KWAZULU-NATAL BRANCH

NEWSLETTER No 407
December 2009

The DDH was presented by former chairman Ken Gillings. A power point report-back on the Society's tour to the Battlefields of the Western Desert in May this year. Twenty four participants flew to Cairo from Johannesburg where they were met by the Royal British Legion's Battlefield Guide, Col Mike Bradley who (by his own admission) had wondered how he was going to relate to a group of South Africans. He need not have been concerned; he warmed to the party immediately and thoroughly enjoyed the participants' immense background knowledge of the campaign in the Desert.

While logistically, it was necessary to begin the tour in Egypt, the speaker converted the talk into a chronological sequence of slides that began with a chart illustrating the ebb and flow of the Desert Campaign beginning with the Italian offensive on the 13th September 1940 and ending with the British offensive spearheaded by General Bernard Montgomery on the 12th May 1943 that resulted in the capture of Tunis. Names of places that had been an integral part of discussion by fathers and grandfathers in the 1950s and 60s were brought to life in colour photographs of the likes of Mersa Matruh, Sollum and Halfaya Pass as the party drove along the Egyptian Mediterranean coast before ascending the escarpment and entering Libya at Fort Capuzzo, where it took the party five hours to pass through the border (due to administrative red tape second to none).

As the party drove through Egypt, Col Bradley described Operation 'Compass' as they drove from Mersa Matruh past Sidi Barrani, Sollum and on to Bardia, where the tour party was housed in a strange hotel run strictly by men. This part of the tour covered Operation Brevity. The following day the party followed the route taken by the Springbok soldiers to Tobruk. Brief 'MOTH'-type ceremonies were held at the Tobruk and Knightsbridge Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries. The father of one of the members - Norman Thompson - is buried at Knightsbridge. In a very emotional and moving gesture, Norman placed a RBL cross at his father's grave. Another member of the party - Ronnie Napier (from Johannesburg) - did the same when he later flew to Benghazi, where his father is buried. The party attached South African Legion poppies to as many Springbok Soldiers' graves as was possible.

The highlight of the Tobruk visit was undoubtedly visiting the Royal Durban Light Infantry HQ at the Fig Tree (which features in its Regimental History) and the Umvoti Mounted Rifles positions at Ras el Medawar (an Ottoman Empire Fort) in the area of Acroma.

The party then drove 48 km in a south-westerly direction to Knightsbridge itself, where the Guards Brigade was in position during the Tobruk operations in June1942. To the speaker's delight, the Bedouin drivers then drove a few km further to two gun positions of 6th Battery, 2nd Field Regiment SAA (Natal Field Artillery). The tour then returned to Bardia via Sidi Rezegh - described by Col Bradley as one of the most confusing tank battles in military history. The tomb of Sidi Rezegh - an Arab holy man - was left untouched during the battles that raged in the area of the airfield, El Duda, the Trigh Capuzzo and the Via Balbia. What made the tour even more refreshing was following the fortunes of several of the participants' fathers; Chris and Simon Pearse's father's diary, for example, with vivid descriptions of his participation in the Desert campaign.

The return to Egypt (this time taking 4 1/2 hours to drive through the border) involved a long drive to El Alamein and 5-star accommodation. The final day was spent visiting El Alamein, where once again the party placed poppies and crosses on Springbok Soldiers' graves. The return journey to Cairo was via Alexandria and farewells were said at a restaurant on the banks of the Nile.

The success of the SAMHS tour to the battlefields of Egypt and Libya is likely to result in another that will follow the route taken by the Springbok Soldiers through Italy - possibly in July 2011, when it will link up with the official South African commemoration of the 95th anniversary of the Battle of Delville Wood. The tour has opened up new horizons for the S A Military History Society and having arranged one to Egypt and Libya, it will be a matter of time before we offer another.

The speaker for our main talk was formal chairman Paul Kilmartin and the subject was the causes of World War 1.
The opening quote of the talk was from the diaries of Sir Henry "Chips" Channon who described the amazing events in the 7 weeks from early May 1940 as a time when:"Every day was a document and every hour was history" and this same quote was used to describe, not just a few weeks in 1940 but the whole year of 1914. This particular year was an uneven split between 7 months of peace and 5 months of war but what happened in both peace and war created almost all the history, particularly the military history, as we now know it, from that time to the present day. 1914 was the single most dominant, important and influential year of the 20th century and as Fritz Stern, the German historian has written: "The first calamity of the 20th century was the Great War - from which all other calamities sprang".

Although the war started 95 years ago, eminent military historians still have to agree to disagree as quotes from Sir John Keegan ("A tragic and unnecessary war") and Professor Gary Sheffield ("A just and necessary war") proved. Our speaker summed up his own view with a single word "Inevitable" and then set out to show why he felt that a major European war was to be inevitable at some time. References were made to the words of highly distinguished and powerful people who not only warned about the tragedy of a major war but also accurately forecast the damaging impact of such a war. Those quoted included Friedrich Engels (1887) Otto von Bismarck (1888) Winston Churchill (1901) General Helmuth von Moltke (1906) and Major-General Douglas Haig (1907 - 1909).

It was not only the leaders who were keen to fight a war but the ordinary people of most major countries were equally keen and a quote from a pro-war speech in 1898 by a future President of the USA, Theodore Roosevelt, and its acceptance as a speech of major importance around the world, confirmed this. It helped to explain all the cheering crowds around the world who celebrated the outbreak of war in end July/early August 1914, This attitude was best summed up by the concise words of a leading World War 1 scholar, Professor Hew Strachen who wrote that all the peoples of the major powers went: "Willingly to war"

There were many reasons why so many countries were keen on fighting a European war and these included:
Nationalism (the demand for ethnic independence strongly supported and urged on by Russia, in the Balkans and Hungary in particular)
Religious hatred (strong enmity between Catholics, Protestants and the Orthodox churches - between Christians and Moslems and a high degree of anti-Semitism)
Colonialism (envy of the colonial empires of other countries, particularly by the newly unified German Empire)
Socialism (the end result of the industrial revolution and the spread of workers power and the beginning of the communist doctrine)
Rich and poor (at both individual and country level). All these issues led to an undercurrent of seething unrest between countries, their leaders and their peoples, none of which was helped by the planning for war by France (starting in 1878) by Germany (1899) and by Great Britain (1907).

1914 was not a year that stood on its own in starting the process that led to war. This process accelerated as a result of many events over many years that led finally to the explosion of war in 1914. These events were described to the meeting as "fuses" as the actions and inactions of countries and their leaders over nearly 50 years caused these fuses to be lit and left to smoulder gently - some over many years - until they combined to cause the final outbreak of war from 28 July 1914 onwards.
The alliance between Russia and France made a future war between Germany and France a high probability due to the dispute over Alsace and Lorraine and the thought of northern France and its ports being taken over by Germany could not be tolerated. Then Kaiser Wilhelm II lit another powerful "fuse" by ordering Admiral von Tirpitz to create a German navy to equal the power of the Royal Navy. With the Kaiser's envy of the British colonies, this development could only be to challenge British rights over many overseas possessions and just as importantly it would put British trade at high risk.
To counter this danger, and to apply its strategy based on The Balance of Power, in 1904 Britain signed what was called The Entente Cordial with its centuries old enemy, France. Britain's "Splendid Isolation" was over and the line-up for war was almost complete. Britain, under Minister of War Richard Haldane then re-organised the British army from 1907 onwards, in readiness to send a BEF to France to provide support for France when, now not "if", Germany attacked.

There were many potentially dangerous clashes and disputes among the European countries in the 10 years before 1914, most of which could have led to war, but all were resolved by diplomatic means. The one event that could not be saved by diplomatic pressure was the assassination in Sarajevo (Bosnia) on 28 June 1914, of the heir to The Throne of Austria-Hungary - Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophia. It is generally felt that if Austria-Hungary had invaded Serbia within a few days the Great War could have been avoided, but that did not happen. Austria took over 3 weeks to make impossible demands on Serbia, and with Russia ready to come to the aid of Serbian, the war became inevitable as soon as Austria declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.

The talk ended with a summary of the way that the German high command changed the Schlieffen Plan to their detriment and that as a result Germany - who could so easily have defeated France and British forces in the opening months of the war - lost it before the war even started.

Professor Philip Everett delivered the vote of thanks to our speakers for an extra-ordinary evening of such comprehensive accounts.

THE SOCIETY'S NEXT MEETING:
THIRD HURSDAY (not second) 21st. January 2010 - 19h00 for 19h30.
Venue: Murray Theatre, Dept of Civil Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.
Darrell Hall Memorial Lecture - 'The South African War Graves Project', by fellow member Ricky Nortje.
MAIN TALK - 'General Sir Charles Warren', by fellow member Prof. Philip Everitt.

FUTURE SOCIETY DATES: Feb. 2010 - April 2010:

11th February 2010: 'Erik Holm - South Africa's Lord Haw-Haw' (Donald Davies) and '1914 - 1918: Clandestine Operations in Central Asia - the Plot to bring down the British Empire' (Capt (SAN) Retd Brian Hoffman);

11th March 2010: 'Steve versus the Kudu' (Colonel Steve Bekker) and 'More about Egypt and Libya' (Lt Col Dr Graeme Fuller);

8th April 2010: 'The Life & Career of the First VC of the Anglo-Boer War' (Paul Kilmartin) and 'Langverwacht - de Wet's last fling' (Robin Smith).

Anniversaries - at this time in history.
1864 - Sherman torches Atlanta.
1899 - Boers invade the Cape Colony;
Battles of Willow Grange, Belmont; and Modder River.
1901 - Canadian reinforcements reach South Africa.
1902 - Martial Law repealed in the ZAR and Orange Free State.
1918 - The armistice brings an end to World War 1.
1920 - In Ireland 19 British agents are executed by the IRA.
In retaliation the British open fire on a football crowd and kill 14.
1938 - Kristallnacht in Nazi Germany.
1940 - Coventry is blitzed.
1942 - Churchill makes his "end of the beginning" speech.
1979- US embassy seized in Iran.
1989 - Berlin Wall comes down.

The chairman and committee wish to express their gratitude to all members for their support during the year. We wish all and families a most joyous festive season and a prosperous 2010.