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Seems that English society learned quite a bit from those two wars (at a steep price though). Sadly it seems those lessons are fading as the generations leave.

arethuza 8y ago
One small lesson being not to deploy friends from the same area in the same unit where they are all likely to be killed at the same time: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-pals-battalions-of-the-first-world-war https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-pals-battalions-of-the-fi...
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I'm not sure what you or the author of that IWM page mean - today the British Army still has a county regimental system, with the specific idea that the soldiers in a unit will have come from the same areas, have the same friends, be part of the same families, and so on.
  - iRideUnicornz 8y ago
    I agree, the blurb describes in detail what a "Pals Battalion" is, but not why it was actually problematic for the communities from which that battalion originated from. Basically, large groups of young men from the same community (hundreds to thousands), would all join up patriotically into the same battalion. After all, if they were going to join a war, they might as well join together with those that they know and already have bonds with. Unfortunately, the unintended consequences were those same entire battalions could be wiped out in a single day (like at the Somme), and now you had a community losing nearly all of it's young men at the exact same time, with hundreds of families in the same area now missing a son at the exact same time. As one would expect, the effects of this would be devastating mentally, and demographically enough so as to destroy smaller communities that had sent the majority of their sons and now no longer had fathers for the next generation.
    - chrisseaton 8y ago
      But my point is this is exactly how Army regiments worked before, after, and today. The units recruit from specific geographical areas.
      - smacktoward 8y ago
        Today they recruit much smaller numbers. Recruitment in the Great War meant mass recruitment -- Kitchener's first call for volunteers in August 1914 brought in nearly 500,000 men all by itself, and nearly 2.5 million in total would volunteer before voluntary recruitment was finally abandoned in favor of conscription in 1916 (see https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/voluntary-recruiting https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/voluntary-recruitin...). For comparison, the entire modern-day British Army only has about 80,000 regular troops. Moreover, a battalion was a unit of around a thousand men, so the "pals battalions" -- where men were encouraged to volunteer by being allowed to serve with people they knew -- ended up being drawn from extremely narrow geographical areas. There were pals battalions of men who all worked in the same factory, of men who'd all attended school together, of the players from the local football club and all their fans. So when one of these battalions got wiped out, as many did in the battles of the Somme, a very specific community would suddenly more or less cease to exist.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Isn't the point (being missed?) that militarily a fighting group with close ties will fight harder for I've another, they already have a deal of camaraderie - that can be grown in months of training. IIRC some ancient Greek states exploited romantic partnerships to increase esprit de corps in cadres of men. Part of the thinking seemingly being that one wouldn't flee the battlefield and leave a sexual partner so easily as otherwise. Of course what's good for making a fighting force isn't necessarily good for the rest of society. Or at least there's a cost to that benefit.
        chrisseaton 8y ago
        In the last century there were also practical concerns like making sure soldiers could understand each others' accents.
Bromskloss 8y ago
> Seems that English society learned quite a bit from those two wars What do you have in mind?

arethuza 8y ago

One small lesson being not to deploy friends from the same area in the same unit where they are all likely to be killed at the same time: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-pals-battalions-of-the-first-world-war https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-pals-battalions-of-the-fi...

chrisseaton 8y ago
I'm not sure what you or the author of that IWM page mean - today the British Army still has a county regimental system, with the specific idea that the soldiers in a unit will have come from the same areas, have the same friends, be part of the same families, and so on.
- iRideUnicornz 8y ago
  I agree, the blurb describes in detail what a "Pals Battalion" is, but not why it was actually problematic for the communities from which that battalion originated from. Basically, large groups of young men from the same community (hundreds to thousands), would all join up patriotically into the same battalion. After all, if they were going to join a war, they might as well join together with those that they know and already have bonds with. Unfortunately, the unintended consequences were those same entire battalions could be wiped out in a single day (like at the Somme), and now you had a community losing nearly all of it's young men at the exact same time, with hundreds of families in the same area now missing a son at the exact same time. As one would expect, the effects of this would be devastating mentally, and demographically enough so as to destroy smaller communities that had sent the majority of their sons and now no longer had fathers for the next generation.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    But my point is this is exactly how Army regiments worked before, after, and today. The units recruit from specific geographical areas.
    - smacktoward 8y ago
      Today they recruit much smaller numbers. Recruitment in the Great War meant mass recruitment -- Kitchener's first call for volunteers in August 1914 brought in nearly 500,000 men all by itself, and nearly 2.5 million in total would volunteer before voluntary recruitment was finally abandoned in favor of conscription in 1916 (see https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/voluntary-recruiting https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/voluntary-recruitin...). For comparison, the entire modern-day British Army only has about 80,000 regular troops. Moreover, a battalion was a unit of around a thousand men, so the "pals battalions" -- where men were encouraged to volunteer by being allowed to serve with people they knew -- ended up being drawn from extremely narrow geographical areas. There were pals battalions of men who all worked in the same factory, of men who'd all attended school together, of the players from the local football club and all their fans. So when one of these battalions got wiped out, as many did in the battles of the Somme, a very specific community would suddenly more or less cease to exist.
      - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Isn't the point (being missed?) that militarily a fighting group with close ties will fight harder for I've another, they already have a deal of camaraderie - that can be grown in months of training. IIRC some ancient Greek states exploited romantic partnerships to increase esprit de corps in cadres of men. Part of the thinking seemingly being that one wouldn't flee the battlefield and leave a sexual partner so easily as otherwise. Of course what's good for making a fighting force isn't necessarily good for the rest of society. Or at least there's a cost to that benefit.
        chrisseaton 8y ago
        In the last century there were also practical concerns like making sure soldiers could understand each others' accents.

Bromskloss 8y ago

> Seems that English society learned quite a bit from those two wars What do you have in mind?