From Professor Sophie de Schaepdrijver Sir: Colonel John Hughes-Wilson quotes
me as having reminded delegates that the armies of 1914-18 were led to the slaugh- ter like so many great herds — with fear, and fear alone [of execution], keeping them in line'. As it happened, I used those words to point out how misleading the 'herd' view of military discipline is, and subsequently suggested that — to quote my own speech — 'if the men at the front had not somehow defined the war they were waging as their war also, it is doubtful whether sheer repression could have prevailed'. My speech did not subscribe to the simplistic `repressive' view of military discipline: it explicitly repudiated it.
Hughes-Wilson presents me as a historian `whose principal research has been into pros- titution and female exploitation in the 19th century'. It is true that early in my career I published some research on prostitution by the way, a perfectly serious subject. I have written two books on different subjects since then, and was invited to Ypres as a historian of the first world war. My book on the Bel- gian experience in that war, published in 1997, is presently in its sixth printing.
Professor Sophie de Schaepdrijver
New York University, New York, USA
Previous page
