The Old Contemptibles

I am a member of Goodreads, which is a site for readers to review books and interact with authors. There are several groups within the site, one of which is the History Book Club.  There was a discussion on a new book about the Battle of Mons, which seemed interesting because the author takes it full circle from the first battle to when they freed the town just before the end of the war.

Leave it to me, I had to leave a few comments and among them was about the "Old Contemptibles". I said that it was after this battle that the Kaiser made a remark about Britten's contemptible little army. I received a response from another member that it has never been verified that the Kaiser ever made that statement.

I replied, "That may be so, but why ruin a good story". Then I got to thinking, "I'll throw this out to the experts on the Great War Forum." Which I did and received a dozen replies which did not actually answer the question but worth writing about.

According to one source it all started when the Kaiser sent an order after the Battle of Mons. When the order was translated the translator wrote "contemptible little army" when it actually translated to "contemptibly  small army". The second translation is considered the correct one since he was referring to the size of the army, not the men in it.

Of course the propaganda mongers used the first translation to stir-up the Tommy's fighting spirit, which it did. Eventually it was used by the surviving professional soldiers as a badge of honor, separating them from the soldiers that replaced them.

If you were an "Old Contemptible" people knew that you went through Hell and survived. By the end of the First Battle of Ypres very few British professional soldiers were left.