Edward Louis Spears The Great War Interviews

BBC Four Collections -

specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.

For this collection, Max Hastings has selected interviews

with Great War veterans, filmed in the 1960s.

More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four Collections

are available on BBC iPlayer.

In the little town of Vittel, at the foot of the Ardennes Mountains...

..the Fifth Army headquarters, commanded by General Lanrezac...

..compromising... Comprising an army

of at least a quarter of a million men,

had taken up their headquarters.

1A couple of days later, Sir John French...

..commander-in-chief of the BEF - British Expeditionary Force -

came to call.

And I well remember...

..the... His arrival with his staff.

I was waiting with a lot of other junior officers,

I was only a subaltern then...

And two large cars drove up.

And I was very much impressed.

I... I wasn't used to meeting these very senior people.

However I needn't have worried, they paid not the least attention to me

and I sat there gossiping with other...

..junior French officers...

..and Sir John French, whom I had met previously, walked up...

He was a shortish man, very burly with a very determined step.

He always made me think of a wild boar, rather.

And his...

He stuck out his chin very much, he had a quite drooping moustache.

And he gave the impression of a...

being very much a soldier, in fact...

..he had commanded with great brilliancy...

a division of cavalry in the South African War.

Well, he came out followed by a number of staff officers,

English staff officers.

And out of whom I picked Sir Henry Wilson...

A curious, very tall man

who boasted he was the ugliest man in the British Army.

I had no difficulty in believing that.

In fact...

..a letter was once delivered to him in London,

"To the ugliest officer in the British Army."

It came straight to him, I think. War Office.

And they bustled out of their cars towards the building

where General Lanrezac had his headquarters

and the French General, Lanrezac, came down the steps,

long flight of steps, I remember, to meet him.

Now, General Lanrezac was the exact opposite of French in many ways.

A big, soft man, dark.

A Creole...

He had hanging cheeks,

protruding eyes...

He looked as if he could have done with

a lot more exercise than he evidently took.

However, he came down, advanced politely to Sir John

and showed him the way up the steps, leading to his own quarters.

We could see quite distinctly from where we were

that the two commanders-in-chief had gone in together and alone

into Lanrezac's own study.

And as we looked, we wondered how on earth these two could possibly

communicate with each other because we were quite aware of the fact

that Lanrezac spoke no English and French...

spoke very, very poor French.

In fact, less French than even I thought he...knew.

They stayed in there quite a bit.

And what they could have been doing for 20 minutes, I don't know.

Presently, they emerged into an outer room,

where there were a number of officers

and you had the impression of a very...

..desultory conversation.

And there was a big map of the whole front,

parts of Belgium where we were, where the armies were deploying...

And news had just come in that the German armies

were making for a place on the Meuse

called Huy - H-U-Y.

It's a very difficult word to pronounce in English.

And French started off gallantly in French...

..turning to Lanrezac and said...

"What do you think?" -

"Qu'est-ce que vous croyez que les Allemands vont faire a..."

"What do you think the Germans are going to do at...?"

and then he stuck H-U-Y.

And he just couldn't pronounce "Huy."

So, after a moment's hesitation, he said triumphantly,

"Hoy, what are the Germans going to do at Hoy?"

And French said, "What's he saying, what's he saying?"

And then, very rudely...

..Lanrezac turned to somebody and said,

"Tell the Field Marshal the Germans have come to the Meuse to fish."

Well, this was very rude, and, as a matter of fact,

it was a most unfortunate instance

because it was presented and remembered...

..and it was the beginning of an extremely bad relationship

between the two men.

Lanrezac was obviously very sulky when he saw French off, and...

..I could see that the...

Field Marshal was anything but pleased.

However, he hopped into his car, they all disappeared.

DIRECTOR: And cut.

I was Liaison Officer with General Lanrezac.

His army had about 350,000 men.

They were by ways of advancing and it was

because they were advancing into Belgium, the BEF was also advancing.

Now, I had ascertained...

..that General Lanrezac had no intention whatever of advancing...

..because of the orders he'd given.

And also because I had been to see myself

what the state of his army was.

And most of his troops were running away.

Now, it's quite obvious that an army that's running away

isn't in a very good position to advance

and I knew that the British Army was absolutely relying on this advance

to complete its own movement.

And the position of the British Army was extremely dangerous

because we believed that...

..a couple of German Army corps were moving, quite unopposed,

round the flank of the BEF,

which was on the extreme left of the whole Allied line.

Well, I...

..as a young officer...

..had come to tell, on my own responsibility...

Come to tell Sir John French...

..that he couldn't rely on the...

..French advance.

And indeed, that if he continued advancing as he was planning to do...

..it was the destruction of the whole of the British Army.

We were walking straight into the mouth of a trap, enormous trap.

I'd walked into the house accompanied by...

..Colonel McDonogh, who was the head of our intelligence,

a magnificent soldier...

..and Sir John French and his Chief of Staff, General Murray,

had come out of the dining room...

..to...listen to my news.

I told Sir John French what I'd seen, what I observed...

And as I was speaking...

..I was seized, inwardly, with this awful sense of panic

because what I had said was entirely my own responsibility.

I had no plans, I had no orders, I had no instructions.

I hadn't been told anything whatsoever by General Lanrezac.

All this was based on my personal observation.

On the fact that I'd been to the different parts of the front...

..got in amongst the fighting troops and seen that,

far from advancing as they were planned to do,

the French army was in retreat.

And then we were... Colonel MacDonogh and I were dismissed and...

leaving French and Murray together.

And we moved into the dining room,

where the Chiefs of Staff of the corps...

..and some other important people were just finishing dinner.

They were drinking their coffee and exchanging...

..plans and ideas about the offensive that was to take place next morning.

And it was really a dreadful sensation.

There was Colonel McDonogh and I sitting on a...

..sort of divan...

..listening to these people making plans

about an engagement for battle,

for an advance next day, which we knew couldn't take place.

And...

..sitting on that couch...

..I had awful visions...

..of Nolan, Captain Nolan...

..who gave the wrong instructions to Lord Cardigan,

the commander of the Light Brigade at Balaclava...

And...it really was...

an awful...

I was overwhelmed by the sense of responsibility that I, a subaltern...

..was...

..the bearer of such really overwhelming responsibility.

Well, we sat there for quite a long time

and then suddenly, General Murray appeared, framed in the doorway,

and called to all these high-ranking officers down the table...

"Look here, come in and see the Commander-in-Chief now.

"But...remember, no questions.

"A decision's been taken, there's going to be no advance tomorrow,

"you are going to be given orders to retire."

DIRECTOR: Cut.

It was at St Quentin that the second-to-last meeting

between Sir John French and General Lanrezac took place.

The atmosphere of defeat hung heavily over the town.

Small bodies of troops...

..were wandering about rather aimlessly...

..evidently not knowing where to go or what to do.

And the meeting took place...

in a particularly horrible house, decorated in neo-Pompeiian style...

..and for some reason, the...

Perhaps the inhabitants had...fled, the...

..shutters were closed and it was quite dark.

Furthermore, what made things...worse...

..obviously Sir John French was in an extremely bad temper.

Lanrezac...was late.

And one of his officers had been...

Started explaining the position of the Army...

..whilst General Joffre stood aside saying not a word.

Then Joffre began to explain the purport of an order -

extremely important - he'd issued.

Whilst he was doing so, in walked Lanrezac, bustling in...

..also obviously in an extremely bad temper.

Then Joffre went on, explained this order of his,

when Sir John French said...

"What's...?" Of course, this was being interpreted

cos they couldn't speak each other's language.

"What about this order? I haven't seen an order."

Whereupon General Wilson, the Sub-Chief of Staff,

explained, rather awkwardly, I thought...

..that some order had been received during the night...

..but it hadn't been dealt with yet.

I got the impression it hadn't been translated.

And this put General Joffre completely off his chip.

The idea that there was he, with these immense responsibilities,

in charge of all these armies,

having come all this way to see these two generals,

to find that they didn't... Hadn't even read his orders.

And he seemed overwhelmed... with discouragement.

It was the only time I've ever known that he seemed to lose heart himself,

to be completely deflated.

And from that time on, the conference -

to all intents and purposes -

ceased to have any... the least value or importance.

It became quite obvious that nobody realised...

..appreciated what the point of view of the other was.

Both, quite obviously, I knew quite well...

..felt he'd been let down by the other.

The Frenchman full of prejudice against the English anyhow,

feeling that they were letting him down...

Which was not justified at that moment.

And the Englishman feeling that there was no...

It was quite hopeless to try and deal with the French anywhere,

and indeed, at that moment, the British were making plans

to retire all the way to La Rochelle near Bordeaux and, evidently,

intend to get off on ships...

having given up all idea of cooperation with the French.

The...

Things were so bad that when the conference was over,

I was told not to go back to the French.

There was no point in my resuming my duties as Liaison Officer.

That was pretty shattering, too.

But again, I took upon myself,

as I hadn't been given an actual positive order

to give up my job, I did go back.

I was taken to French GHQ...

..on the day that England declared war.

I hadn't the faintest idea where the place was,

I'd been taken down in a racing car and, just because I was

the first British officer to ride there, I was introduced to Joffre.

I'd never even seen a picture of the man.

I was very astonished to find a big, heavy...

..bulky individual, walking up and down a little square...

His hands behind his back...

His kepi - his cap - tilted well forward...

..to protect his eyes, evidently, because he was...had very light eyes.

He was an albino, in fact.

Pepper and salt hair. Pepper and salt walrus moustache.

With a black tunic on, fitting extremely badly.

Sloping outwards from the third or fourth button down.

Also ill-fitting weird britches and abominable gaiters...

..which as a cavalry officer I was very... I was very critical of.

I watched him very carefully because here was a man,

perhaps the most important man on the whole of the Allied side

at that time, commanding enormous forces.

Counting hundreds of thousands of men.

A million or more, perhaps.

He had an extraordinary habit of arriving at headquarters

and getting out of his car with an enormous coat with a cape on it,

even in very hot weather.

The general commanding and the staff would come up to him,

expecting to be told something, but he listened to them.

And I've known cases where he walked straight into his car again

without having uttered a single word.

Always listening.

But when he was aroused, he was absolutely terrific.

And when the plan of the situation of the Marne began to develop,

days before the Marne...

..he really did take hold and was obviously the enforcer,

it was a very, very strange thing to see

a single man exercising his will over mass of about a million men

with the fate of his country in the balance...

..having to satisfy political requirements of his own government,

the British Government...

..having to face a catastrophic situation,

and never, never getting rattled.

He always was in bed by ten o'clock...

He always ate enormously.

Took a little walk with one of his favourite ADCs after meals.

And that was about all.

I actually saw him...

..on the afternoon that he decided on the Battle of the Marne.

And he was sitting astride a hard chair

in a dusty little French school courtyard.

I've forgotten the place.

And he swayed backwards and forwards,

and he was deciding what he was going to do.

And it was an extraordinary thing, I've never seen...

Very few people can have ever seen anybody

with such a burden placed on his shoulders, with nobody to help...

..just weighing the pros and cons of this movement

and that movement, what orders to issue.

It lasted quite a long time, perhaps a couple of hours.

Then he got up, his decision was taken.

And the orders went out that night.

DIRECTOR: Cut.

As the French officer

I was with now

drove into the courtyard

of a chateau

occupied by John French,

we saw a French car

driving in,

out of which got General Joffre and his ADC.

He got out ponderously as he always did,

and although the weather was very hot, he had an enormous coat on.

He walked straight in to the large room

where Sir John French and his staff were waiting.

Then, putting his cap down on the table,

General Joffre, who I remember had his back to the window,

because I remember the clear light on the Marne River.

A shade of trees

and this rather dark room

that all these great soldiers trooped and went in

and without any preamble at all,

General Joffre unfolded his plans

for the Battle of the Marne.

It was extraordinarily impressive.

Very clear, he outlined the movement of the troops,

the army corps that had come from Alsace and the east,

grouping in Paris for a thrust into the German flank.

The certainty that the Germans had changed their line of advance,

making the mistake which enabled Joffre to plan his thrust.

And it all became extraordinarily alive

and there was this man with his muted...voice,

his albino voice.

Slow...talking very slowly,

never raising his voice once.

And as we listened, we - I, certainly -

saw the manoeuvre unfold.

Saw in the future, saw what was going to happen. Next day.

Then...

Joffre turned to the fact

of the essential role the British Army must play in this offensive.

Without them, the manoeuvre was impossible.

They faced the gap in the German line which,

if it wasn't filled by us,

would mean that the whole manoeuvre simply failed altogether.

And he insisted, with great warmth

and great fervour, on the essential part the British had to play.

He praised them for what they'd done before,

the staunchness of the troops,

of the way they'd managed, under extremely difficult circumstances,

to keep their cohesion.

And then returning for perhaps the third time,

to the importance the British had to play,

an extraordinary look came over his face.

This man who never hesitated,

who certainly wasn't a sentimentalist,

was turned into...

he seemed to be praying,

like somebody really begging for his life.

But he was begging not for his life,

he was begging for the life of France.

Because, turning to Sir John French

and holding both his own hands,

he said,

meaning that he hoped that French would comply with his wishes...

he said "Monsieur le Marechal, c'est la France qui vous supplit."

"Monsieur Marechal, it is France that is begging you, supplicating you."

And it was so moving,

as this man, he held both his hands.

It was so moving that even Sir John French, irritated,

worried as he was,

having so short a time

before deciding to withdraw his army altogether,

had tears streaming down his face.

And then,

turning to an officer beside him,

because once more he'd been caught in his difficulties

with the language,

he tried to say something in French.

I never knew what he wanted to say, but what he said in English,

to I think it was General Wilson,

"Tell him

"that all that men can do, our chaps will do tomorrow."

And as the French officer and I sped back towards the headquarters

of the armies we were going to, the 5th Army,

I thought that one day, probably,

some great painter would paint that scene.

Which was a very, very great historical one.

General Franchet D'Esperey was one of the most dynamic men

I've ever come across in my life.

He was square, he was all made up of so many straight lines.

He had a straight top to his head, straight back to his head.

His eyebrows were in a straight line.

His moustache was parallel to his mouth, also in straight lines.

He moved with incredible rapidity.

Like a runner.

His elbows keeping time with his knees.

And it was very hard indeed to follow his movements.

He took charge of the French army

at a time of great demoralisation

and he proved to me

that only by the utmost severity

can you really bring an army

that is rather falling to pieces

into a fighting unit again.

And he used to shoot people very easily,

on very little provocation, and less evidence.

But it all kept things together.

In those days traffic jams were very bad.

Now, Franchet D'Esperey's method of dealing with jams

when he was on the go was to open the window and shoot

with his revolver at whoever was obstructing him in his approach.

It answered very well.

He, the first time I ever saw him,

he was interviewing his staff.

And I wasn't present when he interviewed French officers,

I had the benefit of a little interview all to myself.

But to these staff officers, he said, "Now look, I won't accept

"the least dereliction of duty on the part of any officer in the line.

"Anybody who fails will be shot.

"Do you think that I'm likely to accept less high standards

"on the part of staff officers who, after all,

"aren't exposed to much danger?

"Anybody who's stupid, anybody who fails,

"anybody who's not punctual,

"will be shot without further ado the same day."

I was appointed head of the British Military Mission

to the French government in Paris in 1917.

April.

Things were looking bad then.

The French had had the most frightful losses.

It was called the Chemin des Dames.

In a couple of days, they'd lost about 90,000 men.

That on top of enormous losses before, and the weariness,

the hopelessness of the prospects of the war

seemed utterly frightful.

Furthermore, there were all these rumours

of the Russian revolution...

there were two Russian brigades in France that had mutinied

and things weren't too well even in the civilian population.

I saw, for instance, a strike.

Of the girls in the big milliner shops,

the dressmakers.

They were called,

rather pathetically I thought, "les petites mains", the small hands.

And what they were striking for was one sou an hour more.

A ha'penny. And a ha'penny wasn't worth a ha'penny then.

And I saw these girls processing

down some of the main thoroughfares

and a lot of men on leave joined them.

And that showed there was something.

There was unrest, there was disquiet.

We knew there'd been a flow of Communist literature

sent to the troops

and my main concern was how it affected us.

And there was another incident that struck me very much.

My office was in the great building of Invalides

where Napoleon is buried

and I had to pass the foot of the Eiffel Tower

to get to my office.

And one day I saw that the feet of the Eiffel Tower,

which hitherto had been guarded by Indochinese troops,

by Annamites,

was guarded by territorials.

And I thought this must mean something.

And I had French officers on my mission

and I sent them to find out what had happened and I found

the night before, the mob,

in a very poor slum of Paris called Saint-Ouen,

had set on these Indochinese soldiers

who had fled to barracks and in their flight

had fired on the mob, whereupon the mob had stormed the barracks

and cut off the heads of a number of these soldiers,

which wasn't too good.

Then I found that... I heard -

and remember, I knew the French army very well indeed,

I'd spent years with them -

and I heard there were mutinies.

In the army itself.

And I decided to go up and see for myself,

which was a method I've always adopted.

And I arrived in part of the country near Soissons,

which I knew very well,

and there I was met with the most amazing sight.

Regiment after regiment was in open mutiny.

By which I meant there were degrees of mutiny.

In many units, all the men wore red rosettes.

The officers were confined to a section of the village,

had no authority at all

and the men had established posts

and I wasn't in the least molested.

I asked what was going on.

Got rather evasive answers,

but in the main found that the line taken by the men was

that they were prepared to occupy the line,

but they weren't prepared to fight

after what had happened.

After the bloodbaths they'd been submitted to, after all,

one could understand their point of view.

I thereupon came upon one or two generals I knew very well,

who had been told off to attempt to re-establish order.

And the troops that were used to re-establish order were

the cavalry, the artillery and in units, funnily enough,

small units like machine guns or the pioneers in the regiment,

soldiers who had an individual officer

and who weren't very numerous, hadn't mutinied.

The most astonishing sight I saw was a village in which...

at least one mutinous regiment, three battalions.

And there there were guns, wheel to wheel, round that village.

And the civilian population was allowed out twice a day to be fed.

And they came out, were fed,

and went back into the village amongst the mutinous troops.

I was terrified lest our troops...

We had very long lines of communication to Italy.

We had about 50,000 men scattered

all the way down from Boulogne to the Italian frontier.

And knowing or apprehending

that there might be some trouble

in great towns like Lyons,

that the local authorities, having no other troops,

might call on local British commanders to re-establish order.

Well, I knew that if that happened, the war was lost.

Because the news would spread like wildfire

amongst the troops in line

that the English - I knew the form it would take -

the English and the Senegalese are shooting down our women and children.

And whatever happened, this mustn't happen.

And so I communicated with the Chief of Imperial General Staff

in London and sent him a signal saying whatever happens,

don't accept - don't comply with any request of this par.

When I reported to the War Office

there were mutinies in the French army,

the Chief of the Imperial General Staff

expressed the utmost astonishment at this.

Because he said he'd heard nothing of it.

It did seem astonishing that we had 60 highly qualified officers

attached to the French headquarters

and over a period of weeks,

the French had managed to conceal any trouble from them.

In a way, perhaps, it was fortunate,

because the Germans hadn't heard either.

If the Germans had, the war would have been over.

Now, when they did hear,

I was ordered to go, once again,

to the front

and assess what the problem was.

And I found that there were only two divisions

out of the whole French army

that could be relied upon between the front line and Paris.

Something like over 40 divisions had been affected, more or less.

Well, I went and I saw what was going on,

which was very much what I'd seen on my previous visit

and I had been told to be back in Paris two days later

and it was possible that I should then be ordered to London.

I turned up as ordered,

on the night of my second day's visit to the front, and there,

sure enough, was a telegram

telling me to report to Number 10 Downing Street next morning.

Well, I got into a car and I went off to the coast as best I could,

and there I used the order I had which enabled me

to commandeer a destroyer to cross the Channel.

It was very unpopular with the Navy because it was low tide

and they didn't particularly like moving about the Channel

at low tide - however, there was my order and I did get over.

And I got to Dover, got hold of a railway engine,

got on the platform of this thing

and had myself conveyed to London.

I just had time to have a shave at the Cavalry Club,

took myself to Downing Street.

And there I was put through a severe questionnaire

by no less a person

than the Prime Minister, Mr Lloyd George.

Who I really didn't know then.

Mr Lloyd George was really distrustful of the soldiers

at the time, especially of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff,

Sir William Robertson.

And Mr Lloyd George said to me

"You've been appointed to Paris.

"You're supposed to know...

"understand the French and the French army.

"Are the French going to get over their present trouble?"

Well, there were many rumours at the time, but both countries,

France and England, having suffered so much, there was a possibility

that the politicians might sell each other down the river.

That France might try and make a separate peace

favourable to themselves, and the English might do the same thing.

The French were convinced the English might do so.

And vice versa.

And I felt it extremely important...

I couldn't bear the idea that,

owing to some stupid thing I might say,

the impression would be created

the French army was no longer worth anything that you could rely on.

And I didn't believe it. I believed they would get out of it somehow.

Although, I must say, I didn't have much to go on.

Lloyd George said to me, "Is the French army going to get over this?

And I said, "I believe it is.

"They've had a frightful time,

"but now Petain's in charge

"and he's a wonderful leader

"and the men have got faith in him.

"I believe they will get over it."

And Lloyd George said, "You've got to be much more assertive than that.

"Are the French army going to get over it or not?"

I said, "I'm sure they will."

But, er, "I think I'd prefer you to be more assertive still."

Well, I said, turning to, as he then was, Colonel Hankey,

who has since become Lord Hankey.

And I said, "Colonel Hankey can write down that I'm perfectly

"willing to stake my life on this assertion.

"If I'm wrong, you can have me shot."

And then Lloyd George said to me, "I want you to give me your word,

"as an officer and a gentleman,

"the French army's going to get over this."

And then I'm afraid, young officer that I was,

I lost my temper with the great Prime Minister.

And I said, "Prime Minister, as I said, you can have me shot

"if I'm wrong, but that you should ask me to give you my word

"as an officer and a gentlemen

"shows that you understand the meaning of neither word."

Whereupon I got out of the room. I'll never know why or how.

But I really left that place hanging off the railings

on the street outside.

I'd had a much worse shock than I ever had at the front.

The thing that astonishes me

is that the French army didn't mutiny a long time before 1917.

The French army of 1914 was a magnificent force.

It comprised all the live elements of the country

which were anxious to, at last, avenge themselves

with the great defeat of 1870

and of all the humiliations they had suffered

at the hands of the Germans ever since.

And they had had absolutely appalling losses.

Due largely to their own mistakes

and to mistaken theories.

Because at the beginning of the war,

in August 1914, I myself had seen

the French army attacking German positions of machine guns

with bands playing and officers with white gloves leading their men.

They lost... I haven't got the figure by me now,

but it's well known, something quite frightful

in the first two or three months of the war.

They went on suffering terrible losses.

Still they endured, displaying qualities of stoicism,

of staying power which we really thought only we were capable of.

And finally they'd been told, in 1917, that at last,

this General Nivelle had discovered the formula for victory.

And he launched his great attack

on what's called the Chemin des Dames where, which I witnessed,

I took part in,

and where 90,000 men were killed and wounded in 24 hours.

Who can blame the men who had suffered so much

for not believing that the struggle was hopeless?

Who can blame them for having lost faith in their leadership?

And it was then that a real miracle occurred and General Petain,

to whom... The Petain of 1917 is a man to whom we owe a great deal.

General Petain was put in charge of the French army

and he re-established morale in a matter of months.

I saw him doing so, some of the time, and he visited,

in a very short time, every division in the French army.

Insisting that every single company should be represented

by at least one trustworthy man.

He spoke to them all.

And they realised he felt for them,

appreciated what they'd endured

and was determined that they

shouldn't be submitted to such unnecessary suffering again.

The result was that the French army,

at the end of '17, 1918,

was at least as fine an army as it had been in 1914.