World War One: History in an Hour (7 page)

Throughout the war, Churchill furthered the cause of the newly developed ‘landships’, or tanks. It was in his capacity within the Admiralty, that Churchill canvassed a navy-only assault on the Dardanelles. Its failure to deliver, and the consequent disaster of Gallipoli, was a severe setback to Churchill’s reputation. Demoted and demoralized, Churchill handed in his resignation from the coalition government and, although he remained an MP, joined the front-line troops as a lieutenant colonel on the Western Front. By all accounts, he was popular and courageous and ventured thirty times or so into No Man’s Land.

After four months in France, Churchill returned to London and within a couple of months, despite Conservative protests, was appointed Minister for Munitions.

Following the war, in January 1919, Churchill became Secretary of State for War, and, deeply alarmed by the Bolshevik threat, poured more troops to fight the counter-revolutionary cause during the Russian Civil War.

Losing his seat as a Liberal MP, Churchill again swapped sides and served a Conservative government as Chancellor of the Exchequer until their defeat in the election of 1929. Although the Conservatives were re-elected in 1931, Churchill, considered too much a loose canon, was sidelined. He remained in the shadows throughout the thirties, writing and painting, until recalled to the Admiralty in 1939, by which time the Second World War had begun.

Douglas Haig 1861–1928

Born in Edinburgh, Haig, an expert horseman, once represented England at polo. In 1898, he joined Kitchener’s force in the Sudan. Asked by Kitchener’s superiors in London to report back in confidence on his commander, Haig did so with relish, taking delight in criticizing the unsuspecting Kitchener. In 1899, Haig served under Sir John French in Kitchener’s army during the Boer War in South Africa.

By August 1914, Haig served as a deputy to French who had become commander-in-chief of the BEF. Haig’s actions at Mons and the First Battle of Ypres earned him praise while, conversely, French’s fortunes plummeted as the British failed to make any headway on the Western Front. Haig helped manoeuvre the mood-swinging French out of power and was appointed by Prime Minister Asquith as French’s replacement in December 1915.

Douglas Haig

Firmly believing that God was on his side and therefore his decisions had to be right, Haig insisted on full frontal attacks, convinced that victory would come by military might alone. Still a cavalry man at heart, he believed the machine gun to be a ‘much over rated weapon’. Haig’s tenure as commander-in-chief saw the horrendous losses at the Battle of the Somme and the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). But Haig had to act under pressure of his French allies, bringing forward, for example, the Somme offensive by six weeks. Despite having a personal rapport with the King, Haig never enjoyed the confidence of Lloyd George, who was openly critical of Haig’s cavalier attitude with his men’s lives. In 1918, Haig oversaw Britain’s advance during the Hundred Days Offensive, pushing back the German’s Spring Offensive which, ultimately, led to victory.

After the war, Haig helped establish the British Legion, becoming its first president, a post he held until his death, and also introduced the poppy of remembrance into Britain. He died from a heart attack brought on, according to his widow, by the strain of wartime command. He was sixty-six.

Henri Philippe Pétain 1856–1951

Pétain began the First World War as a general but his successes during 1914 and later at Verdun brought him to public attention. In December 1916, following the sacking of Joseph Joffre, Pétain
was passed over for the post of commander-in-chief by his second-in-command at Verdun, Robert Nivelle. Pétain eventually got his chance following the failures of the Nivelle Offensive in April 1917, and in May was made commander-in-chief of French forces. His first task was to quell the French mutiny, which he did through a mixture of discipline and reform. Pétain
limited French offensives to the minimum, claiming he was waiting for ‘the tanks and the Americans’. He remained the French commander-in-chief but from March 1918, became subordinate to Ferdinand Foch who was appointed the Generalissimo of all Allied forces on the Western Front.

Henri Philippe Pétain

In June 1940, during the Second World War, the 84-year-old Pétain was appointed prime minister. His first task was the surrender of the French to the forces of Nazi Germany. The Germans occupied two-fifths of France and Pétain, administering the rest of the country on behalf of the Germans, moved his government to the town of Vichy. In November 1942, the Germans took over the whole country, leaving Pétain little more than a puppet. Following France’s liberation in September 1944, Pétain was forced by the Germans to retreat to the German town of Sigmaringen to form a government-in-exile.

In April 1945, Pétain was arrested and put on trial for treason. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to death. But Charles de Gaulle, taking into account Pétain’s age and his First World War record, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Pétain was imprisoned, in relative luxury, on the island of île d’Yeu, on the west coast of France. Increasingly frail, he needed constant care. He died in 1951, aged ninety-five.

Georges Clemenceau 1841–1929

Nicknamed the Tiger for his fiery temperament, Clemenceau was not averse to settling personal feuds by duel. A staunch republican and troublemaker, Clemenceau was once imprisoned for seventy-seven days by Napoleon III’s government. In 1865, fearing another arrest, Clemenceau fled to the US where he worked as a journalist and teacher. Following France’s defeat during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Clemenceau opposed France’s colonial ambitions, arguing that the country needed to concentrate its efforts on extracting revenge on the Germans.

Georges Clemenceau
George Grantham Bain collection, Library of Congress

Clemenceau served as prime minister between 1906 and 1909, and became known for his firmness and his hard stanch against the Socialists. During the early part of the First World War, Clemenceau became a vocal critic of France’s strategy. Appointed in November 1917 for a second term as prime minister, leading a coalition government, he oversaw France’s role in the eventual defeat of Germany.

He took a firm line in the subsequent Paris Peace Conference, determined to see Germany crippled to prevent it from ever again becoming a military threat. Although the conference had largely rejected Woodrow Wilson’s conciliatory Fourteen Points, Clemenceau still had to compromise. The French public, dissatisfied with their prime minister’s performance, voted him out of office in 1920.

In his latter years, Clemenceau warned against a resurgent Germany, predicting a new war by 1940. He died in 1929.

Gavrilo Princip 1894–1918

Born to an impoverished family in Bosnia in 1894, Princip was one of nine children, six of whom died during infancy. Suffering from tuberculosis, the frail and slight Princip learnt to read, the first in his family to do so, and devoured the histories of the Serbs and their oppression at the hands of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires.

Gavrilo Princip

In 1911, a friend of Princip’s, Bogdan Zerajic, had tried to assassinate the Austrian–Hungarian governor of Bosnia. He failed and shot himself. But it provided the young Princip with inspiration. He tried to enlist in various terrorist groups but was turned down due to his short stature. Eventually he was accepted and tasked to join a group called the Black Hand. Its explicit purpose was the assassination of the heir to the Austrian–Hungarian throne, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Each member of the gang was given a vial of cyanide in order to kill themselves afterwards.

The plan to assassinate Franz Ferdinand was known to the Serbian prime minister. Although sympathetic, he feared the consequences and ordered the arrest of the Black Hand conspirators. His orders came too late. Having assassinated the Archduke and his wife, Princip tried to shoot himself but was wrestled to the ground where again he tried to kill himself by swallowing his cyanide pill but the poison, so old, failed to work.

At the time of the assassination, Princip was a month short of his twentieth birthday. His age saved him from execution as Austrian–Hungarian law decreed that the death penalty could not be applied to those aged under twenty. Princip therefore was sentenced the maximum penalty of twenty years. While in prison, he suffered a resurgence of his tuberculosis and, due to the poor hygiene and his inadequate diet, had to have an arm amputated. His condition worsened and he died, aged twenty-three, on 28 April 1918.

Paul von Hindenburg 1847–1934

Hindenburg had had a successful if not spectacular career in the army, decorated in the Austro–Prussian War (1866) and the Franco–Prussian War (1870–71) and retired in 1911.

Paul von Hindenburg
George Grantham Bain collection, Library of Congress

With the outbreak of war in 1914, Hindenburg was recalled to service, and with Ludendorff as his deputy, scored an impressive double victory against the Russians at the Battles of Tanneburg and Mausaurian Lakes. But a total of victory against the Russians was not forthcoming which Hindenburg blamed entirely on Falkenhayn and his excessive need for troops on the Western front.