First World War Commemoration

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 7th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

My hon. Friend will be delighted to hear that I did know that, not least because the great-nephew of Lieutenant Dease is a constituent of mine, and he has lost no opportunity to impress upon me the importance of his great uncle. My hon. Friend will also be delighted to hear that on 4 August, the first day of the commemoration, there will be an event at St Symphorien, where Lieutenant Dease is interred. His part in the conflict will certainly be commemorated appropriately, and I am delighted that my hon. Friend has brought him to the attention of the House.

I would like to tell the House what the Government are planning to do over the next four and a half years. First and foremost, and most obviously, there will be national events to capture the moment and set the tone. They will have an identifiably Commonwealth look and feel, reflecting the historical reality. We have been working with our international partners and with the devolved Administrations to that end. A centrepiece of the commemorations will be the reopening of the Imperial War museum in London next year, following the £35 million refurbishment of its first world war galleries. There will be an enduring educational legacy, funded by £5.3 million from the Department for Education and the Department for Communities and Local Government, to enable a programme based on, but not confined to, visits to the battlefields.

The Heritage Lottery Fund will provide at least £15 million, including a £6 million community project fund, to enable young people working in their communities to conserve, explore and share local heritage from the first world war, epitomised by yellowing photos of young men posing stiffly in uniform, possibly for the first and last time. Much of the public interest in the period is personal and parochial, and this will provide a non-threatening entry point to the wider story. There will also be at least £10 million in the programme of cultural events taking place as part of the centenary commemorations over the four-year period.

Work with organisations and across government will continue to generate initiatives that will find and engage people under the umbrella of the centenary partnership. I shall name-check just a few. They include: the centenary poppy partnership between the Royal British Legion and B&Q; the commemoration of great war Victoria Cross recipients at their place of birth; football matches to mark the Christmas truce; mass participation in volunteering in the Remember 100 project; street naming for the centenary to inculcate memory in the heart of our towns and cities; a British adaptation of the excellent Europeana digital archiving initiative, capturing previous memories and artefacts that would otherwise turn to dust; and the National Apprenticeship Service centenary challenge. All this has the common theme of bringing history to life for everyone in all communities, even those that might feel, right now, that this has nothing to do with them.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I am sorry that we do not have more time to debate this important subject this afternoon. Does the Minister recognise the important role that hotels played in the first world war? Many were converted into hospitals, including the Mont Dore hotel, which is now the town hall in Bournemouth. The great estates were also used in that way, including Highclere, which is now better known as Downton Abbey. It will be taking part in the commemorations next year when it will be converted into a first world war hospital for one week, thanks to the work of Lady Carnarvon.

[Dr Murrison]

The project that my hon. Friend describes is exactly the sort of thing that will engage people locally. We have to understand that different people will approach the events in different ways. Our overarching aim is to improve understanding of the causes, conduct and consequences of the war, but we really need to do that in ways that people will find approachable and non-threatening. The initiative that he has described will be interesting and inspiring for many, and I certainly look forward to visiting it.

I am afraid that some of our more shouty newspapers are salivating at the prospect of the Government attempting a grotesque impersonation of Basil Fawlty, in which we do not mention the war for fear of upsetting Germany. Disappointingly for those newspapers, the history is untweaked by the Government and will remain so. We are indebted to Sunder Katwala of British Future for commissioning YouGov to inform us of public attitudes to the centenary. The survey found that 77% of the public see it as an opportunity for reconciliation with former enemies. We know from comments made by Harry Patch—the “last Tommy”—in the final years of his life that he would agree with that wholeheartedly. The history stands, but the Government will of course seek reconciliation not only with the former central powers but with partners in Europe and the former empire, wherever we share a complex and nuanced history.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I hope that this will be the first of a number of occasions on which we are able to debate the causes, conduct and consequences of the first world war. The causes are many and include: the Austro-Hungarian empire’s desire to control the Balkans; the German desire to continue Bismarck’s work on expansionism; the French desire to gain revenge for Germany’s victory in battle in 1871; and Russia’s anxiety after its defeat in Japan and its civil war problems. Compounding that were the interrelations between the royal families across Europe and the agreements and ententes cordiales that existed.

As an officer I am keen to understand the details and the importance of the conduct of the war to learn lessons for the future. We have not asked why the war lasted so long. Britain was certainly not prepared for the war; the Crimea was the last main one, and then there were colonial adventures, if we can call them that. The Russo-Japanese conflict was a bad influence on us; the impact of firepower was then understood but the wrong examples were taken from the use of the bayonet, which I am afraid influenced our senior commanders.

It was those senior commanders who were not ready to be engaged in modern warfare. They were looking through the prism of the 19th century. War was seen as noble, structured and decisive; decision-making was very much controlled from the top in an hierarchical, autocratic structure, mostly, dare I say, by cavalry officers, which I am glad to say is no longer the case. It is no wonder that this Army—trained as much for the sports field as the battlefield, bred from narrow regimental and Army loyalties and led by a higher command that was a stickler for tradition and suppressive of criticism— took far too long to defeat the enemy.

The British commanders expected to win through their offensive spirit, the mobility of attack and using phrases such as “at all costs” and “regardless of loss”. Indeed General Smith-Dorrien, Commander of II Corps, was relieved of his command for daring to ask permission to retreat. We are now very familiar with the locations of these battles; Mons, Ypres, Passchendaele, Loos and so forth. The fundamental problem across all of them was that the antiquated command structure actually prevented battalion and brigade commanders from exploiting wins—unwilling to leverage any success until new orders arrived.

Those artillery barrages that we learned so much about and have seen in footage did not cut down the barbed wire or destroy the enemy trenches to give the foot soldiers an advantage when charging across no man’s land. As has been said, the most vivid example of that is the battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916, when 57,000 casualties were suffered in a single day; the biggest number ever in the British Army. Not until new tactics emerged—with battalion and brigade commanders given freedom in decision-making and combined warfare developed, with greater use of the tank and the aeroplane— was that stalemate broken in the battles of Hamel and Amiens.

We are still in fingertip touch with that war through the memories of our parents, grandparents and other relatives. My grandfather was a survivor of the battle of the Somme, from the Manchester regiment. He was blinded in one eye and throughout his life bits of shrapnel came to the surface and had to be removed.

The consequences of that war are still evident today. Britain as a nation was broke, and its place in the world changed as the map of Europe was redrawn to create something close to what we know today. Socially, every town, city and village had to come to terms with a loss of life on a scale that is hard to comprehend today. The war was entered into with enthusiasm but bitterly questioned in retrospect as Britain was robbed of a generation of men and had to adapt to a new world order.

I hope that the commemorations, 100 years on, will not be an exercise in brushing up our history and dates. I hope that we as a nation, in every city, town and village, will reflect on the scale of the sacrifice, given so resolutely by our own relatives only two generations ago, that has helped to define who we are today.