Colonel Mackenzie

Colonel Mackenzie (1867- 1936) was a fictional British Army colonel who served on the Western Front of World War I, in the movie 1917 (2019). He was played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

In 1917, he led the 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment on the front at Écoust-Saint-Mein in northern France, and he grew disillusioned with high command due to their conflicting orders and their perceived lack of knowledge about the situation on the ground.

In February 1917, when Lance Corporal Will Schofield arrived at the Devons' trenches and told Mackenzie that command ordered him to immediately halt his offensive, Mackenzie initially refused, saying that the British had the Germans on the run, and he intended to send a second wave. Schofield revealed that the Germans wanted the British to advance to lure them into a trap, and he finally persuaded Mackenzie to read the letter, forcing a reluctant Mackenzie to call off the attack. Mackenzie then said that his day had been ruined, and expressed his philosophy that the war would ultimately be a contest of the "last man standing".

He then angrily dismissed Schofield, who went to look for his late comrade Tom Blake's brother Joseph Blake.

Criticism

An ignorant and ineffective leader, Colonel Mackenzie was cut off from communications and yet posted sentries at his door with instructions to keep runners out. He received the messenger from high command very coldly. He appeared dismissive of the value of intelligence, aerial reconnaissance, combined arms tactics, infiltration tactics, and defense in depth.

Hesitate now and we lose. Victory is only 500 yards away.

Mackenzie seemed to have learned nothing from three years of war, and in 1917, unaware of what the Germans or the rest of his own army were doing, he ordered a Napoleonic-style human wave attack, apparently expecting it to carry and go beyond the German defenses. Even after grudgingly calling off the attack, his very next order was to pack the front line with soldiers, where they would be exposed to German artillery fire.

These were all preventable mistakes by 1917, and many British commanders were doing better. Mackenzie's wild justification:

I hoped today might be a good day. Hope is a dangerous thing. That’s it for now, then next week, Command will send a different message. Attack at dawn. There is only one way this war ends. Last man standing. Have someone see to your wounds. Now fuck off, Lance Corporal.

Such strategic obliviousness would be laughable if not coming from a superior officer. Was he not aware of the extreme manpower shortages in Great Britain and France? What was the point of throwing away lives? Wasn't the USA about to enter the war? And a host of new technologies coming into their own, like tanks, airplanes, and radios? Meanwhile the Allied naval supremacy and their blockade continued to strangle the Central Powers. If he really believed in "last man standing" then he would not order pointless, suicidal attacks without proper reconnaissance.

It is possible that the screenwriters told the story this way in defense of generals who were unfairly maligned in the years shortly after the war. They appear to be passing the blame to lower ranking officers. Or maybe the story was supposed to be set in 1914 or 1915 and they changed it to 1917 to capture American audiences.