Centenary? What Centenary?

In a post on the Theatrum Belli blog, at http://theatrum-belli.org/il-existe-une-mission-du-centenaire-de-la-premiere-guerre-mondiale-mais-pour-quelles-missions/ , the noted French military historian of the Great War, Rémy Porte, looks at what is planned officially in France to commemorate the centenary of the Great War, and doesn't like what he sees.

While many communities, departments and regions have announced plans and projects for local commemorations, Porte has failed to find anything concrete coming from central government, apart from one website. Lots of meetings, but no product.

What is worse, he says, is that the people who attend these meetings represent every little clique, every school of thought, niche and theme about the War - the cultural, social, economic, political, diplomatic, scientific and technical, financial and budgetary factors of the conflict; medical services, coal mining, the press, the Christmas truce - all have their enthusiastic supporters. Every aspect, that is, but one - the military campaign. No-one seems to be taking an interest in the actual fighting. There is nothing, he complains, about the organization of the armies of the belligerents, their training, equipment, leadership, doctrine and planning; nor anything about the conduct of operations, the strategic interaction between the fronts, comparisons between countries, the roles of soldiers at every level within their army, nor the immediate and distant causes of the war.

Perhaps through gritted teeth, he compares the situation in France unfavourably with the situation in the UK, where David Cameron's speech last October at least gave an impression that, on this side of the Channel, there is a coherent programme of commemoration.

There have been a number of dissenting voices in the UK as well, seeking to fine tune the Prime Ministerial proposals, but there is some comfort in knowing that someone thinks we are doing well. But I don't want to be the one who has to tell M. Porte that the school of military history that ignores all those howwid guns and all that sordid killing is alive and well in some of our universities.

We shall see.

Kings of the Air: 'War, German style' 1

The first German air raid on Paris was at 12.45pm on 30 August 1914, when a Taube overflew the city at a height of 1,000 metres and dropped five bombs, killing one civilian and wounding four others, before flying off untouched by the guns of the Camp Retranché de Paris (CRP). Four armed Farmans operating as HF28 were immediately allocated to the CRP, but they too proved ineffective and the raids continued over the next three months, killing eleven and wounding fifty. On 2 September one Farman managed to get within range, but its machine gun jammed on the tenth round and the intruder escaped unscathed. Better defences were required. Lack of available chassis made the mobile motorized AA units favoured by General Gallieni (the commander of the Paris garrison) unviable; instead an outer ring of listening posts was set up about a hundred kilometres from the city, with an inner ring of fifteen fixed batteries – each deploying two 75mm field guns, four machine guns...

Kings of the Air: A Matter of Reputation

When dealing with the history of the development of the French Air Force before and during the Great War, you cannot go far without coming across the name of Charles Tricornet de Rose. A dragoons officer, he was the first man to get his military wings. He was immediately snapped up to work at Estienne's research establishment at Vincennes, where he worked on aircraft armament (even though the Minister of War thought it a waste of time), coming to the conclusion that the gun had to placed in the nose, firing forwards. The problem was the firing through the arc of the propellor, and, with Roland Garros, he was working on a synchronizer system when war broke out. Garros went his own way, towards the dead end that were his deflector plates. Meanwhile, de Rose, the commander of Fifth Army's aviation, created the first all-fighter squadron, MS12, and filled it with the best pilots he could lay his hands on, including Jean Navarre. Until a viable synchronizer system was work...

Kings of the Air: Clément Ader

This is the first of a series of biographical sketches based on the research I am doing for my new book Kings of the Air: French aces and airmen of the Great War , to be published by Pen & Sword. Clément Ader (1841-1925) was a French inventor, whose attempt at heavier-than-air flight some years before the Wright brothers was so nearly successful. Ader had a restless mind, and his inventions covered a wide range of fields. In 1868, he began as a velocipede manufacturer. Instead of conventional iron tyres, his machines used a rubber tubular tyre of his own invention, resulting in a much lighter frame, and a much more comfortable ride. The war against German in 1870 brought an end to his work. He then began working for a railway company in the south-west of the country, the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Midi. In 1875, he designed an engine that laid rails, that saw service for several years. He then turned to the new telephone, commercialising the inventions ...

Ian Sumner

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