Jacob

****- This book sets out to overturn popular belief, among the popular beliefs are: Generals were incompetent and the military justice system was not fair. ** Britain had long ceased to involve herself in the large scale battles in Europe. It was a naval power and concentrated on just that. Hence British standards were used to small scale wars, with very little casualties. The table bellows shows Britain undertaking of wars prior to World War One:
 * Mud, Blood and Poppycock
 * The Lost Generation **

This is also the reason why the scale of casualties by British standards was horrendous. Britain mobilised around eight million men:

Due to the great war: • One in every twelve men mobilised was killed || • One in twenty-eight of the French. • One in every six mobilised was killed The highest death rate of the French was among those born in 1986, who were aged eighteen in 1914: 292,000 were mobilised, mostly in 1914, and twenty-nine percent of them were killed. || • One in thirty-one of the population was killed • One in every seven men mobilised was killed Germany  had an efficient system of universal conscription, mobilised 13,250,000 men out of a population of 60,300,000 during the course of the war – nearly 15 percent of the men conscripted were killed. ||
 * **Britain** || **France** || **Germany** ||
 * • One in sixty-five of the population was killed



As you can see from the table France with a population six and a half million less than that of the United Kingdom, mobilised more men and suffered nearly twice as many deaths.  à The demographic effect on France was enormous, particularly in the removal of a large number of young men of breeding age. It led to an acceleration in the decline of an already ageing population, and influenced the course of French politics and military strategy for a generation. In France today, the death toll of the Great War is manifest in the plethora of war memorials, //Mort pour la France//. Every village has one.
 * France **

The demographic effects of the United Kingdom were far less.
 * Britain **



During the period of 1911 and 1921, during which the greatest bloodletting in the British Military took place, the average male population between this period did actually rise. **BUT** these same men at 1921 census, this group shows a decline of fourteen percent between 1911 and 1921. Gordon Corrigan argues that: These deaths includes death other than those attributable to the war, net emigration. Even if the reduction was partly due to the war, it is far from the loss of a generation. // “The perception of soldiering in the Great War is of a young patriot enlisting in 1914 to do his bit, and then being shipped off to France. Arriving at one of the Channel ports //// he marches all the way up to the front ////, singing ‘Tipperary’ and smoking his pipe, forage cap on the back of his head. Reaching the firing line, he is put into a filthy hole in the ground and stays there until 1918. If he survives, he is fed a tasteless and meagre diet of bully beef and biscuits. Most days, if he is not being shelled or bombed, he goes ‘over the top’ and attacks a German in a similar position a few yards away across no man’s land. He never sees a general and rarely changes his lice infested clothes, while rates gnaw the dead bodies of his comrades.” // Gordon Corrigan starts of his chapter like this, though he then continues to // “Real life was very different” // > As early as 1914 London busses were shipped out to the front for use as troop carriers. >  à The pre war army was in any case well accustomed to marching. They had to be prepared to fight anywhere in the world, and most of the likely places both lacked roads and railways. The regulars’ feet had been toughened by regular route marches in peacetime; 20 miles in a day was normal, and forced marches could cover twice that. >  à THOUGH the **Reservists**  had not been so lucky = in the army they had to wear **boots**. After their duties the reservists were sitting by the road taking of their boots and many of them had their **feet bleeding**. During the war the French primarily focused on offences and the Germans mainly focused on defences though they did have 3 major offensives on the western front: at Ypres in 1914, at Verdun in 1916 and the so-called Kaiserslacht of 1918. TOILETS  ·  // “Despite the tales of rats, lice and general filth, cleanliness and **hygiene in the trenches were strictly enforced**. The paid a great deal of attention to its latrines, as indeed it had to. Disease caused by poor hygiene had dogged armies throughout history and dysentery had always been a big problem. By now the army was well aware that if human waste was not disposed of properly, unnecessary casualties would follow. The average made produces 2.4 pounds weight of faeces and urine per day. In the average company defended position this in a ton a week. In the forward areas latrines were constructed just behind the trenches at the end of a communication trench and out of view of the enemy. They were usually deep pits with wooden seats on top. Disinfectant was provided and when full the latrine was closed. “ // RATS  ·  // “**A general lack of cleanliness** made worse by food left lying about, particularly in and around horse lines and abandoned ration dumps, could of course attract rats. They did scamper around in no man’s land and bodies left uncovered did provide food for them. Bodies were always buried whenever humanly possible and taken to the rear for temporary burial, before being given a proper funeral. Bodies left lying around where the fell were not good fore morale; they were never left in the trenches or buried in the parapet as was the practice in the French trenches.” // LICE  ·  // “**Good discipline** got rid of rubbish and edible scraps, and rats were rarely a problem in the trenches, although lice, inevitable when men cannot wash properly, sometimes were. On coming out of the line troops had their uniforms fumigated, laundered and ironed, and if necessary exchanged to reduce the risk of infestation.” //  ·  // “**British soldiers did not spend four years of the war in the firing line**, or even at the front. Men were regularly rotated from the firing line to the support and reserve trenches and then back to billets, usually well behind the battle area. With a division having two brigades in the line and one out, and with each brigade having two of its four battalions in the line, a battalion could expect on average, to spend just ten days a month in the trenches. It was unusual to find any battalion spending more than four or five days a month continuously in the firing line.” // TRENCH FOOT  ·  // “The winter of 1914 –15 was exceptionally **cold and wet, and flooding of trenches was a problem**. Initially this led to large numbers of men contracting __trench foot__, caused by lack of circulation in the feet and legs and. If untreated, leading to gangrene and amputation. Most cases were caught before recourse to the knife but, before preventative measures were enforced, many soldiers suffered from bad feet. The remedies were the issue of whale oil and thigh high rubber waders, the loosening of puttees, regular changing of socks, and drainage of the trenches. At first drains were soak pits dug into the floor, but mechanical pumps would later be provided. By the middle of 1915 trench foot had all but been eliminated, except in battalions new to the front.” // RATIONS <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  // “It is now recognised that a fit, active and athletic adult male needs a daily intake of between 3,000 and 2,500 calories. Heavy physical work or exceptional cold increases the requirements. The British army aimed to give its soldiers at the front a daily intake of 4,193 calories. This was less than the French and more than the Germans who aimed for 4,466 and 4,038 calories respectively. **Soldiers rarely went hungry except in the most extreme circumstances**. __Soldiers ** did not complain ** about ** lack of food **, although they ** did complain ** about its ** monotony **.”__ // <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  // “Where possible fresh meet was bread were issued, even in the firing line when a hot meal might be brought up at night, but there were many times when the fighting meant that the men had to survive on corned beef and biscuits. Nevertheless, **while hardly appetising, this was a far better diet than many had been used to at home**, where in poorer households meat was eaten once or twice a week, and it was healthy and filling. **The tea issue was enough to provide each man with six pints of army tea a day**, and British soldiers have always loved their tea!” // <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·  // “It has generally been considered that one indicator of morale and discipline in a unit is its sick rate: that is the percentage of men reporting sick with ailments due to causes other than enemy action. Before the war it was considered that 0.3 daily, or about three men a day in an infantry battalion of 750 men was a reasonable sick rate for an army in the field. The rate for 1913 was in fact 0.12 percent and after the war, 1929 to 1928, it was 0.17. On the Western Front, with total war in full swing, the sick rate for August to December 1914 was 0.26, declining to 0.24 percent in 1915 and 0.13 percent in 1016. **Throughout the war the sick rate was well below acceptable peacetime rates. **The conclusion, saving shot and shell fire, the Western Front was a remarkably healthy place to be throughout the war!” // Though here the author concludes in saying that the Western Front was a remarkably healthy place, I believe he turns a blind eye on contradicting evidence; Gordon Corrigan seems to embellish the image of the western front to some extent.
 * The Horrors of the Trenches **
 * 1) The original BEF, composed of pre-war regular and reservists, did quite a lot of marching but would have been very unlucky to have to tramp all the way from Boulogne to Belgium. As far as possible men were moved by train until they arrived a few miles from the front. As soon as motor lorries became available; they also aided in transporting soldiers.

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; COLOR: #671400; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-US"> Frightfulness was amidst all of the soldiers, the fear of drowning with lungs full of fluid, choking to death, bodies covered in angry blisters, or permanently blinded. “Gas was, and is, regarded as a barbaric way of making war; it is uncivilised, unsporting, and somehow unfair. Death by shooting, bayoneting, bombing or shellfire is acceptable; death by insidious and undetectable vapour is not.” Not very interesting section as it mainly describes all the more common ways of fighting war, Corrigan had no controversial views against popular belief in this section.
 * Frightfulness **

<span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·    http://www.johndclare.net/wwi3_Corrigan_quotes.htm - Was General Haig the “Butcher of the Somme”? - Lions led by Donkey? - The 'Horrors' of the Trenches <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 150%; FONT-FAMILY: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol"> ·    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/mud-blood-and-poppycock-by-gordon-corrigan-588687.html <span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">http://74.125.39.104/search?q=cache:8SE3jfaHDSMJ:www.firstworldwar.bham.ac.uk/reviews/CorriganReview.doc+Gordon+Corrigan+mud,+blood+and+poppycock&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2
 * Three Useful Weblinks **
 * Very useful** = nice summary about three different chapters in the book Mud, Blood and Poppycock, where Cordon Corrigan effectively puts forward controversial views overturning popular belief. The three chapters include:
 * Useful** = Article from The Independent. The author says that Gordon Corrigan cover much of the same ground as //The Unquiet Western Front//. He strongly dismisses his book and reveals Corrigan’s weaknesses of the book
 * Useful** = evaluates Mud, Blood and Poppycock.