Michael Gove attacks "left-wing" views of WW I

[Brian Peacock]

The view from the perspective of the infantryman...

• DULCE ET DECORUM EST
  
  Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
  And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
  Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
  Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
  Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
  Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
  In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
  He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
  If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
  Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
  If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud,
  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest,
  To children ardent for some desperate glory,
  The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
  Pro patria mori.
  
  Wilfred Owen, 1917

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: It is sweet and right to die for your country.

[klr]

This is an example of the kind of thing that Michael Gove would like pupils not to read.

The Germans embraced the machine gun from the outset—in 1904, sixteen units were equipped with 'Maschinengewehr'—and the machine gun crews were the elite infantry units; these units were attached to Jaeger (light infantry) battalions. By 1914, British infantry units were armed with two Vickers machine guns per battalion, the Germans had six per battalion, the Russians eight.[35] It would not be until 1917 that every infantry unit of the American forces carried at least one machine gun.[36] After 1915, the Maschinengewehr 08 was the standard issue German machine gun; its number "08/15" entered the German language as idiomatic for "dead plain". At Gallipoli and in Palestine the Turks provided the infantry, but it was usually Germans who manned the machine guns.

The British High Command were less enthusiastic about machine guns, supposedly considering the weapon too "unsporting" and encouraging defensive fighting; and they lagged behind the Germans in adopting it. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig is quoted as saying in 1915, "The machine gun is a much overrated weapon; two per battalion is more than sufficient".[37] The defensive firepower of the machinegun was exemplified during the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 60,000 British soldiers were rendered casualties "the great majority lost under withering machine gun fire".[38] In 1915 the Machine Gun Corps was formed to train and provide sufficient heavy machine gun teams.

Many years ago I went to some Tank Museum in Dorset, Soggy Island. They had a mock-up of the trenches, show both the German and Allied sides. The idea was that the Germans were way ahead, and winning - and then the boffs invented the tank, turning the tide as it were, saving the Tommies' butts.
I have no idea if this is an accurate picture of what actually happened..

It's ... over simplistic. The first tanks were very slow, difficult to operate and prone to breakdown. It also completely ignores the naval war, including the German U-boat campaign and the Allied blockade of Germany.

[Audley Strange]

The view from the perspective of the infantryman...

• DULCE ET DECORUM EST
  
  Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
  And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
  Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
  Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
  Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
  Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
  In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
  He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
  If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
  Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
  If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud,
  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest,
  To children ardent for some desperate glory,
  The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
  Pro patria mori.
  
  Wilfred Owen, 1917

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: It is sweet and right to die for your country.

Precisely the kind of wishy washy bolshie nonsense Gove was talking about. They don't teach children ""By Christ I Love being Gassed for the King." or many other pro-war poems written from the trenches.

[Brian Peacock]

[Svartalf]

There were prowar poems written in the trenches?

[Audley Strange]

There were prowar poems written in the trenches?

Well there must be if Gove is claiming that WW1 is being selectively revised by leftists from being a jolly European Holiday fair and Sports day to something that was actually an atrocity.

[Svartalf]

Gove is... [CENSORED]