Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914–1918 by Bill Rawling

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 957 stab, and still be distracted by them. Bucholz’s working definition of technology as “the systematic application of scientific knowledge to the practical task of war planning” (p. 168) works for him, but one wonders—to cite a relevant example—how much of the Railroad Section’s knowledge was empirical rather than scientific. Specialists in German history will no doubt question some of Bucholz’s political and cultural interpretations, for example concerning the origins and importance of Moltke’s apocalyptic premonitions. But these are quibbles: this book makes a major contribution to our understanding of the key but surprisingly neglected technological dimensions of a pivotal episode in world history. John F. Guilmartin Dr. Gvilmartin is an associate professor of history at Ohio State University. Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914— 1918. By Bill Rawling. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1992. Pp. 325; illustrations, notes, appendixes, bibliography, index. $55.00 (cloth); $19.95 (paper). That British commanders in the First World War were “bumbling dolts” became a commonplace of public discourse and historical writing from the 1920s. Bill Rawling takes a more charitable view, arguing that “British staff officers and commanders in the field examined each battle closely in order to derive from it what lessons they could” (pp. 67—68). Moreover, “trench inventors” altered their weapons in significant ways because “Canadian soldiers were less sheep led to the slaughter than thinking people who set their minds to the challenges of survival, and, in the process, contributed to the defeat of a well-trained and well-motivated enemy” (p. 223). The war as learning experience is Rawling’s theme, with special attention to technological innovations—including some utterly famil­ iar, like radio, tanks, and airplanes, and some since forgotten, like the “power buzzers” that were designed to send Morse code messages from advancing infantry back to battalion headquarters by propagat­ ing high-pitched sound waves through the ground. But, as Rawling points out, “The device worked only in one direction, and ground conditions had to be just right,” with the result that, “as in all prior battles, runners proved the most efficient means of getting messages to battalion headquarters” (p. 127). Most of the book consists of rather close description of the successive battles in which Canadian troops engaged, and the techni­ cal lessons drawn from their experiences. There is little new in these narratives, though Canadian readers may swell with pride at Rawl­ ing’s account of how careful preparation for the assault on Vimy Ridge paid off in 1917 when, for the first time since the Battle of the 958 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Marne in 1914, Canadian troops won a clear-cut victory for the Allied cause by advancing two-and-a-half miles in a matter of three days, thus attaining all of their objectives while suffering a casualty rate of only 16 percent. New weapons, new communications, new tactics, new intelligence methods, and meticulous preparation for the attack made the capture of Vimy Ridge possible; yet some oddly archaic touches in Rawling’s account surely demonstrate a residual rigidity in British (and Cana­ dian) military management. For, as he baldly remarks, “Cavalry did manage to engage the enemy, but suffered heavy casualties from German machine guns” (p. 125). In short, Rawling supports his central thesis convincingly enough, but the positive tone he adopts in describing Canadian technological and organizational responses to the battle experience of World War I strikes me as rather too kind to the brass hats. William H. McNeill Dr. McNeill is professor of history emeritus of the University of Chicago. To Command the Sky: The Battle for Air Superiority over Germany, 1942— 1944. By Stephen L. McFarland and Wesley P. Newton. Washing­ ton, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Pp. xiii + 328; illus­ trations, notes, appendix, bibliography, index. $35.00. According to Stephen McFarland and Wesley Newton, the history of the United States Eighth Air Force’s conquest of aerial superiority in protracted struggle against the German Luftwaffe from 1942 through 1944 is the untold story of World War II. Most observers have regarded the securing of aerial superiority as an intermediate step in...