Ghost of a flea: Don't you think we have done very well?

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July 19, 2006

Don't you think we have done very well?

A Former Servant of Her Majesty forwards news of the latest report on the Battle of the Somme. Christopher Duffy's twist is to offer a German perspective on the calamity drawn from previously disregarded Bavarian military archives. His view is that the disaster accomplished more than is most often credited. I am struck by the argument for the strategic necessity of the battle - this point too is almost universally disregarded - and still more by learning of the prevailing contempt for the British held by the German military class.

As a consequence of the long intermarriage of the British and German royal families, upper-class Germans knew upper-class Britain quite intimately during the decades before the First World War. Families and businesses were intermingled and it was common for young Germans to attend school or university in Britain. In turn, the British were in awe of German high culture, its literature, music and science. British universities were even persuaded to import that strange German innovation, the research degree or PhD. As a result, many German army officers spoke perfect English and had a deep working knowledge of British society - or thought they had. They were not impressed by what they saw. Upper-class Germans thought the English had become debased by Celtic and Jewish influences, and by a selfish concentration on commerce as opposed to heroic Wagnerian values and a love of science and the arts for their own sake.

"Debased by Celtic and Jewish influences," you say? The Kaiserist line has hardly changed in a hundred years whether from the mouths of those German would-be toffs or today's wide variety of Muslim puritans unimpressed by gay marriage or the Holocaust. That said, far be it for me to deny instances of British "sportsidiotsmus," alcoholism or degeneracy. But woe to to Her Majesty's enemies in misunderestimating the war-fighting potential of these traits. It was the Duke of Wellington who observed of his own army: "I don't know what they'll do to the enemy; but, by God, they frighten me."

Posted by Ghost of a flea at July 19, 2006 11:34 AM

Comments

I am predisposed to see only sweetness and light in Jewish cultural influences, but surely well-known exports like Riverdance, Michael Flatley's Lard of the Dance and Welsh rarebit imply a certain debasement in Celtic culture.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at July 19, 2006 02:46 PM

Tom Jones more than makes up for these minor excesses.

Posted by: Ghost of a flea at July 19, 2006 04:41 PM

Touché. Match point.

Posted by: Chris Taylor at July 19, 2006 04:52 PM