#viscount plumer

[blackswaneuroparedux]

We are often told that they taught us nothing at Eton. That may be so, but I think they taught it very well.

- Field Marshal Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer, addressing an Old Etonians’ dinner in 1916.

One of the original generals of the Western Front during World War One unfairly tagged with the ‘lions led by donkeys’ label.

Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer (1857-1932) was born in 1857 in Torquay.  Educated at Eton, he entered the army in 1876 with a commission as a sub-lieutenant in the 65th Foot regiment.

With his squat figure, ruddy countenance and white moustache, Plumer cut an apparently comical figure which belied the reality that he was one of the most effective and successful of First World War generals.

Popular among his own men (if not with Field Maeshal Haig, who disliked Plumer and considered removing him on several occasions), Plumer was a meticulous planner, cautious and impossible to fluster.  Given command of Second Army in May 1915, Plumer served in Ypres for two years, culminating with the launch of the Messines Ridge offensive on 7 June 1917.

The Messines attack was planned with great care and, unusually, achieved all its objectives quickly and at a fraction of the usual cost.  The attack was a great success.  It was begun with the explosion of 19 of 21 mines at dawn on 7 June that was said to form the loudest man-made sound up to that time; Lloyd-George is reported to have heard the explosions in Downing Street.

Following the Messines success, Plumer was appointed to salvage the disastrously unsuccessful Passchendaele campaign overseen by Gough. Despite difficult circumstances Plumer managed to salvage the operation; in spite of his reputation as a cautious, sparing commander his operations at Passchendaele were more than usually expensive in terms of casualties.

After returning from the Italian Front in November 1917 (where he was sent to restore order to the front line following the Italian disaster at Caporetto), he and Second Army conducted the defence against the great German push of spring 1918.

Plumer was promoted Field Marshal following the armistice in 1919 and received a peerage.  He commanded the Army of Occupation on the Rhine until April 1919.  He was subsequently appointed Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Malta until May 1924.  He also served as High Commissioner in Palestine; became President of the MCC (Marylebone Cricket Club, at Lords), and became an active member of the House of Lords.  Plumer unveiled the new Menin Gate in Ypres in 1927.

Herbert Plumer died on 16 July 1932 and is buried at Westminster Abbey.

[thisdayinwwi]

General Herbert Charles Onslow Plumer, 1st Viscount Plumer took command of the Second Army in May 1915 and in June 1917 won a rare overwhelming victory over the German Army during the Battle of Messines

Le Petit Journal Jul 1 1917

[autodidact-adventures]

World War I (Part 22): The British Commanders

On August 3rd, The Times of London reported that Field Marshal Sir John French had been chosen to lead the BEF to France.  “There was not a moment's hesitation,” it stated.  “No painful canvassing of candidates, no acromonious discussion, no odious comparison of the merits of respective generals, no hint of favouritism, of Party intrigue.”  This was because French “surrounds himself with capable leaders and staff officers, and not only brings his troops to a high degree of efficiency, but also makes his officers a band of brothers, and establishes a good comradeship between all arms and all ranks.”

This was a bunch of nonsense.  JF was a mediocre general, and did not have the ability to identify and make the best use of men under him; nor to raise his troops to a “high degree of efficiency”.  It was all propaganda.

In 1914, the British army had improved greatly from 15yrs earlier, when it had had great difficulty in fighting the Second Boer War.  It had improved its training, and begun to modernize its equipment.  It had also established a general staff (using the Prussian model).  But it was still an old-fashioned army, particularly in its leadership.

Things were changing in that respect, although slowly.  In 1870, the government got rid of the old system where officers bought their commissions and promotions – those in the senior ranks had often paid a huge amount of money to get there.  But even after this was changed, only gentlemen – people with the right family – were considered suitable to be officers.  And even gentlemen found it difficult to survive as a junior officer without some kind of private income.

In the late 1800's, a sergeant named William Robertson was offered the opportunity to accept a commission (which rarely happened to non-gentlemen).  But he had to turn it down – the expenses of a junior lieutenant included uniform, mess fees, and supporting the regimental band, and the total cost would have been at least four times his annual salary of £100.  And any non-gentlemen, or “rankers”, who became officers were often shunned, and sometimes viciously hazed.

So JF and the BEF's other generals were all gentlemen, except Robertson, who'd managed to get to the rank of Major General because he'd taken a commission in the Army of India, where the expenses were lower (and his father, who was a tailor, made his uniforms for him).  They ascribed fully to the “amateur code”.  Proper activities included hunting, shooting, polo, and weekend gatherings at country estates. They did not include too much reading, even about military topics.  In France, officers were constantly involved in debates and discussions of military theory, but no-one cared about that in Britain.  Instead, you needed the right connections, and an attitude of aristocratic indifference, in order to advance.  It was the perfect career for less-intelligent sons of the right families.

JF was 61yrs old when WW1 started.  His father was a naval officer, and he himself had entered the Royal Navy at 14yrs.  When he was 22, he joined the cavalry, which was the most elite & expensive branch of the army.

In 1899, he'd recently been promoted to Major General.  He went to South Africa as commander of a cavalry division, and gained fame for his boldness there.  It was also in South Africa that he and Kitchener developed their mutual hatred for one another.

In 1912, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff.  He resigned over the Curragh Mutiny, but this was a respectable act of disloyalty, so it was never held against him.  When WW1 broke out, Kitchener still regarded him as reckless, hence why he'd ordered him not to put the BEF at risk.

During the Second Boer War, JF's chief of staff was Colonel Douglas Haig.  When the BEF went to France in WW1, Haig was a Lieutenant General, and one of the two corps commanders (the other one was Horace Smith-Dorrien).  He came from the Scottish borderlands, and his family trade was whiskey-making.  At the start of his career, when he was admitted to a cavalry regiment, the truly aristocratic officers saw him as unworthy of this position.

Haig wasn't much more intelligent than JF, but he was very good at getting influential patrons.  He attended Oxford, where he spent 3yrs failing to get a degree.  Then he entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (he was older than most there).  Early in his career, he failed the entry examination for the army staff college, but his connections saved him there.  His sister's husband was part of the Jameson whiskey dynasty, and held the honorary position of keeper of the Prince of Wales' yachts.  She got the Duke of Cambridge (an elderly member of the royal family) to have the entry requirements waived for Haig.

While serving in the Second Boer War, Haig got into Kitchener's favour, and also became friends with John French.  Haig was unmarried, and was open about his contempt for women – Kitchener was a bachelor all his life, and this was the type of officer he liked.  Haig earned JF's gratitude when he lent him £2,000 to get out of woman trouble. After the war, Haig became Edward VII's aide-de-camp, which gave him excellent visibility.

In 1905, Haig married the Honourable Dorothy Vivian, who was the queen's favourite maid of honour.  He proposed to her only 72hrs after meeting her, writing that, “I have often made up my mind on more important problems than that of my own marriage in much less time.”  They were the first non-royal couple to get married in Buckingham Palace's chapel.

Within a year of his marriage, the British army created a general staff for the first time.  Haig's court & government friends pushed for him to get the position, even though he was only 44yrs old and had never had a major command before.  He didn't get the job, but even up to the BEF's deployment in 1914 he was still trying for it.  He cast doubts on JF's abilities to anyone who would listen (including King George), adding that of course he was prepared to serve wherever needed.  

And people always did listen, even though he was incredibly ignorant – for example, before WW1 he predicted that “the role of cavalry on the battlefield will always go on increasing” and that “artillery only seems likely to be effective against raw troops”.  Despite his constant bad-mouthing, Haig managed to maintain a good friendship with JF.  He hated all officers except his own subordinates (as long as they were properly submissive).  He was constantly paranoid that he was being conspired against, and he conspired against others in return.

The other BEF corps at the start of WW1 was originally led by James Grierson, but he died of a heart attack after arriving in France.  This was lucky for Haig – Grierson was an incredibly gifted commander, and in the 1912 summer war games, he'd beaten Haig so completely that the operation was halted ahead of schedule, completely humiliating him. JF asked for Herbert Plumer to replace him, but Kitchener sent Horace Smith-Dorrien.

Smith-Dorrien was a very senior Lieutenant General, very good at his job, and liked by Kitchener.  A few years ago, he'd made a very scathing comment about his Haig (who was his student at the time) at the staff college.  But JF hated Smith-Dorrien, and he would question and nitpick everything he did.  A potential rival for Haig was avoided.

JF's deputy chief of staff was Henry Wilson, who had been the Unionists' spy inside the army's general staff during the Curragh Mutiny, when the was the army's director of military operations.  Haig described him as “such a terrible intriguer, and sure to make mischief.”  Wilson had been Britain's main liaison to the French general staff before the war, and he had made important friends in Paris.  Now, he was trying to use them to get himself promoted to chief of staff.  Both and he and JF hated Kitchener, whom Wilson called “as much an enemy of England as Moltke.”

But when JF's chief of staff was replaced, it was William “Wully” Robertson who took the job.  During the first weeks of the war, he'd been the BEF's quartermaster general, and he did brilliant work in that position. JF had tried to get Wilson appointment, but Kitchener had prevented it.

As he often did, Robertson was treated badly because he'd come up through the ranks. JF dined regularly with Wilson while excluding Robertson.  Haig was more subtle, writing of Robertson, “He means well and will succeed, I feel sure.  How much easier though it is to work with a gentleman.”

Kitchener, like Joffre and Gallieni, had spent most of his life serving in colonial assignments.  When he was 20yrs old, he interrupted his training to volunteer in the Franco-Prussian War.  Not long afterwards, the was sent to the Middle East with the Royal Engineers.

In 1886 (36yrs old), he became the governor of Britain's Red Sea territories.  In 1892, he was commander of the Egyptian army; in 1898, he became a baron after suppressing a rebellion in Sudan.  He led the British army in the Second Boer War, burning the Boers' farms, and herding their wives and children into concentration camps, where thousands died.  After that, he was made Viscount Kitchener of Khartoum.

From 1902-09 he was Commander-in-Chief in India, where he battled endlessly with the viceroy.  From 1911 on, he was the British preconsul in Egypt and Sudan.  By 1914, he was so used to being in charge that he'd lost the ability to co-operate or delegate, and he had little knowledge of English politics or society.

He was in Britain in August 1914 because he'd been invited to return to be made an earl.  When the war began, he was already on a ship preparing to return to Egypt.  But Asquith recalled him to London, and asked him to join his cabinet as Secretary of State for War.  Kitchener agreed, although he didn't really want to – his goal was to become Viceroy of India, and he preferred to stay in Cairo until that happened.

Kitchener didn't give up his commission as the army's senior Field Marshal, and therefore he still received the salary from it.  He was the first serving officer to hold a post in the British cabinet since the 1600's.

Kitchener predicted that the main German invasion would be through Belgium; that the war would last at least 3yrs; and that Britain would have to build an army of a million men.  Many in the government and army were dubious about these predictions, but he turned out to be right – although 5 ½ million British men, not just one million, would serve in WW1.