Investigations of a Dog

In the last few weeks lots have bloggers have been discussing whether humanities subjects are in decline and how to protect humanities from spending cuts. It seems obvious to me that independent critical thought, textual analysis and the ability to construct and destroy arguments are all very important skills, not just for individuals but for society as a whole. It’s equally obvious why politicians, businessmen and journalists might be hostile to those skills. When humanities departments ask for funding, they’re effectively saying “please give us your money so we can teach people to see through your lies”. That’s going to be a hard sell, and probably explains why defenders of the humanities tend to use vague euphemisms rather than putting it so bluntly. The paradox is that the humanities have to cover up their main selling point so as not to appear threatening to the people with money and power, but that makes it easy to represent the humanities as useless. It reminds me of the old essay question “Richard II was deposed because of his strength rather than his weakness. Discuss.”

This is what some other people have written:

Brett at Airminded rounds up lots of links, and puts them under the best title ever. (I have no hope of beating it, but still desperately attempted a pun on second rate 80s cartoon series Defenders of the Earth.)

More links from Penelope’s Weavings and Unpickings, showing that academics in the humanities have lots of experience of trying to defend their subjects and that humanities subjects have economic value.

At Crooked Timber Michael Bérubé points out that in the US, humanities subjects (along with most other subjects) declined from 1967 to 1987, but have been stable since then.

Meanwhile it appears that the “omg! military history is dying!” meme still refuses to die, but Mark Grimsley is doing a good job of refuting it. The death of military history is a standard story regularly wheeled out by lazy right-wing journalists, especially in the US. It’s not quite as nasty or frequent as “immigrants are taking all our jobs”, “the PC brigade has banned Christmas”, “computer games are corrupting our children” or “science proves that men are naturally better than women” that we get in the UK, but that’s not saying much. I took on the last one in my article “What Changed Your Mind” in issue 2 of PEP (free PDF), showing how journalists repeat the same misogynistic and homophobic cliches regardless of the facts, and suggesting that they might even help to cause the effects they claim to be reporting. Incidentally, by writing the article I showed that humanities graduates are perfectly capable of writing about science. My textual analysis skills transferred easily to newspaper articles and science papers, and I could see dubious ideological assumptions which the scientists themselves were probably unaware of. The enemies of humanities crumble in fear and confusion!

While I was taking advantage of free access to Ancestry this week, I decided to look for the medal index card of Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, the famous poet. I couldn’t find it. These medal index cards show entitlement to campaign medals for British soldiers who fought in the First World War. Since Sassoon served on the Western Front as an officer in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, he would definitely have been eligible for campaign medals. Although campaign medals were issued automatically to Other Ranks (or their next of kin if they were dead), officers had to apply for their medals and it isn’t certain that all of them did. If they didn’t then there probably wouldn’t be an index card for them. Sassoon is famous for becoming an opponent of the war and throwing away the ribbon of his Military Cross, so maybe he didn’t claim his campaign medals. But he changed his mind about the war more than once, and went back to the front after his protest, so maybe he did claim them. I already know whether he did or didn’t have a medal card but I’m saving that for later. First, here’s some background about campaign medals and related documents.

There were several campaign medals which were issued for taking part in the war, with different criteria for each one. The most common were the British War Medal, for anyone who served overseas, and the Victory Medal, for anyone who served in a theatre of war. Those who served in the early years of the war could qualify for the 1914 Star or the 1914-15 Star (more details and pictures). The Army Medal Office recorded entitlement to these medals on medal rolls. Despite being called rolls, these are actually books, containing lists of eligible soldiers arranged by regiment. The War and Victory medals are recorded together in the same rolls, and there are separate rolls for each of the stars. These rolls are now held by the UK National Archives in class WO 329, and are not available online. The Medal Office also created a card index to pull together details of each soldier from the different rolls. Every eligible soldier should have at least one medal index card showing name, rank, regiment, service number (except for officers, who didn’t have numbers), campaign medal entitlement and references to the relevant medal rolls. Some soldiers have more than one card, especially if they also won a gallantry medal (although cards for some kinds of gallantry medal are recorded elsewhere and not included in this collection; Sassoon’s Military Cross award card wouldn’t be here as these are in a different class and can only be seen on microfilm at TNA) or qualified for a Silver War Badge by being discharged as unfit for duty. These medal index cards were also transferred from the Medal Office to the Public Records Office (now the UK National Archives) and put into class WO 372. They were arranged as follows:

• WO 372/1 to WO 372/22: British Army campaign medals A-Z
• WO 372/23: Women’s Services, Distinguished Conduct Medals and Military Medals
• WO 372/24: Mentions in Despatches, Meritorious Service Medals and Territorial Force Efficiency Medals
• WO 372/25 to WO 372/29: Indian Army campaign medals

The cards were microfilmed and the originals put into storage. The microfilm was in black and white, and only the fronts of the cards were filmed. It’s usually reckoned that about 5% of the cards have something written on the back. This information became completely inaccessible. At some point (I think in the early 2000s) the microfilm was digitized and PDF files of the cards were made available for download through TNA’s DocumentsOnline service. These low resolution scans of black and white microfilm were not easy to read, and the information on the back was still inaccessible. The collection was indexed so that individual cards can be found by searching for name, rank, number or regiment. There are some transcription errors, so the index isn’t completely reliable. For example, the card for Arthur Evans shows that he was in the Lincolnshire Regiment, but the DocumentsOnline index wrongly gives this as 32nd London Regiment.

Thanks to DocumentsOnline we can see that Siegfried Sassoon did have a medal card, which can be downloaded here (ref WO 372/17, image 27085). The Medal Office had incorrectly written his name as Siefried Lorraine Sassoon, but as a captain in the 3rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers with a Military Cross, it’s got to be him. There’s even a note saying that his MC was cited in the London Gazette on 27 July 1916 (view page as PDF; the Gazette also incorrectly spells his middle name as Lorraine). The card shows that he was awarded the British War Medal, the Victory Medal and the 1914-15 Star. Although there is a note saying he was eligible on 20 February 1919, the medals don’t appear to have been issued until July 1985. This is nearly 20 years after Sassoon died, so it looks like he didn’t claim his medals himself and that they were claimed later by his family (no more claims for First World War campaign medals are possible now, and all unclaimed medals have been destroyed). The card is in a form usually used for Silver War Badge awards rather than the normal campaign medal styles. The box for date of discharge is blank, but “11/3/19” is written at the top of the card, which ties in with Sassoon resigning his commission through ill health (the London Gazette gives 12 March 1919). The most frustrating thing is that there’s a “PTO” at the bottom of the card, but we can’t turn it over and see what’s on the back.

In 2005 it was announced that the original cards would be destroyed to save storage space, but they were saved at the last minute. The Imperial War Museum took the women’s cards, and the Western Front Association took the rest (you can follow the story on this thread at the Great War Forum; there’s also a report at Your Family Tree magazine). For a while the WFA offered a service where they’d copy both sides of a card in return for a donation. Then they agreed to let Ancestry scan the cards and make them available online to subscribers. Ancestry scanned both sides of the cards in colour, making them much more legible than the TNA versions and making the backs available for the first time since the cards were microfilmed. But Ancestry’s indexing is notoriously bad. The Great War Forum has a whole thread dedicated to showing up the worst examples. It looks very much like Ancestry has done the transcription on the cheap by outsourcing it to people whose first language isn’t English and who know very little about British history and geography. There doesn’t even seem to have been a checklist of regiment or county names, or very much quality control. For example, T. E. Sandall, commanding officer and historian of the 1/5th Lincolnshire Regiment is shown on Ancestry’s medal card index as belonging to “1/5th Essex Tegt” [sic]. Ancestry has about 4.8 million medal cards compared to 5,482,260 on DocumentsOnline, but this seems to be accounted for by the fact that Ancestry hasn’t scanned the women’s cards from the IWM (WO 372/23), or the Indian Army cards (WO 372/25 to WO 372/29).

I can’t find Siegfried Sassoon’s medal card on Ancestry. Given their bad indexing it’s possible that the card is there but can’t be found because the name is completely wrong. But I’ve tried lots of different variants, and Ancestry has a fuzzy search which picks up similar names, and still I can’t find it. Maybe they haven’t scanned it, but it should be with the cards that they have scanned. Fortunately, there’s a way we can check this in more detail. When the cards were microfilmed, they were photographed in batches of six, arranged in two columns and three rows on the same image. When you download a card from DocumentsOnline, you get a whole page showing all six cards. These are the ones which come with Sasson’s, shown in the order that they appear:

Knowing this, I searched for the other five men on Ancestry. Their cards are all there, and their names are all spelt correctly.

Siegfried Sassoon is the only one of the six whose card can’t be found on Ancestry. This tends to suggest that this isn’t down to Ancestry not scanning the card. They clearly have scanned the batch where it should be. It would need to have moved a long way in the filing system to end up among the cards that haven’t been scanned, and it’s hard to see how that could have happened by accident. That leaves two possibilities:

1. Sassoon’s medal card has been scanned by Ancestry but so badly mis-transcribed that it can’t be found
2. The original card was removed some time between TNA’s microfilming and Ancestry’s scanning

Either would be quite embarrassing for all the organizations involved. This post has been a cautionary tale about some of the problems with digitization of historical records. There’s a real danger that archives can use digitization as an excuse to destroy original documents, even when the digital copies aren’t adequate substitutes. When private companies digitize records for profit their cost-cutting can result in poor quality transcription, paradoxically making records harder to find. Keeping public records behind pay walls is also elitist. In Ancestry’s case this is pure economics: if you can afford the subscription you’re in, if you can’t you’re out (although they do offer free trial periods). Early English Books Online takes elitism to a whole new level: they only deal with libraries and won’t even sell you an individual subscription. Meanwhile, if anyone does find Sassoon’s medal card, please let me know.

This week ancestry.co.uk is giving free access to military records, including First World War army service records and medal index cards. The medal cards are full colour double sided scans, so much better than the versions you can buy from the National Archives DocumentsOnline.  Just go to Ancestry, search for the records you want, then when you click to view them you just have to enter your name and e-mail address. I think the offer ends on 14th November.

[Cross-posted at The horse in history and culture]

Over the summer I read two PhD theses which challenge a lot of preconceptions about cavalry in warfare, one on the Anglo-Saxon period and the other on the First World War.

1. Kerry Cathers, “An examination of the horse in Anglo-Saxon England” (PhD, Reading University, 2002).
2. David Kenyon, “British Cavalry on the Western Front 1916-1918” (PhD, Cranfield, 2008). 
   

(Both of these can be downloaded free from EthOS, although you’ll need to log in and search for them as there are no direct links. Kenyon’s can also be downloaded directly from Cranfield, which is much easier.)

Historians used to assume without question that horses played little part in Anglo-Saxon warfare and society. Kerry Cathers has challenged these assumptions, showing that they are based on very little evidence. The lack of evidence makes it difficult to be certain, but there is enough to suggest that horses were widely used and known by the Anglo-Saxons. Horses were conventionally associated with warriors in Anglo-Saxon culture (Cathers, 181, 306). Although their most well known battles were fought on foot, Anglo-Saxon armies used horses for raiding and for transporting soldiers to battlefields (Cathers, 288-9, 383). The Aberlemno stone probably represents a battle between the Northumbrians and the Picts, and shows both sides using cavalry (Cathers, 276-82). Cathers also discusses the development of the stirrup and its influence (or not) on medieval warfare. She sides with critics of Lynn White’s view that the stirrup was the fundamental basis of feudalism. Ann Hyland found that Roman cavalry saddles provided a secure seat even without stirrups, and Littauer argued that the stirrup was developed to support the feet and avoid cramp on long journeys (Cathers, 189-90, 267-9). R.H.C. Davis attributed the couched lance to the great horse more than the stirrup, but still ended up privileging cavalry over non-military uses of horses, and deriving feudalism from a fairly narrow technological development. Cathers shows that Anglo-Saxon horses were no smaller than horses in other parts of Europe but that this fact has tended to be covered up by historians’ linguistic biases: referring to Anglo-Saxon horses as “ponies” signifies the idea of a small animal. She was also an early advocate of the idea that there is no such thing as native breeds, and that the idea was invented much later: “Though, as noted, some horse enthusiasts like to push the date of certain breeds back into the furthest reaches of the past, the claim that breeds existed during this period is entirely false and without substantiation ” (Cathers, 160). The spurious idea that the Exmoor pony is an authentic native breed led some historians to assume that Anglo-Saxon horses were similar. I don’t think a big horse would have been necessary for shock charges with the couched lance, because even the mass of a small horse could put a lot of momentum behind the lance. One particularly weird result of historians’ prejudice against the idea of Anglo-Saxon horses is that one place name study assumed that places including the element “wig” must be named after earwigs, and failed to mention the possibility that they could be derived from “wicgela”, an Old English word for stallion! (Cathers, 67-8)

If cavalry played a role in English/British warfare earlier than most people thought, they also remained important long after most people think they became obsolete. It might appear that the Western Front from 1916 to 1918 is not a very promising area for studying cavalry, but David Kenyon confounds expectations in even more detail than Stephen Badsey has done. The key to the argument is that although new technology created problems for cavalry it also created opportunities. Barbed wire was as much an obstacle to infantry as it was to cavalry. Neither could attack effectively unless the wire was removed by artillery, tanks or engineers. Machine guns and breech loading magazine rifles increased the firepower of cavalry as well as infantry. Between the Second Anglo-Boer War and the First World War, British cavalry were retrained to fight primarily as mounted infantry, although they were still trained and equipped to charge into close combat when the opportunity arose. In the early years of the First World War, every cavalry regiment had a machine gun section armed with Vickers heavy machine guns, which were transported on pack horses. In 1916 these were replaced with Hotchkiss light machine guns, and the Vickers guns were reorganized into Machine Gun Corps (Cavalry) squadrons (Kenyon, 33). This mobile firepower allowed cavalry to engage enemy machine guns in firefights. For example, when the 7th Dragoon Guards came under fire from German machine guns near Longueval on 14th July 1916, their own machine gun section knocked out the German guns (Kenyon, 60).

Although cavalry regiments mostly depended on firepower, changes in technology and tactics made cavalry charges more viable in some circumstances. From the medieval period into the nineteenth century the best way for infantry to resist a cavalry charge was to stand still in a very tight formation, because the horses would usually stop or turn away from an apparently solid object as long as the infantry had the confidence to stand firm. The massive firepower on early twentieth century battlefields made such close formations suicidal. When infantry dispersed to protect themselves from artillery and machine guns, they also made themselves more vulnerable to cavalry charges. On 14 July 1916 some German infantry were dispersed in a field near High Wood, sheltering in shell craters. This was the best way to protect themselves from artillery, which was the most likely threat, but they were charged by a squadron of the 7th Dragoon Guards, which had pushed through a gap in the German front line. Of these German infantry, 16 were killed by lances, 32 captured and the rest ran away (Kenyon, 60).

Rapid firing artillery was a much bigger threat than the machine gun. The worst combat casualties for British cavalry horses happened when their riders had dismounted to defend positions which were then shelled by the Germans, as at Monchy-le-Preux in April 1917 (Kenyon, 136). The increasing quantity and quality of allied artillery forced the Germans to abandon linear trenches and switch to defence in depth by the spring of 1917. In this system the front line consisted of a network of outposts rather than continuous trenches, designed to break up attacks gradually and funnel them into killing zones where they could be counter-attacked by reserves. Because the defences were more dispersed there was more room for cavalry to manoeuvre. Cavalry and infantry were able to employ fire and movement tactics which involved one unit suppressing an enemy position with its fire while another unit moved around its flank. Kenyon points out that these tactics had been in the Cavalry Training manual since 1912 (Kenyon, 109-10). When the allies broke through the Hindenburg Line in the autumn of 1918 and began advancing more rapidly, cavalry played a vital role in maintaining contact with the retreating Germans (Kenyon, 269).

Opportunities to use cavalry effectively in set-piece attacks were often missed because of failures in command, control and communication. While Kenyon rehabilitates the cavalry, he is critical of Cavalry Corps and its commander, Kavanagh. Having the cavalry divisions in their own Corps under GHQ complicated the chain of command, delayed the transmission of orders and intelligence, and made it hard to co-ordinate cavalry attacks with infantry and artillery. Cavalry divisions worked better when they were integrated into infantry corps attack plans but with the divisional commander free to use his own initiative to reach his objectives. There was also a pressing need for more cavalry squadrons to be attached to infantry divisions and corps for reconnaissance. Kavanagh was perhaps not well suited to command of a corps. His aggressive tendencies served him well as a brigade commander, but were directed at his subordinates more than the enemy once he was a lieutenant-general. The chain of command through Cavalry Corps HQ gave him too many opportunities to interfere with plans and overrule his divisional commanders, who were better placed to know what was going on at the front. Cavalry Corps also lacked the logistical infrastructure and heavy artillery which were found in infantry corps.

Despite all the problems, when cavalry were used effectively they were able to double the depth of “bite and hold” operations. Unfortunately, cavalry tended to be wrongly perceived as obsolete by people who didn’t understand them. The prejudiced opinions of a few tank officers have had a disproportionate influence on historians of the First World War. Tanks played a useful role in some battles, but they were much slower than cavalry. Wheeled armoured cars could move faster than tanks on good going but often got stuck in the mud. These problems weren’t effectively solved until the 1930s, when the British Army rapidly mechanized because horses genuinely were becoming obsolete. Erik Lund continues the story over at Bench Grass, with a look at mounted warfare and the development of the armoured division…