How the Germans Underestimated the Tommies (At Least Early On)

 

By George Kerevan

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.

So the Germans entered the First World War with contempt for the decadence of British culture. When the first British troops taken prisoner in 1914 sportingly tried to shake hands with their captors, they were beaten up for their pains. The Germans disdainfully characterized this British national characteristic as “sportsidiotsmus”—meaning they were un-serious and ignorant.

The Prussian military believed the French and Russians were brave and worthy enemies, while the Brits were only in it for the money. Ordinary rank-and-file Germans were taught to believe the British started the war out of jealousy and were paying the French and Russians to encircle the Fatherland.

[The Germans assumed that the disillusioned British deserters they interrogated were typical Tommies:]

One German report on 35 British soldiers captured at Ypres on 12 February 1916 sums up the received Prussian wisdom: “crooked legs, rickety, alcoholic, degenerate, ill-bred, and poor to the last degree.” Another intelligence report referred to the “poor little men of a diseased civilisation.”

[Thus, the Huns were shocked by the tenacity of the British Army—and by the high technology they brought to the war.]

Source: From a 2006 review of Through German Eyes: the British and the Somme 1916, by Christopher Duffy published in The Scotsman