Wear Your Poppy With Pride

[General Mayhem]

Each year, as Remembrance Sunday approaches, a sense of dread tinged with annoyance becomes my lot. It's all to do with the poppy, and my refusal to wear one. The reason for this? Step forward Field Marshall Earl Haig, formerly, Sir Douglas Haig.

Haig is depicted at the Cenotaph, on horseback, cast in bronze. Next time you watch the emotional pictures on your television screens of the march past that has become synonymous with the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, bear this in mind.

If the dead of WW1 could march, side by side, in continuous procession down Whitehall, it would take them a four days and four nights to pass the saluting base.

http://www.aftermathww1.com/clark.asp

John Keegan's book: The First World War, describes a conflict of unprecedented ferocity, that ended the prosperity of The Victorian era, unleashing the demons of the twentieth century, mechanised warfare and mass death.

Haig's mentality was entrenched in nineteenth century warfare, and with the feudal system: the ruling class ruled and everyone else knew their place. He saw the foot soldier as cannon fodder. Why else would he send wave after wave of brave hearted soldiers to a certain death, with a fixed bayonet against the machine guns of the Germans? This argument is much more eloquently put by PA Thomson in his book: Lions led by Donkeys. But it was the German Soldier, Max Hoffman who coined the expression, paraphrasing it from an earlier conquest, the Prussian victory at the siege of Paris in 1871. The Prussians described their foe as Lions led by Packasses.

To me Haig's charity: The Haig Fund, that he started in 1921 had more to do with easing his conscience than it had to do with helping the destitute, war injured, British Serviceman. I have tried very hard to form a different opinion of Haig but even one his closest allies, friend and Brother Officer,John Charteris, who wrote the biography: "Field Marshall Earl Haig," finds it difficult to defend his calamitous actions. General Charteris served with Haig in India, at home in Aldershot and throughout WW1.

This is not to say that I don't support The Royal Legion, and I certainly find the wearing of a white poppy repugnant. My Father and his brother were very close, only eighteen months apart in age. Uncle Roy was a bomber pilot, he gave the ultimate sacrifice in 1941, my father was captured on Crete in the same year, and spent the rest of the war as a POW. Their father, my Grandad, also gave his life, fire fighting in The Blitz.

So this year, again, you won't see me wearing a poppy. But rattle your collection tin, it won't be ignored.

[Jolly Jeeper]

Eloquently put and worthy and I don't disagree with most of what you say but you'll find me wearing my poppy with pride for two main reasons;

 

1. I won't ever not think about the sacrifices made by ordinary blokes - the Tommy Atkinses who never asked to go and fight, blokes who I am sure would have rather stayed at home with their wives and children and had a pint, tended their vegetable patch and gone on coach trips to Blackpool...

 

Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy how's yer soul?"

But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,

The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,

O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll. (Rudyard Kipling)

 

 

2. In this day and age when many people are quick to forget about the efforts of those ordinary blokes, see the Union Flag as something that belongs to the NF etc etc I'm proud to wear my poppy to remind them that it's a big deal.

 

The sun now it shines on the green fields of France,

There's a warm summer breeze, it makes the red poppies dance.

And look now the sun shines from under the clouds,

There's no gas, no barbed-wire, there's no guns firing now.

But here in this graveyard it's still no-man's-land,

The countless white crosses stand mute in the sand,

To man's blind indifference to his fellow man,

To a whole generation that were butchered and damned.

Did they beat the drum slowly, did they play the fife lowly ?

Did they sound the Dead March as they lowered you down ?

And did the the band play The Last Post and chorus ?

Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest ? (Eric Bogle)

 

I quote those guys because they are both more eloquent than me. I can't even put my poppy in the bin after remembrance day.

 

 

JC

 

[Degsy]

Very well put John, I too can't bring myself to throw the poppy out and there is a collection on the wall.

[LeeEnfield]

Tis fair comment, I guess...............no body should be compelled to wear the poppy, I mean, one of the reasons people go to war, in the first place, is for the freedom to choose,.............(something being slowly eroded away today, :whistle: but thats for another time.)

 

Like many I too wear my poppy with PRIDE,......I attend the service at the war memorial, on the sunday nearist 11th nov, and this year an (hopfully) going to be selling poppys in my locality...............council permitting :roll:

 

On most of my day to day jackets, etc, I've still got poppy pined on,..I don't remove them, and on car, both sticker and 'plastic poppy', are affixed.

 

Further to Johns poems/songs,...............here's another.

 

'The Inquisitive Mind Of A Child'.

 

Why are they selling poppies, mummy ?

Selling poppies in town today;

The poppies, child are flowers of love,

For the men who marched away;

But, why have they chosen a poppy, mummy ?

Why not a beautiful rose ?

Because, my child, men fought and died,

In the fields where the poppies grew;

Why are the poppies so red, mummy ?

Why are the poppies so red ?

Red is the colour of blood, my child,

The blood our soldiers shed;

The heart of the poppy is black, mummy,

Why does it have to be black ?

Black, my child, is the symbol of grief,

For the men who never came back:

 

But, why mummy are you crying so ?

Your tears are giving you pain;

My tears are my fears for you, my child,

For the world is, - FORGETTING AGAIN:

 

 

Not my words, but on a t towel the RBLI sold, a few years ago,............but, I guess the words speak for themselves.

 

 

Andy

[Enigma]

Even I wear the Poppy here in the Netherlands.

We didn't fight in WW1 but I wear it as a sign of respect for the veterans I know, knew and wanted to have known.

 

A sign of gratitude for the liberation of our country and the freedom I enjoy.

[Snapper]

While it is difficult to want to give Douglas Haig a big kiss, he has to a massive extent been the victim of a machine working against him with impunity since his early death in 1928. He was an ambitious staff officer and a very singular minded cavalry soldier. Some might say dim - but this is often the view of revisionists. He could be unimaginative, and as a loyal follower of the principles of Lord Roberts he could not be expected to be anything other than a nineteenth century soldier. Haig saw the modern world in South Africa and what was happening to any current notions of war fighting. The machine gun and even the full effect of efficiently used bolt action rifles had not truly sunk home to anyone developing British military thinking, certainly not his main rivals, such as Smith-Dorien, Gough or Wilson.

 

There is no evidence he enjoyed sending thousands to their deaths but there is ample evidence that he did not command enough and rein in the general officers below him at division, corps and army level who were capable of killing thousands through a mix of ignorance, indifference or idiocy. He allowed them too much latitude. He was not a micromanager. He wanted weapons to win the war and he wanted lots of men. This seems only fair. He can hardly be compared to the old world ignorance of his predecessor John French.

 

Haig represented everything that the likes of Lloyd George hated. He was a lowland Scot of strong religious principle. He was army to the core and did not do politicians (not to say he did not do politics). He was a snob and aloof. He knew a man on the make when he saw one. He had the measure of, but not the muscle to handle a sneaky old shark like Lloyd George. The plain fact is that the CIGS and two prime ministers had ample chance to remove Haig before Passchendaele or March 1918. They did not do so. He argued for total war on the western front where Germany had to be beaten. He was right in this respect. But he lost the battle against intriguing politicians and fellow soldiers. He had a difficult relationship with the French, not helped by the machinations of Henry Wilson, who was far too a Francophile for his own country's good. Haig was not a man who made friends.

 

Haig died in 1928 and has been the easy butt of every historian since who has wanted to beat the class war drum or re-awaken the lions and donkeys dogma beloved by 1960s revisionists. In the end we have to ask not whether he was a good general but whether there was anyone else who could have done better - and by better we mean humane leadership of the three British armies fighting on the Western Front. This is doubtful. Rawlinson planned the Somme (with key errors demurred by Haig), Gough commanded his front on the disastrous 21.03.1918. Plumer "The soldier's general" was just as brutal. Wilson was a burocrat - not an army commander. There was no one else.

 

In the end you have to separate Douglas Haig from the poppy appeal. The poppies don't carry Haig Fund on them anymore anyway. He was the BEF commander. He was not immediately hated by the rank and file when they got home. They marched past the Cenotaph year on year, not for him, no army does for any general alone, they marched for themselves, for their friends, for an ideal. I do not suggest you do not appreciate or concur with this. Haig was a figurehead, nothing more. A sense of guilt would not have occurred to him or any other commander of his age - not Foch, certainly not Nivelle, none of the Germans or Black Jack Pershing.

 

You mentioned Charteris, a flawed man who acted as Haig's intelligence chief. He is known not to have passed on inconvenient information to Haig directly responsible for losses in battles. He may have been his friend in one sense, but he was not in others. In the end the buck stops with Douglas Haig. I personally think he was flawed and out of his time even in 1914 - but he was not alone. He won't be rehabilitated as such, because so few people actually care. He may not fully deserve it.

 

To my mind the Cenotaph and the poppies and monuments reflect the guilt of the whole establishment. They wanted the war, they got one. They lived the enormous lie. Some so called influential people knew it at the time but were powerless. Junior officers like Sassoon could hardly change the world and the Bloomsbury set etc were just leeches. They were probably worse than the war leadership. We are left with odd bits of poetry cherrypicked to bang a very specific drum.

 

To me the poppy is what you want it to be, so you are perfectly entitled to associate it in a "negative" way with the failings of Douglas Haig. But the blame needs to be spread much wider than him, in truth. He was just a fixture of a whole mindset of establishment thinking from Whitehall to Windsor Castle.

 

The poppy isn't Douglas Haig's apology. His name was on the fund to give it a focal point. Thousands of veterans mourned his death. History has revised this point for the sake of the class struggle and to switch the blame from all the others. Look at the politics of our modern conflicts and you'll see nothing much has changed.

[Great War truck]

Beautifully put. I have been trying to think of a suitable response to the first posting, but you have beaten me to it and i could not agree with you more.

 

Haig will always carry the blame for the slaughter, the revisionists have seen to that. But is there anybody else who would have done better?

 

Although we would love to do it, we can't change history and Haig will always be labelled as a bungler. No matter who could be blamed for the slaughter on the Western front it really is all too late now, except for those who want to sell a few books on the subject of course.

 

I will still be wearing my Poppy with pride.

 

Tim (too)

 

[Tony B]

Haig was really no better or worse than Von Falkenhym. Source documents at the time show a British Army that thought the war was just and were proud to stand up for 'Noble little Belgium'. Try Richard Holmes' book Tommy and Sigfried Sassons Memoirs of a fox Hunting man and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. Holmes Dusty Soldiers is also worth a read about PWWR's exploits in Iraq. try reading all three and see the parallels. Having visited Essex Farm FDS where the poem 'In Flanders Fields' was written, I will wear the poppy with pride.

[Snapper]

Haig was really no better or worse than Von Falkenhym. Source documents at the time show a British Army that thought the war was just and were proud to stand up for 'Noble little Belgium'. Try Richard Holmes' book Tommy and Sigfried Sassons Memoirs of a fox Hunting man and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer. Holmes Dusty Soldiers is also worth a read about PWWR's exploits in Iraq. try reading all three and see the parallels. Having visited Essex Farm FDS where the poem 'In Flanders Fields' was written, I will wear the poppy with pride.

 

 

Tony and Tim are absolutely correct in every sense. Dusty Warriors is a classic. Add to it Tim Collins book and you cannot go wrong. To my shame I have never read either of Sassoon's war memoir books. This will be recitified.

 

The poppy is a thank you, nothing more - a million times over.

[Jack]

Great work Snapper, very learned! I need to sit down with you over a pint and learn some more.

[Tony B]

Great work Snapper, very learned! I need to sit down with you over a pint and learn some more.

 

Hells Bells Jack, belive me you are taking on a beauty of a job. Read a bit about the Franco -Prussian War of 1870 before you start on the Great War. It does make understanding the resons easier. The Guns of August is a good basic background and try this site. http://www.greatwar.nl/ Italso helps to understand why the Versaille treaty was so strong and probably laid the foundation for WW2.

[Jolly Jeeper]

The General

 

‘GOOD-MORNING; good-morning!’ the General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,

And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

‘He’s a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack

As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

 

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

 

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967)

[Snapper]

Cause and effect is the theme of this whole thread, isn't it? Two more killed in Afghanistan today.

 

I'll continue the poetry after a fashion

 

If they ask us why we died,

Tell them that our fathers lied

 

(approx)

 

Rudyard Kipling. The same man who wrote all that doggerel verse in praise of British Imperial might. I'm not knocking him - the Empire to me should be cherished for what it made of our country. He never forgave himself for the death of his son John - My Boy Jack (soon to be played by Daniel Radcliffe AKA Harry Potter). Raymond Asquith was broken by guilt for the death of his son Bim, buried at Guillemont. But the current crop have no sons to offer up to the nation. They use other peoples, and here is the difference There was a socialist who wrote poetry at the Centerprise book centre at Dalston in London E8 where I grew up and a verse of his I can remember went along the lines of

 

Tory or Labour, they both hate your neighbour....

 

How true of politicians - not just in Britain - think of all the solidly patriotic/ in need of a job (or simply, hope) young people from the working class in the USA who have died in huge numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan for the vanity of their political class. All countries are the same. But the game will continue.

 

I joined the army as an escape from the drudgery of my life. I met miners and skilled people, dimwits and lost souls like myself looking for a new sense of purpose. This is what the armed forces provide and this is what the politicians need to fuel their ambitions and fill their memoirs. Soldiers are the footnotes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jolly Jeeper]

Snapper,

 

I quoted the original bit f Rudyard Kipling because he was sticking up for the ordinary blokes by saying they were nothing until their country needed them...

 

As for the current crop I agree with you 100% - I don't know how George Bush and Tony Blair sleep at night knowing they are killing ordinary guys to fuel their ambitions. Guys from Rotherham, Yorks and Nowhereville, Michigan who don't have the opportunities that politicians or rich men's sons get.

 

Did you see the picture in the paper yesterday of the wounded guy in Afghanistan with his mates all around giving first aid - it was in a few papers because it was a Press Association picture. I predict it'll become one of the classic images from this war like McCullin's pics from the Tet offensive or the pics of the radio operator with the union jack on the antenna from Falklands...

 

JC

[Enigma]

Snapper,

 

I quoted the original bit f Rudyard Kipling because he was sticking up for the ordinary blokes by saying they were nothing until their country needed them...

 

As for the current crop I agree with you 100% - I don't know how George Bush and Tony Blair sleep at night knowing they are killing ordinary guys to fuel their ambitions. Guys from Rotherham, Yorks and Nowhereville, Michigan who don't have the opportunities that politicians or rich men's sons get.

 

Did you see the picture in the paper yesterday of the wounded guy in Afghanistan with his mates all around giving first aid - it was in a few papers because it was a Press Association picture. I predict it'll become one of the classic images from this war like McCullin's pics from the Tet offensive or the pics of the radio operator with the union jack on the antenna from Falklands...

 

JC

 

 

Have you got a link to the photo?

[Snapper]

Snapper,

 

I quoted the original bit f Rudyard Kipling because he was sticking up for the ordinary blokes by saying they were nothing until their country needed them...

JC

 

 

Indeed

 

It's Tommy this and Tommy that

and "chuck him out, the brute";

But he's the saviour of his nation

When the Guns begin to shoot.

 

Amen

[Tony B]

Essex farm today, where the poem In flanders Feilds was written. the idea of the poppy went back to Canada thence to America and back to UK.

[Tony B]

Essex Farm cemetry, alongside the dressing station. Just outside Ieper.

[General Mayhem]

Thankyou all very much for your replies. Your arguments were intellectually, far superior to mine. And thankyou too for not pillorying me, I did try very hard not to trample on peoples sensitivities with a pair of metaphoric hobnail boots nor did I expect a single ally. But we do agree with the treatment of Tommy Atkins, and, as I have said previously, I am probably generous to a fault with the poppy collecting tin. No immodesty meant by that. Perhaps I share Haig's pangs of conscience but in reverse.

Tony B mentioned the Franco-Prussian war, he's is so right, and his recommendation: The Guns of August, I endorse. It was this conflict that paved the way for total world conflicts that engulfed the twentieth century.

I have read and re-read Snapper's postings, so eloquently argued, but I am not moved on either Haig or the poppy.

Montgomery knowingly sent many a soldier to a certain death, for the sake of the bigger picture. But he suffered agonising self recriminations over it, Haig did not.

I agree Snapper, no evidence can be found that Haig enjoyed sending his troops to their death, but he repeatedly, despite very heavy losses, sent troops over the top, with a fixed bayonet against a machine gun, Monty and subsequent commanders learnt a lesson, if you are defeated in a battle and the death toll is great, re-think strategy, a lesson lost on Haig.

And the lovely footnote of Snapper: Soldiers are the footnotes. That seems to me, Haig's view, but with a cavalier attitude. Haig is very much a product started by William Duke of Normandy, the feudal system. Haig really did think that the ruling classes ruled, and everyone else should jolly well know their place.

I do agree that many others should stand alongside him in the Hall of Shame, just as I agree with John Carrol about the feeding of politician's egos, your comments, John, about Bush & Blair were spot on, and they are both in the league of snake oil salesmen that Lloyd George was in. You might find John Campell's book: If Love Were All, an interesting read, it's a potted biography of DLG, or you you can get a precis of the man at this link

http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/eng/stamps/dlgbio.htm where you will find an excellent bibliography for you to form your own opinion.

Again, thank you all for your robust and intelligent responses.

[Tony B]

Intresting line in Sassoon's 'Memoirs of an Infantry Officer'- 'I was fighting for an oil well in Mesopotamia'. Not a lot changes then. The Great War was based on two plans, the German Schillifen Plan, though by that time he was dead, and the French Plan 17. Both envisaged movement and a conclusion in 6 weeks. In fairness to Haigh, he did not want to attack on the 1st July at the Somme, but was pressuered into it by politicians and the French. the same at Paschendale, the French Army was in collapse after Verdun, and again the British were expected to distract the opposing forces. That plus Lyodd George's hatred for Haigh over the East -west issue and his interference in reinforcements and diversion of supplies to the East put him in an impossible position. Why is the soldiers get the blame and pain the politicians just walk away?

[Snapper]

Best thread in ages. More please. Nice to see Essex Farm again; one of my favourite places in the Salient. Maybe it should be on the intended HMVF itinerary for 2008.

 

Thanks to everyone,

 

MB

[Tony B]

This is the Dugout trench system. North of Essex Farm, smack in the middle of an industrial estate. they were some of the first trenches dug. There were also Levin's gas projectors found there.

[Snapper]

I haven't been to Yorkshire Trench for a while. Is this it. Don't recognise the background???????

[Tony B]

Proably because the whole area is a building site. Ieper is not standing still, there seems to be a massive economic upsurge. One of the problems of archeology in a living community.

[PeterMacD]

its that time again soon and never was there more of a need to show your support for our men & women in the armed services who are injured and have to live with the scars of battle on their bodies and in their minds.

 

Give generously, wear your poppy with pride, and always remember