Preview or how to kill 17 Shermans with one Panther

[Magpie_Oz]

Monash was a very good general, he commanded a corps of very fine fighting men. That is as far as his claim to fame can be based on the facts and, God knows, that ought to be enough.

You forgot the bit where he planned the Battle of Amiens which yielded the "Blackest Day for the Germany Army"

[Other Means]

What are you talking about? Are you suggesting that the battle of Amiens did not break the German line? and his later assault on the Hindenberg line didn't work?

I'm saying those things are immaterial. At the end of the day it's about number of men killed. Did the Germans lose more men because the line at Amiens broke, or did the Allies lose more because they attacked?

Breaking a line isn't enough. It's the advance and encirclement that matters.

None arose.

[Magpie_Oz]

I'm saying those things are immaterial. At the end of the day it's about number of men killed. Did the Germans lose more men because the line at Amiens broke, or did the Allies lose more because they attacked?

Breaking a line isn't enough. It's the advance and encirclement that matters.

None arose.

Still don't get what you are meaning and I really think you need to do a bit of research before saying such things.

Victory is not a simple matter of men killed but if you insist, at Amiens The Germans lost 74000 the Allies 22,200.

A series of battles then followed that took the Allies beyond the Hindenburg Line and to victory. In all the total advance was about 40 miles or so, well within walking, muling, driving, training, flying and tanking distance by the way.

[Other Means]

Originally Posted by Magpie_Oz

Perhaps but it is not my suggestion merely highlighting what others had reported at the time. Not sure if I agree with it per se.

You didn’t state your disagreement at the time, which is why I've assumed it’s your position.

Still don't get what you are meaning and I really think you need to do a bit of research before saying such things.

Victory is not a simple matter of men killed but if you insist, at Amiens The Germans lost 74000 the Allies 22,200.

A series of battles then followed that took the Allies beyond the Hindenburg Line and to victory. In all the total advance was about 40 miles or so, well within walking, muling, driving, training, flying and tanking distance by the way.

You're trumpeting an advance of 40 miles as somehow significant – it isn’t. What was significant was the fact that the German’s had been bled dry and starved for the previous four years.

My final word: WWI was won by the combined pressure of the Entente powers not by any tactical victory. Whatever tactics Monash did or didn’t create made little to no difference.

[Magpie_Oz]

My final word: WWI was won by the combined pressure of the Entente powers not by any tactical victory. Whatever tactics Monash did or didn’t create made little to no difference.

Glad it is your final word and a total crock it is.

At least Blackcat can make a rational argument

[dieseltaylor]

BTW Magpie, welcome to the forums.

Don't take it personally. There have been a lot bigger/meaner threads than this. I have learned a little on Monash so it has not been wasted, and you have met some of the regulars. : )

Now that story of the M12 killing a Panther/Tiger in the Ardennes ...

[Magpie_Oz]

BTW Magpie, welcome to the forums.

Don't take it personally. There have been a lot bigger/meaner threads than this. I have learned a little on Monash so it has not been wasted, and you have met some of the regulars. : )

Now that story of the M12 killing a Panther/Tiger in the Ardennes ...

Thanks for that Diesel, certainly not taking anything personally mate.

[Other Means]

Glad it is your final word and a total crock it is.

At least Blackcat can make a rational argument

Yes, watch and learn.

I only said last word on that, not ad-homs.

[Blackcat]

http://www.ww1westernfront.gov.au/battlefields/hamel-1918.html

3 Sqn AFC used RE8's to drop ammunition to the troops, I have no idea what the tonnage was, probably not very much given the aircraft capability of the time. They were mainly used at Hamel where a number of innovations were tried which included dropping rifle ammo to the forward troops

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amiens_(1918)

this bit :

"There were also to be 580 tanks. The Canadian and Australian Corps were each allocated a brigade of four battalions, with 108 Mark V fighting tanks, 36 Mark V "Star" tanks capable of carrying a squad of infantry armed with a Lewis gun and 24 unarmed tanks intended to carry supplies and ammunition forward."

Keep studying, old son.

The air drop was idea was developed by Capt Wackett of No 3 Squadron AFC, as a result of an initiative from General Rawlinson, GOC 4th Army. It was implemented by No3 Squadron AFC and No9 Squadron RAF. They dropped a few ammo boxes to machine gun positions from modified bomb racks. Neat, but hardly a war winning stroke and nothing at all to do with your man.

The load and personnel carrying tanks, of which there is one preserved in the Bovington Tank Museum (a MKII converted for the role), also long predate Monash on the Western front. There is a memo in the National Archives dated 18 May 1917 which summarises a meeting held on 1st may that year, which was Chaired by Lord Derby at which a way was sought to ease and expand the production of tanks "whether for fighting, signalling, gun-carrying, supply or other purposes". As an aside that is a fascinating document as it gives a unique insight into the industrial as well as strategic and technical problems in the early days of armoured warfare - well worth a read, catalogue reference CAB/24/14.

[Magpie_Oz]

You seem to be fixated on who invented these things, the point is that Monash was able to use them effectively.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/in-the-trenches-with-monash/story-e6frf8lf-1111113001272

http://www.theage.com.au/news/in-depth/monash-master-of-illusion/2006/07/27/1153816322191.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

http://landmarksofliberty.blogspot.com/2009/08/battle-of-amiens-august-8-11-1918.html

[Blackcat]

"You seem to be fixated on who invented these things, the point is that Monash was able to use them effectively."

Not really, you were the one that suggested Monash developed the tactics that led to the break through and won the war. My contention has always been that he didn't develop anything new, that he was a very good corps commander and a fine general. He did not however win the war.

Just take the battle Amiens you quoted in one of your links above. You will have noticed that there were three corps involved under an army commander (Rawlinson)who was under Haig. Yet you seem to be able to dismiss any involvement by the other generals (and HQ staffs involved) to claim Monash won the battle. Sorry that just don't hold up to scrutiny. Butler (British III Corps) and Currie (the Canadians Corps) were also good generals whose troops played their full part, and the Frogs were in there as well.

[Magpie_Oz]

Is this a "Colonial" thing?

[dieseltaylor]

Oz - Given the puff in the Australian newspapers I am not surprised you thought as you did. However it does seem to me over-inflated possibly by an author eager to sell his personal hero, and his book , to an Australian public.

I have absolutely no doubt he was a very good general indeed. However the way one of the newspaper articles was written it did imply he was able to walk on water and save the Allies. ANd to rub it in they appear not to know the differnce between rout and route. Doh!

As for it being a colonial thing. Not at all ; we all bolshy to everyone : )

If I can find the book I might very well want to read it and see if the claims are reporters over-egging or the author. And I am partial to the empire having been schooled in Canada, Australia and spent three months in NZ.

[Magpie_Oz]

OK so it IS a colonial thing then

[Other Means]

OK so it IS a colonial thing then

Good to see Sasha Baron Cohen has moved on.

No mate, it's not a "colonial thing", it's just a calling bollocks thing.

[Magpie_Oz]

Yup definitely a colonial thing

[dieseltaylor]

EIGHTY EIGHT YEARS ago in 1918, on the eighth day of the eighth month, General Sir John Monash masterminded a victory in France that ended Germany's hope of winning World War I. Monash commanded the Australian Army, sending 102,000 diggers out on a brilliantly planned attack at Amiens, 120 kilometres north of Paris, that delivered a knock-out blow from which the enemy never recovered. Until that day, the only other breakthrough victory in four years on the Western Front had been by the Germans on March 21, 1918, when they attacked with three armies and defeated the British Third and Fifth armies. In the following months, the British and French high commands did frenetic impressions of little Dutch boys putting their fingers in the dike to stop a flood, when something stronger was needed.

Monash was made commander of Australia's army in mid-May and immediately began planning a massive counter-attack led by his diggers as the "shock troops". In a trial run for his grander plan, Monash anted to capture the village of Hamel near the Somme. He proposed that the battle be dominated by tanks, used at night for the first time.

The night before the operation, the commander of American forces, General John J. Pershing, got cold feet and wanted to withdraw the 1000 infantry he had allowed Monash to have for the battle alongside 7000 diggers. General Rawlinson, the commander of the British Fourth Army, and Monash's superior, ordered all the Americans out of the conflict. "There will be an international incident if you do not withdraw them," Rawlinson warned.

Monash resisted, saying the combatants were at their battle stations.

"You cannot disobey an order (from British Field Marshal Haig on behalf of Pershing)," Rawlinson said.

"But you can," Monash replied. "It is up to you to disobey in the light of what you know."

"Do you want to run the risk of me being sent back to England?" Rawlinson asked, rattled. "Do you mean (defying the order) is worth that?"

"Yes, I do," Monash said. "It is more important to keep the confidence of the Americans and the Australians in each other than to preserve an army commander."

The defiant bluff worked. The Australians and Americans had a victory in a record 93 minutes, taking Hamel and 1500 German prisoners. This was remarkable enough, but what made the Allied military leaders take notice was that there were so few casualties. Monash had created a unique method of winning without a huge waste of manpower. He planned with the protection of his charges always in mind. A sidebar to this initial success was Monash creating an alliance with the US, and becoming the first non-American commander to control Americans troops. (Later in the war he had another 50,000 US soldiers under him).

The astonishing success of Hamel saw Monash's stocks rise. He was already a favourite of King George V, the current Queen's grandfather, who had been impressed by the Australian-born Monash, an "outsider" with a German Jewish background. They first met on Salisbury Plain on September 27, 1916, when the King reviewed the Australian Third Division. The two men sat on horseback for 21/2 hours as the new wave of 27,000 volunteers marched past. George V was desperate to find commanders who could hold back the invading Germany army, which looked likely to win the war. The Bulgarians, sniffing the winds of battle to see which way the conflict was going, had decided to support the King's cousin, the Kaiser, and his artillery-based force pushing west.

In one telling moment, the King remarked, "If we win the war . . ."

Monash broke protocol and interrupted him, saying: "If we win!"

Instinct told the king that he may have had a winner in Monash.

George V passed on to Haig his supportive thoughts about the urbane, multilingual engineer and lawyer from the far-flung dominion of Australia.

Even as the victorious troops were returning with the tanks from Hamel, Monash was working on his grand plan that would precipitate the end of the war.

His attention to detail was obsessive, yet part of his genius. He was also more than an amateur illusionist who as a teenager was a hit at parties with magic tricks. He used a few more deadly tricks at Amiens, including every day for a week firing coloured smoke at the Germans, who were forced to don masks just in case the in-coming smoke bombs were gas. The cumbersome masks limited the enemy soldiers' fighting capacity. Another ruse was to have planes fly over enemy positions so the noise of the squealing tanks, inching forward like giant armadillos, would not be heard. Later, when there was a shortage of tanks, Monash ordered 80 dummy tanks built by his engineers to fool the enemy into believing the Australians had a greater force.

In the best co-ordinated attack in military history, the diggers went into action on August 8, supported on their flanks by the British, Canadians and French, and defeated 200,000 soldiers in eight German divisions - equivalent to an army.

An excited Haig wrote to his wife at 10.30am. "Our attack started at 4.20 this morning and seems to have taken the enemy completely by surprise . . . I hear. Two of our armoured motor cars being sent on to round up German Corps headquarters! Who would have believed this possible even two months ago? How much easier it is to attack, than to stand and wait an enemy's attack!"

Haig, after four years, was not quite ready to ascribe the astonishing breakthrough to Monash and the diggers. It had not sunk in. The accomplishment at Amiens was attributed to an even higher power. "As you well know," the field marshal wrote to Lady Haig, "I feel that I am only the instrument of that Divine Power who watches over each one of us, so the honour must be His."

How better to explain the sudden turnaround after four years of more failure than success, and no significant victory to compare with the Germans on March 21? Monash, who was an atheist, may not have been in accord with his British commander.

The next day, August 9, the diggers, with the Canadians, defeated another eight divisions. The Germans were forced to call on their finest fighting forces to prevent a complete route. By August 11 Monash was astride the battle terrain in more ways than one. Haig, Foch, French president Georges Clemenceau, British minister of munitions Winston Churchill, and other key prosecutors of the war from the allied side, descended on the village of Villers Bretonneux and Monash's headquarters, Chateau Bertangles. They all wished to pump the hand of the battle commander who had turned the conflict dramatically in the Allies' favour.

Haig, caught up in the emotion of the moment, addressed Monash and his five division generals - Hobbs, Sinclair-MacLagan, Rosenthal, Gellibrand and Glasgow.

"You do not know what the Australians and Canadians have done for the British Empire in these days," he began, but faltered and broke down. The toughest, most ruthless commander of both sides was beginning to realise the breakthrough's impact. Not only was the Empire secure, Haig's own reputation would be saved. The "Butcher of the Somme" epithet would stick, but so would that of "winner" and "successful defender of the Empire". Haig would not spend his final years shunned and his name would not be shrouded in infamy.

On the August 12, George V rushed up from Paris to knight Monash on the battlefield, the first time it had been done in 200 years. They were bonded by both needing to make a point about their allegiances - the king to his Empire, and Monash to Australia - in fighting against the homeland of their relatives.

Two days after the ceremony at Bertangles, German diplomats were eager to negotiate a peace settlement. The commander of all German forces, The Prussian-born General Ludendorff, in his memoirs, wrote that "August 8 was the blackest day of the German army in the history of the war. This was the worst experience I had to go through."

He added: "We cannot win this war anymore, but we must not lose it."

Ludendorff noted that if the Australians and Canadians had continued to attack "with even comparative vigour" the Germans would not be able to resist. This was in accord with Monash's desire to push on. Yet he refused again to tread water as ordered. The Germans had fallen back to take up fortified positions on the Somme, and Monash was driven to knock them off the river before the winter of 1918-19 set in. He and his troops were facing exhaustion. They did not wish such an extension of hostilities through 1919 and beyond. For this reason, Monash, in effect, became a rogue warlord, defying the wishes of the British High Command, as he planned and succeeded in early September with a purely Australian force, to defeat the Germans on the Somme at Mont St Quentin and the fortress city of Peronne. This forced the enemy to run back to the last huge German fortification (80 kilometres long and eight kilometres wide) in France, the Hindenburg Line.

Monash and his diggers were a key part of the Allied force in late September and early October that smashed through the Line.

It is the realistic Germans who acknowledge what happened on August 8, and learnt from it.

In 1937, Major General Heinz Guderian, who fought at Amiens and faced the attacking diggers and tanks coming through the summer mist, became entrusted with the build-up and command of the tank-dominated German armoured divisions. He was a crucial leader in the next war (1939-1945) of German armoured forces, the blitzkrieg, both in Poland and in France, in 1940.

In short, the sad irony of what Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Hitler, Guderian, Rommel and others learnt from Monash's August 8, 1918 blueprint for battle victory and German defeat in World War I, caused the Germans to dominate land battles for the first half of World War II.

Other challenges will be faced by Australians in the 21st century and the depth of ingenuity demonstrated by John Monash and the "lost generation" of diggers will be needed again. Comprehension and acknowledgement of the achievement at Amiens 88 years ago, the greatest in Australia's short yet rich non-Aboriginal history, will be an inspiration.

Roland Perry's biography Monash: The Outsider Who Won a War is published by Random House. He is giving a talk on the book at the Shrine of Remembrance on October 2 at 11am.

As I have a few days to before release lets see how much of this paen stands up. I actually admire the guy but there are phrases that really seem OTT. I note that it is a Random House book and Random House are very very pushy with getting their wares out. However we will set that aside.

So the author:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Perry

a prolific writer but no evidence of any military background. And though a biographer it is of cricketers. In all over 20 books so assuming he started at 20 roughly a book every two years. And not all of them acclaimed even by Australians : )

Cricket books

Perry turned to his love of cricket for his book, The Don, a biography of Sir Donald Bradman published in 1995 again by Macmillan in Australia and William Armstrong at Sedgwick & Jackson in the UK. Perry consulted with Bradman for six years and four books resulted: The Don; Bradman’s Best (Random House, 2001); Bradman’s Best Ashes Teams (Random House, 2002); and Bradman’s Invincibles (Hachette, 2008). According to Perry, he and Bradman discussed the latter's thoughts on a compilation of a best-ever dream team. The book, Bradman’s Best (Random House) was published in Australia and the UK in 2001.[citation needed] The UK Observer’s Norman Harris noted in his column that the book ‘containing the 11 precious names will be guarded like gold bars.’ [22]

Warwick Franks reviewed Bradman's Best and said, referring also Perry's overall work on Bradman, "Perry's reverential approach turns the process into Moses bringing down the tablets from Mount Sinai. To Perry, Bradman is without spot or stain so that much of his writing, as in the earlier biography, takes on the air of hagiography".[23] Franks criticised Perry for depicting Bradman as an all-powerful influence and prescient when it came to strategic successes as a administrator and leader, but when a dubious selection such as the omission of a leading player who had angered Bradman occurred, Perry blamed Bradman's administrative colleagues. Franks also criticised the large number of factual errors in the book, such as in the profile of Don Tallon.[23]

Gideon Haigh has been criticised Perry's biography in The Australian, saying that he was guilty of "glossing over or ignoring anything to Bradman's discredit".[24] The 2002 Wisden Cricketers Almanack called it an "over-hyped stew of leftovers cooked up by the Don's faithful amanuensis" and called it a "perfect example" of "Sir Donald Brandname", the commercial exploitation of Bradman's legacy.[25]

The 2002–03 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia said that the Bradman's Best series was an example of an "outpouring of exploitation, disguised as mourning" in the wake of Bradman's death in early 2001.[26] Aside from agreeing with other cricket analysts' views of Perry's attention to accuracy by calling the book "shoddily written, mistake ridden",[26] Wisden Australia went on to question whether the selection was authentically Bradman's or whether Perry had fabricated or guessed Bradman's thoughts and passed them off in order to produce material that would make the most of the upsurge in interest in Bradman following his death.[26]

The reviewer, Jamie Grant said that Perry's claim of authenticity was "less than plausible" and lamented that "Bradman, unfortunately, is not here to account for the choices Perry has attributed to him".[26] Grant argued that as Bradman usually had only four specialist bowlers in the teams that he led or selected in real life, including those in which he batted, it was hard to believe that he had actually chosen five specialist bowlers and entrusted Don Tallon to bat as high as No. 6.[26] Tallon often batted at No. 8 in teams captained by Bradman.

Lynn McConnell of Cricinfo criticised the book for being repetitive, self-overlapping and being "formulaic".[27]

McConnell reviewed Bradman’s Best Ashes Teams the following year, and pointed to a number of factual errors. He said that the book revealed little new material as many of those Bradman picked were already in the world team and as such their mini-biographies repeated the same material and that the format made "for tedious presentation".[28] In giving the example of a passage on Jack Hobbs, McConnell further criticised Perry's habit of apparently imagining the mindset of long-dead cricketers with whom he had no personal contact and presenting this as fact—no source was given for such information. McConnell decried Perry's incessant use of superlatives, including "all-time best-ever", which he dubbed "the triple tautology of the year". McConnell also criticised Perry for not using interviews to generate original insights into the living members of Bradman's selections.[28]

In 1997 Perry wrote a biography of Shane Warne: Bold Warnie, after his story on the leg-spin bowler’s dominance of the 1993 Ashes. Bold Warnie was published by Random House in 1998. Perry followed this with Waugh’s Way: Steve Waugh—learner, leader, legend (Random House 2000); and Captain Australia, A History of the Celebrated Captains of Australian Test Cricket (Random House, 2000).[29]

The 1999 Wisden Cricketers' Almanack Australia said that Bold Warnie "does its subject less than justice. The title is this book's best point; it is a pun of Ian Healy's repeated cry "Bowled Warnie!".[30] Wisden Australia criticised Perry's general technique of writing books by summarising the scorecard and statistics of the matches that the subject played into, saying, "no real sense of Warne as either a cricketer or human being is conveyed".[30]

Captain Australia covered every Australian skipper (except for Ricky Ponting) since Test cricket began. Each chapter carried a mini-biography of the 41 leaders. Robin Marlar, wrote in The Cricketer International: "Perry is a prolific, stylish writer...What lifted this book for me was the 24 page prologue on a fascinating character, Charles Lawrence, the immigrant from England who took on the embryonic Australian establishment and brought the first, if not quite the only team of Aboriginals to England in 1868."[31]

Gideon Haigh was critical of Perry's book Captain Australia—a book on Australia's Test cricket captains—claiming that Perry had "... a disquieting tendency to, quite casually, mangle information for no particular reason" and "... there are assertions whose origins are, at least, somewhat elusive."[32] Referring to Perry's biography of Bradman, he said "the book-shaped object of Roland Perry, had "access" [interviews with Bradman], and used it to mainly unenlightening, and sometimes tedious, effect".[33]

In 2005, following the death of Keith Miller, Perry wrote Miller’s Luck, The Life and Loves of Keith Miller, Australia’s greatest all-rounder.[34]

The book was heavily criticised by leading cricket historians. The historian David Frith said of Miller's Luck, "Perry's work here is anything but confidence-inspiring. He is an opportunist author, Don Bradman, Shane Warne and Steve Waugh being among his previous subjects, together with a book on Australia's captains [Captain Australia] which gave the world nothing that the painstaking Ray Robinson had not already dealt with [in On Top Down Under], apart from the update".[35]

Frith said "the book is strewn with errors that undermine confidence in the work as a whole".[35] He pointed out that Keith Johnson the cricket administrator was not the father of Australian cricket captain Ian Johnson, that Army cricketer JWA Stephenson was not the colonel who became the Marylebone Cricket Club secretary. Frith also noted that an error when Perry wrote that Cyril Washbrook took a run after being hit on the head it was not a bye, under the laws of cricket it would be a leg bye. He also noted that George Tribe was not a leg spinner. Tribe was a left-hander and leg spinners are right-handed. Frith also noted that Wally Hammond was not dropped for the final Test of 1946–47, but that he was out of action because he had fibrositis.[35]

Of the same book, Ramachandra Guha said that Perry had done little except reword Miller's autobiography Cricket Crossfire. He said that "conversations are invented, thoughts imputed, motives intuited – without any directions as to their source or provenance".[36] Guha also criticised Perry for mistakenly claiming that Lahore is in North West Frontier Province—it is in Punjab—and for referring to Indian batsman Vijay Merchant as "Vijay Singh".[36] He also criticised Perry for claiming that Miller and his Australian Services cricket team saw Merchant as a cheat when Miller himself called Merchant "one of the finest sportsmen India has produced".[36]

Martin Williamson, the executive editor of Cricinfo, labelled the Miller biography as one of the two worst cricket books of the year, describing it a one of two "which polluted 2006".[27] He said that its "lack of attention to details made its unsavoury dredging of Miller's private life even less palatable" and described the book as those with the "sole aim of getting you to part with your money on the basis of a glossy cover and a famous name".[27]

Perry turned again to sport and cricket for his 20th book, The Ashes: A Celebration. It was mainly an anthology of the author’s essays on the game.

In 2008, Perry wrote Bradman's Invincibles to coincide with the 60th anniversary. Writing for Wisden, Haigh dubbed it "a prolix and repetitive account of Australia’s 1948 Ashes tour, as flat as it is thick. This is a Timeless Test of a book: a long slog for no result."[37] He went on to add that had Bradman decided to retire before the tour, as he had been contemplating, "at least mankind would then have been spared a book like Bradman’s Invincibles". Haigh gave the book zero stars.[37]

Perry stayed in the sports genre for his next biography Sailing to the Moon, which told the story of West Australian Rolly Tasker, the world champion yachtsman and international businessman.[38]

[edit] Reviews

Noel Annan, Baron Annan, in reviewing The Fifth Man, Perry's book accusing Victor Rothschild of being the fifth spy working for the Soviet Union of the Cambridge Five, cast doubt on whether Perry had actually interviewed Rothschild's relatives or whether he had made up material in his book.

OK so there are some doubts expressed about him. Perhaps the next thing is to look at the claims. I will go and lie down after this exhaustive research done so far.

[Other Means]

Yup definitely a colonial thing

The unfortunate truth is that all the little setbacks, the times you've been shown to be wrong and the arguments that have gone over your head aren't the result of prejudice or bias against a group you happen to belong to - they're all yours and are earned by your own reasoning and behaviour.

I think you'll enjoy the boards if you stick around but holding your breath because people disagree with you isn't going to help your cause.

On that note, I'm not going to continue arguing with you because I think it's inciting you into Trolldom, which would end badly for you. Maybe give yourself a break from the forum for a week or so - I don't want to be your enemy.

[Magpie_Oz]

WOW, Massive work there Diesel, much more interesting than "bollocks"

I might point out tho' that my posts have not really relied that much on the Roland Perry work, I have looked more at the wikipedia article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Amiens_(1918)

which references a number of works, some of which I have read.

[dieseltaylor]

Zombie Myths of Australian Military History

Craig Stockings (Editor)

Published 2010

Page 5 of the introduction mentions Monash - but I cannot see much more of the book on Amazon.

Should be an interesting read, though quite likely unpopular amongst fellow Australians. DOn' get me wromg I think Monash was a very good General and I would be more than happy if I find out he was a great General. But I am a great believer in truth and I have a grave dislike of lying authors.

Perhaps a topic on re-writing history ......

Edit - sorry our posts crossed. I will look at Wiki also.

[dieseltaylor]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_John_Monash

Seems very balanced. And if Montgomery thought he was the best then that is good enough for me. Monash probably was so effective because he was a success outside of the Army and of an age where he was confident in his abilities.

It would be interesting to see how much of the latest biography is owed to its two predecessors : ).

[Magpie_Oz]

Yes I see the Zombies book.

Seems to concentrate on a few different items in Aussie Military History, about the only one of great import to this discussion is a proposal that the Australians breaching the Hindenberg Line did not end the war. I don't think the actions of Monash are questioned, just the effects there of.

[Magpie_Oz]

The unfortunate truth is that all the little setbacks, the times you've been shown to be wrong and the arguments that have gone over your head aren't the result of prejudice or bias against a group you happen to belong to - they're all yours and are earned by your own reasoning and behaviour.

I think you'll enjoy the boards if you stick around but holding your breath because people disagree with you isn't going to help your cause.

On that note, I'm not going to continue arguing with you because I think it's inciting you into Trolldom, which would end badly for you. Maybe give yourself a break from the forum for a week or so - I don't want to be your enemy.

hmmm condescension, definitely a colonial thing

[Blackcat]

Magpie,

Definitely not a colonial thing from me. You might have seen that on another thread I drew thing fine fighting qualities of the Aussies to a poster who seemed to have overlooked them.

My objections to your claims are based on years of study of the British Army and its battles in WWI. So its more of a knowledge what the army did and how worked, rather than a reading of a couple of internet articles, thing.

I think we have really done this subject to death now. I'll be happy to debate and discuss other subjects with you, and no doubt we will as CMBN rolls out. We will even agree on somethings as we have in the past. But this one is dead, for me.

All the best

[Fetchez la Vache]

I did not overlook the fine fighting qualities of the Aussies I'll have you know. They just didn't get top two billing and then I got flustered and realised I'd stepped in a big pile of nationalistic doggy-doo without meaning to and started spouting other countries randomly as a way of popping smoke and retreating back through the thread. :-)

And the Aussies are hard. I know, I grew up there. \o/