Not enough personnel

On Tuesday, November 14, I attended a talk on the battles of the First World War in the year 1917 by a chap from the Imperial War Museum going by the name of Peter Hart.

He was interesting and entertaining at the same time – subject to the ‘laws’ of the club we were in such as no profanities and all other sorts of PC nonsense, which I and other people of my age don’t really get as we were dragged up through a much more free thinking and indeed speaking age.

The numbers bandied about army numbers was phenomenal and generals had up to three full armies each at one time to command.

The numbers for one ‘army’ alone was 100,000 and the total amount of army personnel utilised in Great War came to 5.4million men that served in France and Flanders (the Western Front)so there were quite a few of our lads to be either wasted in pushing to gain a thousand yards only to stop and hold said gain for a week or two then push on for a further 1,000 yards, which of course occurred after German troops had regrouped and reinforced their lines.

Now the speaker, Peter Hart pointed out that 100,000 soldiers form one army and that the number of personnel these days, about 82,000, is insufficient to be called an army.

Indeed, we now only have a defence force that former UK generals say is no longer fit for purpose and that we should be worried given the state of the world today.

Now where’s me old tin hat? Alan ‘The Quill’ Vincent