A Recommended Classic — The Swordbearers: Supreme Command in the First World War

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By Correlli Barnett
William Morrow & Co., 1963
Reviewed by Desmond Pound

Originally presented in the New York Times, 21 June 1964

To write the biography of an individual general or the story of a particular campaign is relatively easy. Correlli Barnett, a young military historian from Oxford, has undertaken a much more complex task. He has set out to study, from the mass of material available in three languages, the characters and achievements of four commanders, of three different nationalities, in World War I and to assess the impact of their contrasting personalities upon great events.

His selections are Col. Gen. Helmuth von Moltke, Adm. Sir John Jellicoe, Gen. Philippe Pétain and Gen. Erich Ludendorff. They are admirably chosen. The four sections deal with four of the most intensely dramatic episodes in the whole history of modern war. As sheer narrative they are enthralling. But their interest is heightened because we see, as seldom so clearly before, how much may depend upon the temperament of the commander, his age, his physical fitness, his relations with his political superiors and his knowledge of facts often concealed from his enemies—and from his critics.

Take General von Moltke. Nephew of the great field marshal, outwardly the sealed pattern of the staff‐trained German general, he was inwardly skeptical, unambitious, and curiously unsoldierly. To him was entrusted the execution of the great Schlieffen Plan for the invasion of France. It was expected to secure victory within six weeks.

He knew every detail of it. Yet when the Kaiser chose him, in 1905, to succeed Count Schlieffen as Chief of the General Staff, he confided to Prince Bülow: “I lack the power of rapid decision. I am too reflective, too scrupulous and, if you like, too conscientious for such a post.” He was then 57. When the hour struck he was 66, a portly man in poor health, doubtful of success and distrustful of the unstable Kaiser. Is it any wonder that he cracked up, within 30 miles of victory?

A More Vigorous Moltke (L) Riding with the Kaiser

Admiral Jellicoe also resisted his appointment as C‐in-C of the Grand Fleet in 1914—not from any lack of self‐confidence but from a gentlemanly reluctance to deprive his friend and chief, Adm. Sir George Callaghan, of the honor. He was rightly overruled. A dedicated professional, he had been handpicked years before by Sir John Fisher for the supreme command. At 55, he was physically and mentally at his best: no one in the Royal Navy doubted his competence, his coolness or his courage.

Did his initial hesitation denote a lack of the ruthlessness which is essential in a commander? After the Battle of Jutland he was bitterly criticized, not least by Winston Churchill, for undue caution. To this, it was said, was due the escape of the German High Seas Fleet. The swashbuckling Adm. Sir David Beatty became the popular hero and his successor.

WHAT are the facts? Certainly Jellicoe “played it safe.” But he had no option. In a masterly analysis, Mr. Barnett shows what has never been brought out before, that Jellicoe knew, better than any man living, that the inferiority of the British ships in design, construction, armor, guns, shells and, consequently, gunnery, precluded him from gambling with the safety of the country. (When Beatty took over, he became even more cautious.) In perhaps the most impressive chapter in an impressive book, the author traces back the shortcomings of the Royal Navy, technical, organizational and personal, to their sources—the conservatism of the Admirals and the inefficiency of the armament firms.

Like Jellicoe, Pétain was a realist. He had even more to be realistic about. When he assumed command at Verdun, the situation was bad enough, “the battle apparently already lost, the defense system submerged beneath the German offensive, the French troops seemingly in a state of helpless rout and disintegration.” By calmness, patience and skill, he restored that situation.

Things were much worse when he became commander‐in-chief after the disastrous failure of General Nivelle's offensive. The French Army was now not only routed but mutinous. France was on the brink of collapse. Without any softness or indulgence but with a profound sympathy for the fighting soldier, without any fine speeches about la gloire or la patrie but with an obvious determination to see that the poilu was properly treated in the matters of rest, food, shelter and leave, Pétain rebuilt the shattered divisions and regained their confidence. Overruling the hotheaded warriors in the back areas, he insisted on waiting for the Americans before launching any but limited, local offensives.

Inevitably he ran up against Clemenceau and Foch, as Jellicoe ran up against Churchill. He was, in fact, temperamentally a pessimist. (With the troops, he had suffered too long under optimists.) Had his experiences made him also a defeatist? Almost certainly in old age, when he was trying to cope with the consequences of a third and yet more crushing defeat. Abroad, no words were then too bad for him. But is it surprising that there were many Frenchmen who remembered that he had twice saved France single-handed and continued to regard him with respect?

Jellicoe

Lastly, Ludendorff. A supreme tactician of immense energy and seemingly iron resolution, he came near, with his “infiltration” methods, to winning the war for Germany in the spring of 1918. But he was a paper tiger. Because soldiers were to him statistics and not individuals, he did not realize that his creation of “shock” divisions had sapped the morale of the mass of German troops and left them without the will to fight When his mistake was brought home to him, he collapsed, a querulous, nervous wreck. The least likable of the four, he is psychologically not the least interesting.

Mr. Barnett made his name with his first book, The Desert Generals. So well did he capture the spirit of desert war that old “desert rats” found it hard to believe that he was still at school when El Alamein was fought. His second, finely printed and illustrated, with excellent maps, places him in the top class, with writers like Maj. Gen. J. F. C. Fuller and Capt B. H. Liddell Hart. Both of them rate him as one of the outstanding military historians of the rising generation. So does the present reviewer.

Desmond Pound