicts - and the book is still being written about how to apply force in a limited war of "choice."

According to the AP today, it looks as of Obama is going to give COIN a shot and send McChrystal pretty much what he's asking for. I can't say I agree with that, but maybe I'm wrong. We may have a chance to see if the book as written to date works.

Forget the relief of generals; the book the Clay Blair did on Matt Ridgway and how he handled the relief of poor leaders at the regimental, battalion, and company levels is an outstanding history of the XVIII Airborne Corps and the airborne war in Italy, France, Holland and Germany.

Even better are the examples where mere handfuls of paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne are stopping entire SS Panzer divisions, just a great read about the heroics of the American fighting man and how getting rid of bad leaders helps a unit succeed.

It's interesting to me that some of the folks who want the pols to follow the advice of the generals without second opinions, followup, research, etc., are some of the same people who strongly admire the pols who sacked generals left and right.

I'm thinking of Lincoln and Churchill in particular.

How would the Southern flank campaign - North Africa and Italy, culminating in the Southern France landings - if Wavell and Auchinleck had remained in command?

Lincoln would have loved to follow the advice of his generals ... if he could find one a). whose advice was worth following, and b). had had battlefield success on which to base it. Until Grant, Lincoln was alone in running the war.

B. H. Liddell Hart said 'The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.' Bruce Catton said (near quote — can't find original): "The military steps from one undeniable truth to another, until it arrives at a point of crippling nonsense.'

It's the politician, the elected commander in chief who must live in a realm of reality and flexible reaction (pace George W. Bush), without the freedom to cling tenuously to cant and doctrine. To another blog discussion recently, maybe the reason navy gets better strategic results in action than army is because mistakes by army leaders kill others, whereas mistakes by a navy captain get him killed too.

Do you mean Douglas Haig?

Haig might have been a good whisky guy, but I challenge anyone who looks at the losses suffered on the first day of the Somme to justify his skill as a general. According to Wikipedia (the easiest reference available at this moment – and accurate in this case), “The first day on the Somme, 1 July 1916, was the opening day of the Battle of Albert, which was the first phase of the British and French offensive that became known as the Battle of the Somme. The middle day of the middle year of the First World War, it is remembered as the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army when 57,470 men became casualties of which 19,240 were killed or died of wounds.”

This was a battle that Haig presided over and continued into November of that year. And the following year he did the same thing, under worse topographical circumstances at Ypres – the infamous Passchendaele battle. Wikipedia states: “The British launched several massive attacks, heavily supported by artillery and aircraft. The British never managed to make a decisive breakthrough against well-entrenched German lines. The battle consisted of a series of 'Bite and Hold' attacks to capture critical terrain and wear down the German army, lasting until the Canadian Corps took Passchendaele on 6 November 1917, ending the battle. Although inflicting irreplaceable casualties on the Germans, the Allies had captured a mere 5 miles (8 km) of new territory at a cost of 140,000 combat deaths, a ratio of roughly 2 inches (5 cm) gained per dead soldier. The Germans recaptured their lost ground, without resistance, 5 months later during the Battle of the Lys.”

Haig ran the battle for six months with NO CHANGES IN TACTICS. How can he be rehabilitated? He should have been shot. Thousands were executed for far less.

My read on this is slightly personal. Not because my Great Uncle went missing (on the German side!) there. Never knew the guy – I was born in 1954. It’s because I lived in Belfast, Northern Ireland for most of the 90s. It isn’t a mistake that I brought up Haig. Tomorrow is 11/11. It’s something of a minor holiday for most people in the US, but Americans don’t understand the effect the Somme and 3rd Ypres had on the body politic in the UK. It’s a big and very solemn holiday in the UK, and for good reason. Back when I lived there, there were still a few old guys who had lived though those battles. I still get misty – as I am now – thinking about how I (and everyone else) would watch them on the BBC hobbling or getting wheeled in their wheelchairs up to all the local cenotaphs in every town in Ulster – and the big one in London where the queen and PM and the rest would be – to place their wreaths. It was always very touching. Especially in Northern Ireland. On the first day of the Somme the 36th Ulster Division went over the top along with everyone else. They lost 5,500 men. Something like 60% of their officers were killed.

That was on the first day. The battle lasted almost six more months.

With a population of about 1.5 million – not much less in 1916 – it’s difficult for Americans who weren’t alive during the Civil War to imagine the effect those sorts of losses have on a society of that size. There wasn’t a village in any of the nine counties of Ulster that didn’t lose at least a few young men. Many of those families are in one way or another still affected by those losses. It was butchery. And needless. The Wikipedia passage above indicates how much ground they were able to take and how long it was held.

Sure I’m over simplifying. Haig wasn’t alone – the French generals were butchers too. And the Germans, although they learned faster and developed storm-trooper tactics that worked well in the Spring 1918 offensive weren’t innocent of the sort of tremendous wastage I’m talking about. But Haig seems to be in a class by himself when it comes to the ability to rationalize and to continue to preach his doctrine without (seemingly) any sense of what his battles wrought.

So I still think about those old guys – pretty much all of them dead now – who I would watch on TV when I lived over there. Whenever they would interview any of them they would tear up and talk about how they still missed their mates who went at a walking pace into the machine guns with them 80 years before.

Makes me wonder why anyone would want to bother to rehab Haig.

It also makes me wonder if the American body politic, with its sometimes over-aggressive bomb-them-into-the-stone-age mentality could have learned something from a catastrophe like the Somme or 3rd Ypres.

Thanks again--I've been taking notes here!

jsinaiko, when you write, "I know for a fact that the average Tommy thought of him as a criminal"--I had my poor researcher going around and around on this earlier this year. Can you suggest anything solid to read on this issue?

Cheers,
Tom

Tom -

I think I overstated the point - my bad. What I SHOULD have written is: based on what friends of mine who had grandfathers and great uncles in the 36th Ulster division told me their granddads told them, and from interviews I saw on the beeb (and channel 4 and ITV) with very elderly survivors of the Somme and Passchendaele (mainly the Somme; that's where the 36th division met its fate) on the live specials they usually run on 11/11, many old vets still expressed extreme bitterness at the way they were used by the British high command, led by Sir Douglas Haig.

If you have any sources with BBC news or Channel 4 news there may be tapes of some of these old vets laying around. Given the date it may be a good time to ask. I saw this stuff in the mid and late 90s. Surely most of the interview subjects have now passed away. In fact I read somewhere recently that there are now fewer than five surviving Great War vets in the UK.

As an aside, in N. Ireland Remembrance Day as it is known in the UK is a quite nasty political issue because republicans (of the Northern Irish variety, not the GOP) feel that any positive statement about the British army is wrong. Symbols are big there and there is always controversy about the poppies that are traditionally worn in people lapels. I was often in sympathy with republican goals (if not the IRA's methods), but the objection to wearing a poppy to commemorate young men tragically killed in action was always beyond me. Of course on the protestand (or Unionist) side feelings are equally as intense or more so due to the fact that many have direct ancestors who were killed in the Great War, especially at the Somme. Thankfully more and more Catholic citizens of N. Ireland are wearing poppies and not objecting to the honoring of the dead. A few years ago Alex Maskey, a grizzled IRA veteran and certified tough guy, turned Sinn Fein politician wore a poppy on 11/11 while he was Lord Mayor of Belfast; it was a huge symbol and very courageous for him to do so, and made a real difference. Tens of thousands of Irishmen from all over the island, North and South fought with British forces in both world wars and gave their lives in the fight against German expansionism and fascism.

Sorry for the digression. There is a decent oral history of the Somme by a British journalist called Lyn MacDonald called "Somme" which contains a number of fairly derogatory quotes from squadies about Sir Douglas. That said, in most of her books MacDonald tends towards caution (she's no Clay Blair!) and is very careful about quoting soldiers about much beyond what they actually did or saw.

You may want to reference Basil Liddel-Hart's diary. Here's a pertty good quote from it: "He [Haig] was a man of supreme egoism and utter lack of scruple—who, to his overweening ambition, sacrificed hundreds of thousands of men. A man who betrayed even his most devoted assistants as well as the Government which he served. A man who gained his ends by trickery of a kind that was not merely immoral but criminal." Liddel-Hart was no squadie, but he was a British officer through and through.

"In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign" by Leon Wolff is a paperback I lifted from my Dad's bookcase sometime in the 70s. My copy disintegrated decades ago. But it appears that it is available from Amazon. It is about Ypres not the Somme and offers some firsthand quotes if my memory serves me.

It isn't exactly source material, but there is a hilarious transcript from the Blackadder series at:

http://www.johndclare.net/wwi_haig_docs.htm

Scroll to the bottom of the page - it's LOL funny.

Also some good quotes and passages from some other sources.

On the same website there is another good page with some good quotes from Great War vets on Haig and the British high command. There are also several articles and other bits by historians and modern British politicians and journalists. Many of them like Niall Ferguson - now at Harvard - and the late rake, playboy, Tory MP, and military historian Alan Clarke are quite conservative and not iconoclasts.

http://www.johndclare.net/wwi3_ShotatDawn.htm

Whatever the revisionists say, the fact that Haig's nickname in the trenches was "The Butcher" pretty much say it all. Great quote by Lloyd George: "One of my teachers once jokingly said to me that Haig was the greatest Scots
general - he killed the most Englishmen."

Hope this helps.

GENERAL OFFICER RELIEF'S IN WWI FIRST U.S. ARMY
2 Nov 1917 MG Richard M. Blatchford Lines of Communication
14 Dec 1917 MG William L. Sibert 1st Division
19 Dec 1917 MG William A. Mann 42nd Division
1 May 1918 BG Benjamin Alvord* GHQAG
1 May 1918 BG Alfred E. Brad1ey* GHQ Surgeon
1 May 1918 BG Peter Murray* 3rd Brigade (2nd Division)
1 May 1918 BG Robert D. Wa1sh* 78th Brigade (39th Division)
7 May 1918 BG Charles A. Doyen, USMC* 4th Brigade (2nd Division)
17 June 1918 BG Henry R. Hill 65th Brigade (33rd Division)
15 July 1918 MG Omar Bundy 2nd Division
29 July 1918 MG Francis 1. Kernan Services of Supply
6 Aug 1918 BG Robert A. Brown 84th Brigade (42nd Division)
26 Sep 1918 BG Robert Noble 158th Brigade (79th Division)
3 Oct 1918 BG Nathaniel McClure 69th Brigade (35th Division)
9 Oct 1918 BG George H. Jamerson 159th Brigade (80th Division)
12 Oct 1918 MG Charles Cameron V Corps
17 Oct 1918 BG Michael 1. Lenihan** 83rd Brigade (42nd Division)
18 Oct 1918 MG Beaumont Buck 3rd Division
18 Oct 1918 MG John E. McMahon, Jr. s" Division
18 Oct 1918 BG Charles T. Martin 70th Brigade (35th Division)
25 Oct 1918 MG Clarence Edwards 26th Division
1 Nov 1918 BG William R. Smedberg. Jr. 153rd Brigade (77th Division)
8 Nov 1918 BG Charles H. Cole 52nd Brigade (26th Division)
* For Medical Reasons
** Subsequently restored to a different brigade command

The long list of commanders that Pershing relieved in WWI has a “back story” that Pershing struggled with the Army leadership in Washington (Chief of Staff Peyton March and Newton Baker, the Secretary of War) over who should have the power to assign key commanders. Pershing felt he should have the power to review and if not select the Brigade and Division commanders being sent to France, then at least approve them. I believe that many of these reliefs were based on Pershing’s pre-judgment and not so much on actual performance (or at least he was looking for the first excuse to fire some of them). In WWII, Marshall used the training period in CONUS to cull through a lot of the leaders, especially in National Guard Divisions.

This brings out the relationship between the institutional policies of promotion and command selection to that of relief of commanders. I’d guess that the centralized selection process of commanders in the US armed forces makes firing them an issue that needs to be referred back to the central service leadership also (not positive on this). In previous conflicts, it was fairly clear that the overseas commander had complete authority and support to fire a commander. I’d guess that the public hue and cry that results from each modern case of firing makes it a much more serious endeavor to the institution as well as the war effort. Rather than being looked at as an indicator of the health, or strength of a system, firing a commander usually leads to very public charges that it indicates rottenness within the system, or that the superior is covering his own failings.

While not exactly on point, the selection of Gen Petreaus to be on a Brigadier General selection board in 2007, and the timing, when there was tension between the overseas commanders, who were requesting more resources, and service leadership, who had to handle the stress on the force, is interesting. Not sure, but I’d guess there were some negotiations that resulted in that decision.

As a Marine, this is also interesting because, to a degree, the "Smith vs. Smith" controversy from the Saipan campaign in 1944 lives on. Given all the General officer firings the Army did in WWII, there was a great issue when a Marine fired an Army General. In a sense, from that point on, relations between Army and Marine comamnders in the field, when there were disagreements or tensions (revisited with Almond vs. Smith in Korea, or Westmoreland vs. Cushman in Vietnam), is almost automatically a service-level issue.

In 1977 Maj. Gen. Jack Singlaub was relieved of his duties as chief of staff of U.S. forces in Korea when he spoke out against President Carter's proposal to withdraw American troops from that country. He was in OSS during World War II and he was one of the last brown-boot soldiers to retire from the Army.

Singlaub was also a far right activist who ran an organization that was involved in Iran Contra and all sorts of other shenanigans. Whatever his WWII record was - and it certainly was distinguished, he deserved to get fired as much as MacArthur or any other general or flag officer who openly disagrees with his commander in chief or flouts orders.

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