SAM'S BULLET

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REAL WAR

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Flanders fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place: and in the sky

The larks still bravely singing fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead: Short days ago,

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved: and now we lie

In Flanders fields!

Take up our quarrel with the foe

To you, from failing hands, we throw

The torch: be yours to hold it high

If ye break faith with us who die,

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae at the battlefront on May 3, 1915 during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FORWARD

CHAPTER 1

A GREAT SICKNESS DESCENDS ON THE WORLD

CHAPTER 2

THE GENESIS OF THE BOOK

CHAPTER 3

Who was Sam Mason?

CHAPTER 4

THE MADMAN DIRECTING THE BATTLE

CHAPTER 5

WE FIND HANS ROBERT ROTH

CHAPTER 6

English life in 1915

CHAPTER 6

SAM GOES TO WAR

CHAPTER 7

SAM COMES TO LIGHT

CHAPTER 8

WHAT IN HELL WERE THEY THINKING AND WHO IN HELL IS TO BE BLAMED?

CHAPTER 9

A WAR STARTED BY MANIACS

CHAPTER 10

WHAT DOES THE LOSS OF FORTY MILLION LIVES MEAN?

CHAPTER 11

WHAT'S IT TAKE TO KILL AND WOUND 40 MILLION HUMANS

CHAPTER 12

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

CHAPTER 14

GRIEF, LOVE AND HUMAN EMOTION

CHAPTER 15

GOD AND THE MEN WHO STARTED WWI

CHAPTER 16

Helmuth Johann Ludwig Graf von Moltke, AKA Moltke

CHAPTER 17

THE AUSTRIAN EMPIRE IN 1914, DEFINITION OF A BELLIGERENT

CHAPTER 18

AMERICA MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

CHAPTER 19

AMERICA WINS THE WAR BUT AT WHAT COST

CHAPTER 20

WWI, A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

CHAPTER 21

GERMANY NEVER HAD ANY INTENTION OF ABIDING BY THE TERMS OF EITHER THE ARMISTICE OR THE TREATY THAT FOLLOWED

POST SCRIPT

APPENDICES

FORWARD

I have written several books on war. I flew 3 years in Vietnam and witnessed the terrible cost of military conflict. As Marc Antony says in Act 3, Scene 1, of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar: Cry 'Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. The insanity begins. There can be nothing so terrible as war. No one who's hearts been burned by its savagery believes there's honor and glory in conflict- there simply is not. War is hell!

Individual soldiers have demonstrated incredible courage, strength and bravely. In some, war brings out the very best. The soldier fights for his life and the lives of his friends and fellow soldiers- not for the distant general ordering him to kill other men. We all recognize that crazed dictators from totalitarian states must be stopped and we know that too often, the only way they can be stopped is by fighting and killing them.

On June 28, 1914, Near the Latin Bridge in Sarajevo Serbia, a mad-man murdered the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand‎ and ensuing events swept the world into war. 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip shot both Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie with a Browning pistol. Princip was sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he died from tuberculosis in 1918.

Anti-Serb protests and riots broke out throughout Austria-Hungary blamed on the assassination. One month later, on July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. This set the Triple Alliance (Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy) against Serbia’s allies in the Triple Entente (Russia, France, and Britain). Eventually, the momentum became unstoppable, sparking one of the dumbest and bloodiest conflicts in history. Incidentally, WWI also set the stage for WWII 22 years later as well as making possible 70 years of brutal communism.

This book is about this terrible conflict and also, we tell the story of a very special British boy murdered in this deadly, avoidable and utterly senseless war- a war not of his making and indeed not of his or anyone's understanding. We discuss Sam Mason, a 19-year-old, murdered a day before his 20th birthday at the battle of Somme. Sam was a mathematical Genius, a child prodigy, gifted far beyond his contemporaries. The British Government never should have allowed his enlistment. Sam was a national treasure. His potential for bettering the lives of all was enormous but tragically, we will never know.

Sam, as it turned out, became just one of the millions of lives snuffed out before their time by the collective insanity of that terrible and totally unnecessary war. In our book, we try to come to terms with the waste.

We tell you about the instigators of this most terrible conflict- the terrible men who could have, at any time, stopped it but -for whatever insane reasons, promoted the conflict- plunging the world into this most ghastly war!

The book tells the reader exactly how and why the Second World War as well as the 70 years of the USSR was a consequence of the first.

Robert J. Firth,

Florida, September 2017

CHAPTER 1



A GREAT SICKNESS DESCENDS ON THE WORLD

In the summer and early fall of 1916, on both sides of the upper reaches of the River Somme in France, more than three million men fought each other for 141 days. One million of both sides were wounded or killed making this horrific battle one of the bloodiest and most costly in human history. British and French troops were facing a somewhat larger number of Germans across a field of muddy shell craters and sticks of dying trees.

Between the cannon, rifle and machineguns 11,000 burning hot projectiles per minute were flying in all directions at 2,500 feet per second. The air itself was churned and heated by the whizzing metal. The enormous pressure and din of battle was deafening, the smoke and gas obscuring opposing trenches.

On the first day of July 1916, following 7 days of continuous bombardment by 1.5 million shells and ten minutes after the largest land mine in human history was blown up under the German lines, at exactly 0810 hours local time, the British General, Sir Douglas Haig, ordered the attack. Thirty minutes later 57,400 British boys were wounded or dead. The Brigadiers (Sergeant Majors) blew their whistles and, with one hand on their Webley 44's, prepared to 'murder' any 'cowards' who failed to go over the top- daring to choose life over almost certain death.

Douglas (The Butcher) Haig, who ordered this slaughter was born in Edinburgh Scotland on 19 June 1861 into a wealthy family and was 55 years of age when the first whistle blew and his boys began to die. Haig's sobriquet, as you will see was most apt! In 1928, at the age of 67, he thankfully croaked and, we hope, got to meet his victims.

The thousands of young men of this innocent age- like sheep they went- leaping up and over the parapets, toward the German trenches, slowed by their rifle and kit, mud and barbed wire, they died by the thousands from massive artillery fire and bullets from the opposing trenches. The Germans had a deadly efficient field gun of 77mm with other calibers including the famous 100, and 105mm canons. Literally, hundreds of these weapons were zeroed in on the battlefield from rear batteries and were responsible for some 70% of all casualties.

The main rifle of the German soldier was the Gewehr 98. This bolt action Mauser fires the 8.20 mm (.323 in) 9.9 g (154 gr) spitzer bullet with a muzzle velocity of 2,789 ft/s and 2,398 ft/lbs of muzzle energy. Thousands of German soldiers were shooting at the approaching British boys. Even more deadly than the rifles were the many machine guns set up to sweep the field, spraying thousands of bullets at 2500 fps into the ranks of advancing soldiers.

In the spring of 1915, the German military decided to fit 15,000 of the Gewehr 98's with telescopic sights for sniper use. Twenty-five-year-old Sergeant Hans Robert Roth had one of these weapons. He was 400 yards east of the British lines behind the burned stump of a French oak situated on a rise of about fifteen feet. Hans watched the young Brits rise up and picked out one. There was no wind that calm morning but the air was moist. He wiped the lens twice before placing the reticle on the chest of his target.

Like all snipers, he saw the boy's face clearly before killing him. He looked far too young to be fighting but then, they all did. The pressure on the trigger increased tripping the catch sending the firing pin into the fulminate of mercury in the center of the cartage, igniting the powder and sending the powerful round at almost 3000 feet per second (4 times the speed of sound) toward his target.

The rifle cracked and jumped as Han's shoulder absorbed the impact. Only briefly noting his success, the shooter focused on other targets, sending some 15 young men to join the thousands who died on that day. There is something special I have to tell you about Sergeant Roth. As well as being an exceptionally talented sniper, Roth had a photographic memory. The faces of every man he ever shot in both wars was indelibly imprinted in his memory. Later, we discuss Sergeant Roth and how we discovered him.

The bullet fired from Roth's Mouser tore into Private Samuel John Mason's chest and through his body, hardly slowing and traveling half a mile before falling into the mud far behind the British lines. The boy, not feeling the impact, in fact, feeling nothing ever again, ran two steps before falling dead- face first into a deep muddy and wet shell crater- his mind never comprehending the cessation of life. His heart hit squarely by the speeding red hot round flew apart as massive pressure compressed the blood- rupturing arteries and veins- hydrostatic shock! His spine was severed as the bullet exited.

At Somme, recovery of the dead and wounded on both sides was a (pardon the pun) 'hit and miss' ugly process at best and not really possible until the Germans withdrew in November. Many of the wounded, unreachable and unable to move themselves, bled out and died. The dead rotted where they fell. Many, like Sam, were never found until many decades had passed.

Samuel's body was finally recovered in August of 2017 (101 years latter) when archeologists excavating the battlefields found his remains. Sam's bones were catalogued, packed into a cardboard box, and shipped to the British Military detail assigned to graves registration. He was identified by DNA, personal items including a rusted almost unreadable identification disc, a signet ring with his initials, an initialed silver box containing his pipe, a razor, a toothbrush and his rifle barrel and receiver with its serial number only readable by chemical techniques, laying under his bones.

The box was shipped by commercial air and received with proper military honor in a private hangar at Stansted airport. Sam's remains were placed into a military coffin and efforts begun by the MoD's Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre (JCCC) to trace his family which led to finding his 90-year-old nephew, a Dr. Robert J. Firth, and his cousin, Elizabeth Thomson, who both lived just a few miles away from the young infantryman's family home in Cornwall.

A new headstone bearing Corporal Samuel John Mason's name was provided by The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), who will now care for his final resting place in perpetuity. The burial, with full military honors, took place at Woburn Abbey Cemetery in Cuinchy France on a sunny day in May of 2018. The ceremony was led by the Chaplain of The Black Watch 3rd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland. I was there.

Sam died for nothing at age 19, two days before his 20th birthday. What is refereed to as the Great War cost the lives of millions of human beings. Not one of these tragic deaths changed anything or served any reasonable or discernable purpose. When Sam was murdered in this mass insanity, his mum and dad were beyond devastated. Sam, an only child, had been born late. His Mum was 38 when he had been born and 58 when he stopped breathing.

When the news of their child's death was received. Sam's dad, Winn, sat silent at the small kitchen table trying to absorb the fact that his only boy was forever gone. His wife Merriam stood at the door utterly mute, not crying and hardly breathing, clutching the telegram from the War Office. She stared at the green hedge curving along the driveway a quarter mile to the small two-lane country road her son had traveled in 1914 off to war.

The Masons were old money. The family had owned the estate for 400 years. Winn was a tenured professor of mathematics at the University of Exeter in Exeter, Devon. The Mason estate today is situated on 12 of what had been in 1916 some 100 acres. Their nearest neighbor is the Woodyard, Tresillian which has been, since 1334, one of the largest private estates in Cornwall.

Processing and accepting the loss of his son proved impossible for Professor Mason. A week after the day the telegram had arrived, following endless conversations to confirm the sad news with various military and government sources, he was found dead in the garden having shot himself. Merriam, never a strong person at best, withdrew to her room and was never again seen in public. Refusing to eat, she quietly died some 3 months later. All three, we believe, were able to meet again in heaven.

The solicitors for the Mason estate traveled by train to settle the family's affairs. Mason's will had, as family custom dictated, bequeathed his entire estate to his only son and then to his wife (with no other living relatives he had no choice). With her passing, the only living heir that could be located was a distant cousin, James Firth, who had married Professor Mason's estranged sister, who herself had passed a year earlier after not seeing her brother in 40 odd years. James, employed as a policeman, met with the lawyers and was advised that the Mason property carried substantial debt which amounted in those days to several thousands of pounds.

Ultimately, after selling off most of the acreage to keep the creditors at bay, in 1920, two years following the end of the war, the remaining estate was sold. When the creditors were finally paid and the lawyers took their pound of flesh, there was barely enough remaining for James to purchase a new car. Today, the Mason estate is owned by a Saudi family.

It was James's son, the 90-year-old Dr. Robert J. Firth, MD, who attended the military ceremony for Samuel at Woburn Abbey Cemetery in Cuinchy. He, for the second and last time, rode the train under channel returning to his father's home in Turo Cornwall immediately the affair was over.

I had a chance to meet the good Doctor on the day Sam was buried in May of 2018. We took the train back to Cornwall together. Robert had been born in 1927 and remembered his Fathers stories about the Mason estate and the son who had died in the Great War. Growing up, the future Army surgeon had ridden about for years in the old car that his Dad bought with the left-over money.

Dr. Firth's first trip across the English Channel was in 1953, 35 years after WWI had ended. Robert had graduated from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry (PCMD) run in partnership with the University of Exeter in Devon and Cornwall and was on a trip to visit the WWII battlefields and beaches. In WWII, he had worked in a London military hospital. His knowledge of the Mason estate and family was invaluable in pointing me in the right direction. Unfortunately, Doctor Firth passed on in early September of 2018.

CHAPTER 2



THE GENESIS OF THE BOOK

My interest in Samuel and this book began on that bright August morning in 2017 when his remains were first exposed by shovel and whisk broom in the very careful hands of Sara Livingston, the archeology student working on the old battlefield dig.

I was researching the First World War at the time and had been nearby when Sara yelled out her find. Following his identification confirmation by the British military, I became aware of who Sam Mason had been. My interest was first, because of his distant relative, James Firth, the policeman sharing my family name who had inherited Sam's family estate and secondly, having the opportunity to meet his son, the doctor, with exactly my same name when attending Sam's funeral. I was intrigued and, with a lot of help, began the painstaking research which gradually, as things in my business tend to do, turned into this book.

I'd lived for some years in Britain in the 80's and had seen the effects of both wars on the English people. Old Quaker records show my family had first left England in 1735 resettling in New Jersey just outside Philadelphia. In 2018 there were still many members with the Firth name in England and Scotland. Both my Grandfathers had fought and survived the war that had killed Sam.

That bright summer morning in France near the river Somme, Sam's thigh bone first appeared, brown and stained by the soil. It had been 102 years since anyone had seen him. The excavation was some several feet deep. Remnants of his boots, helmet and bits of uniform fabric with buttons were unearthed along with badly rusted parts of his Lee–Enfield rifle and unstable ammunition which was 'very carefully' removed by an explosive expert working with the team.

In a few hours, all of what remained of and with Samuel Mason was placed in a numbered cardboard box containing a document stating the exact spot where he had been found with a map of the entire battle area. Sam was one of 150 that had been unearthed so far. The bullet fired that fateful day by Hauptfeldwebel (Sergeant) Roth had pierced his heart and, passing through, severed his spine which was observable as his bones were exhumed, cleaned and laid in the box.

The findable trenches, bomb craters and the areas known as no man's land were thoroughly searched and all remains mapped, photographed and catalogued. These include helmets, rifles, pistols, bayonets, ammunition, flashlights, water bottles, cooking utensils, coffee pots, watches, cap badges, toothbrushes and even a bottle of HP sauce and a tin of Andrews Liver Salts- whatever that may be!

For me, visiting the Somme battlefield in northern France was, at that time, part of a journey from one Commonwealth Graves Commission cemetery to another. The dead are everywhere, some of the burial areas are small, with only a handful of marble stones, many bearing the inscription, A Soldier of the Great War, Known unto God.

Both my Grandfathers had fought in WWI and my Father and uncle in the second one. My Brother was in the marines and I spent three years in Vietnam. Any of us could easily have met the same fate as Sam.

When one sees so many of these cemeteries and, with the memorial at Thievpal bearing the names of some 70,000 British soldiers whose bodies were never recovered, one feels an overwhelming sense of profound loss at the insanity and waste of it all. My journey was motivated by a personal need to understand the effects and rationale for this most insane, baseless and needless of all wars. I use Sam's death as a beginning point to unravel the great tragedy and return to him throughout the narrative as a poignant example of the magnitude of our loss.

The battle of Somme, in terms of the slaughter, above all the other terrible clashes in those terrible years, stuns the imagination. Somme was an epic example of both slaughter and futility; a profligate waste of human life and treasure such as the world had never before seen achieving absolutely nothing- save death!

On the morning of July 1, 1916, at Haig's order, 110,000 British infantrymen went over the top- only half came back! Nearly 20,000 of these young men were dead on the spot while 30,000 were wounded. Many of those who perished lay screaming, moaning and crying for hours and days in the bloody mud of no man’s land. The attacking British forces did not gain a single one of their objectives.

Somme was 141 days of pure horror. The British forward trenches on the Somme were virtually non-existent, mainly mud and shell holes. The German Maxims were spraying bullets out to 1200 meters covering the no man's land with bullets. That's 12 football fields in distance that the Tommys had to cover while under intense MG, rifle, gas and artillery fire over pock-marked muddy and wire tangled ground.

The British employed a system of 'wave attacks.' Each battalion of 800 boys covered a frontage of about 400 meters (1200 feet). Successive battalions would advance in waves, one behind the other at a distance of about 80 meters. When the front line was mown down, those not shot or blown apart would dive into a shell hole and try to shoot at the German lines while the second wave would move up and die as well. Thus, on the very first day of Somme 20,000 British lads were killed outright. Our Sam lay with the many unfound dead for 102 years.

The Germans, observing the attacks from the other side, noted that the British, while brave and stubborn, were 'lacking in skill'. The summation of Somme was clearly a case of Brave young Lions led by old Donkeys.

CHAPTER 3



Who was Sam Mason?

In 2017, Sam's story was hidden in old trunks and boxes, school records and aged photographs stored in musty attics and closets. I found that Sam has attended Blundell’s Preparatory School Located in Tiverton, Mid Devon. The school was founded in 1604 and Sam, who had been born in 1895, had attended since age 7 in 1902.

His Father, Professor Winn Mason, had also been a pupil there as well and was, in 1915, on the board of directors. Early on, Sam had shown exceptional mathematical genius testing far above his piers. In fact, at age 15, he was considered a mathematical prodigy and had worked out solutions for problems that had been considered unsolvable for years.

Sam was a handsome blonde boy and excellent athlete. Unlike many prodigies and unlike his own admittedly introverted father, Sam was outgoing, approachable, friendly and popular with his friends. He was well liked by his teachers. In the school archives I was able to find some photos and records.

The comments of his teachers attested to Sam's being exceptional. Few of his instructors had experience dealing with genius on his level. Every year, a number of scholars from major universities throughout England and Europe would visit with Sam and his teachers. To say that Sam was famous at age 15 was very true but, from his friendly demeanor and circle of friends, one would never know it.

At 17, Sam had a girlfriend, Sallyanne Laughton, whom he had met at the St Keyne church. This is the oldest (mother) church of Truro built in the 15th century. Sam's ancestors had been attending since the 1600's. Miss Laughton, was Sam's age being born in 1896. They met in 1913 and were immediately attracted to each other. When Sam never returned, in 1924 Sallyanne was devastated. She left school and remained at home for 2 years. Finally, at age 31, Miss Laughton married an Arthur Benjamin Beasley III, who thankfully had returned, surviving General Haig's most determined attempts to see him otherwise. We managed to catch up with their only child a Margaret Beasley Shorewood, (1927- 2018) who, at age 90, was living in the Beasley family home in Truro.

She showed us her mother's diaries and papers. There were many aged newspaper articles about Sam and his remarkable abilities. We found many letters between the young couple including several Sam had written while in the Army. Both families assumed the couple would marry. We can accurately assume that Sam died a virgin as did many of his young compatriots. In Sam's day, young boys and girls were frequently chaperoned and were physically and sexually repressed by accepted customs and culture of the age. Neither in dress nor deportment did the young of a certain class engage in sexually suggestive behavior.

At the beginning of 1914 the British Army had about 710,000 men, mostly unpaid reserves. Less than 80,000 were regular (professional) soldiers supposedly ready for war. We need to note here that it had been 100 years since the end of the last war (Crimean War). And, aside from conflicts in Sudan, Egypt and Africa, (1899) few remaining in the British military in 1914 had ever fought or knew really anything about a shooting war. They were however quite proficient at polishing their brass and marching.

On August 4th 1914, Great Britain, being led at the time by incredibly and singularly pig-headed and stupid men of a former and by-gone era, declared war on Germany. When the call came, thousands of young British boys enthusiastically joined up and, unfortunately for us all, this included Sam. This rapid and heretofore unprecedented expansion of Britain's land forces was a monumental achievement creating Britain's first-ever citizen army which was the biggest single organization in British history up to that time.

So how did all this come about? On 5 August 1914, the day after Britain declared war on Germany, Field-Marshal Lord Kitchener, hero of the Sudan and South African campaigns, accepted the vacant post of Secretary of State for War. Kitchener was one of the few prescient enough to foresee a long and costly war. He knew the existing British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of six infantry divisions and four cavalry brigades (useless) would be far too small to be effective in a major European conflict.

Kitchener decided to set up a voluntary series of ‘New Armies,’ duplicating the existing BEF. He first appealed for volunteers on 7 August. After a relatively slow start, there was a sudden surge in recruiting in late August and early September 1914. In all, 478,893 men joined the army between 4 August and 12 September, including 33,204 on 3 September alone. This included our Sam who turned 19 that year.

By the end of the War 25% of the total male population of Great Britain had served. 8,904,467 were mobilized and four years later, 908,371 had been killed and 2,090,212 wounded. That's 1,425 wounded every day of the 4 years and 630 killed. Twenty-six young British boys died every hour of the war.

Sam's gifts were lost to the world on that fateful day of July 1, 1916. There's no telling what that remarkable mind might have brought humanity. One article in the West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser, on October 12, 1916 mentioned Sam and asked why the Recruiters allowed him to sign up? His abilities by that time were well known and he was already considered a national treasure.

The bullet fired by the Twenty-seven-year-old German Sergeant Hans Robert Roth was not accidental. It was not from an undirected spray fired by a Maxim MG08 or a random hit by burning shrapnel from an artillery shell. Roth saw Sam clearly before sending the bullet. Years later, he learned whom he had shot.

That fatal single bullet killed more than just its target. It killed Sam's father and mother as surely as it took the life from young Sam. It drove Sallyanne into desperate depression and causing her 2 years of heartbreak and unbearable sadness far beyond anything most of us will thankfully ever comprehend.

On that day in 2017 when Sam again appeared in the sunlight, as we passed his remains on to join his comrades in the van filled with the grey cardboard boxes, I said to him, not knowing at that time who he was, a final goodbye my boy.

CHAPTER 4



THE MADMAN DIRECTING THE BATTLE

At Somme, a REMF (military slang for a 'rear eulachon motherfucker') some silly-bugger staff colonel unbelievably wrote: The events of July 1st bore out the conclusions of the British higher command and amply justified the tactical methods employed.

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, chief of staff of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and crazed architect of the insanity, agreed. On the day after the debacle, stating that the enemy has undoubtedly been shaken and has few reserves in hand, he discussed with his ass-kissing subordinates plans for continuing the bloody and doomed offensive.

Which he, unfortunately did with a kind of numb stubbornness, for another four months, until winter weather forced an end to the Somme campaign. By then, what was left of Haig’s army had suffered more than 400,000 casualties. For the British, in the judgment of noted military historian John Keegan, the battle was the greatest tragedy of their national military history and marked the end of an age of vital optimism in British life that has never been recovered.

For me, the lunacy of sending wave after wave of foolishly brave and patriotic young men over the ladders to their death was the very essence of the definition of insanity. Repeating the routine slaughter for months on end and expecting a different outcome should have alerted the Home Office that Haig needed to be taken away in a straight jacket to a nice warm room with padded walls.

We know that the BEF, sent lists of the casualties back to London almost daily. We're talking about almost 100,000 dead young men every month which is 3300 a day or 137 an hour. What in holy hell was the UK government thinking? Sadly, nothing!

The Prime Minister in 1916 was the inane lib Herbert Asquith, generally known as H. H. Asquith. This dunce served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. The King was George V, who, for most of the war; (indeed most of this life) remained comfortably inebriated, although this fact is carefully hidden from public view.

Ole Herbie (HH) was kicked out in December of 1916 and replaced by another perhaps even greater dunce, David Lloyd George, who served until 1922. Both these useless bags of hot air were (judged from our time in 2018, 100 years latter) stuffed shirt dolts very much mentally and culturally mired in the 1800's, never understanding modern warfare if indeed they comprehended anything much at all. These shining examples of the British leader classes talked as though their mouths were stuffed with dirty underwear pontificating endlessly whilst swilling fine brandy- useless dolts the lot!

(Actually, it's a bit unfair to castigate Lloyd George for being an upper-class dolt typical of the British ruling classes. In fact, he was very much a commoner from relatively humble origins. Our criticism is more based on his actions or inactions during and throughout the war which is justified.)

By contrast, some military commanders of history are truly giants and heroes of Humanity. One of them, the greatest in my book, was Charles the Hammer Martel the Frankish leader who thankfully defeated the marauding crazed muzzies at the battle of Tours in 732 saving all of western civilization from a most terrible fate. If you're interested, my book, THE BATTLE OF TOURS retells his story and exposes and explains the evil cult of Islam from its earliest days.

In reading the biographies of historical military figures, one looks for attributes that might have accounted for their success. With Napoleon, for example, (who I believe to have been a pompous wrong-headed very short idiot) one might think of his imagination which unfortunately was seconded only by his insane hubris. In the American Civil War, in General Lee, who led the Armies of the Confederacy, we see audacity and the ability to carefully plan and execute. Alexander and Hannibal speak for themselves.

For students of military history, which, to some small degree, I consider myself to be, the question of what makes a great commander is interesting. What the public doesn't know is that the education of all military commanders includes a very dark side- namely, the study of weighing casualties against military advantage. All officers learn to use the lives of the enlisted men as disposable pawns (fodder) and are not encouraged or permitted to mourn their loss lest it interfere with the success of the mission. A military officer who cannot dispassionately risk and lose his men will never win the battle and, in fact, will never be promoted.

Douglas Haig may be the greatest example in history of the leader with the most disregard for the lives of his men. During WWI he filled more graveyards with his own soldiers than any other military leader we know of. The very best that can be said about The Butcher is that at war's end, the army he commanded and almost ruined was, if not victorious, at least on the winning side. By 1918 Britain under Haig had lost some 900,000 young men forever