THE ‘OLD CONTEMPTIBLES'

Press, 28 February 1981, Page 17

THE ‘OLD CONTEMPTIBLES'

Farewell, Leicester Square. By Kate Caffrey. Andre Deutsch, 1980. 278 PP- Bibliography and index. $29.75. (Reviewed by Keith C. Hooper)

Armies in peacetime usually have a top-secret plan locked away somewhere. So far in military history, none has surpassed the ambitious and well rehearsed "Von Schlieffen Plan." upon which the German High Command pinned its hopes in 1914. As early as 1905. Count von Schlieffen had perfected his scheme to overrun France. It called for the sudden mobilisation of 94 divisions, which would then make a great wheeling movement through neutral Belgium in the north, while the weaker left flank and pivot of the wheel would hold the bulk of the French tn Lorraine.

Speed was of the essence and railways were all-important, so in Germany they were controlled by the army, a staff officer to each line. Each of the 40 army corps designated for the attack required 280 trains, which would move west at a steady 20 m.p.h.. 10 minutes apart. It was an exquisitely well co-ordinated plan, with no detail left unattended. The vital and stronger right flank of the wheel would take Leige in 12 days, Brussels in 19. pass the French frontier in 22. and capture Paris within 40 days. So practised had the army become, it seemed impossible for anything to go wrong; at last a short and decisive European war was feasible. Kate Caffrey devotes the first part of her book to strategy and the execution of this plan. Understandably, in that late summer of 1914. the Germans expected the final victory before Christmas. Rather surprisingly, the allies shared this view, except they expected the Germans to collapse. The Germans had good grounds for optimism. They had the larger army in the field with definite objectives, ail well prepared over two decades of war games.

However, it is Miss Caffrey s argument that the small British Army, a mere seven divisions, was not onlv the most

experienced and professional army in France, but also the best on terms of quality ever to leave Britain. Certainly the Germans, at the time, made little allowance for quality, preferring quantity; and the Kaiser’s public message to his attacking forces gave, in the end, much more comfort to the defenders than was intended. "It is my Royal Command that you should concentrate your energies on one purpose . . . to exterminate the treacherous English and walk all over Genera] French’s contemptible little army." Apparently ‘contemptible" should have been translated as "insignificant." but the allied press took a puckish delight in the former description, and the survivors of those opening battles took pride in calling themselves “Old Contemptibles. ” Thus as the book traces the course of those early battles, a central theme remains throughout: the quality and experience of the old British Regular Army. Theirs was not a professionalism born" of vast war games, but of defending in scattered groups the lonely outposts of Empire. Now all the famous regiments stood shoulder to shoulder, engaged in accomplishing that most difficult of all military tasks — retreating in good order in the face of a superior enemy. Leapfrogging past each other, one battalion covering the next, they moved back to take up fresh holding positions to allow their comrades through. The long fighting retreat took them from Mons, on the Belgian border, to the outskirts of Paris. They fell back 200 miles in 13 days, battling all the way. Weary, depleted in number, but still formidable, they knew they had taken a heavy toll of the enemy. On the Marne, outside Paris, the British and French made a final do or die stand, and halted the German advance. The "Von Schleiffen Plan" had to be abandoned. The Germans fell back to regroup and try again. Meanwhile the British moved up to the Ypres salient and the bloody war of

attrition began. Caffrey reports that both sides would have been horrified if they had known there were four more years to go. virtually on the same spot. The villain of her book is Sir John French, an unfortunate surname in the circumstances, for this choleric British commander spent most of his time arguing with and complaining of the French. To Caffrey he appears, not unjustifiably, as the embodiment of the worst caricature of a World War I general. Keeping well away from the front, absent when most needed, he gave out impossible orders, based on his own changing moods, which his subordinates sometimes wisely ignored. Querulous in temperament, his outlook swung from wild optimism to deep despair. More demoralised than his men during the retreat, he kept his headquarters far back behind the lines, and moved it so fast at times no one could find him. Indeed, after the Marne when the army advanced. Sir John was still retreating. This farcical situation brought out Lord Kitchener from London to have a quiet word with him. for which the French were vastly relieved as his capricious behaviour had posed them many problems. Kate Caffrey admits to an affectionate regard for the British army of 1914, with which her father was associated, and perhaps a bias does show- through. Still they had helped stem the German flood, and at Ypres had taken on the stronger and much celebrated Prussian Guard division, who had orders to sweep away the "feeble British and other trash."

One must never forget the valiant and much greater French effort of the time. Still, this is a book about the Old Contemptibles and acknowledgements to the French are made. Some familiarity with the various British regiments will help the reader through the more detailed narrative, but the book is well provided with maps and illustrations. This account of the British Army under pressure will provide many with an understanding of those headstrong days in 1914 when the world went to war.