Did anyone see the BBC documentary about the Somme? What did you think.
WW1 isn't really my period, but I enjoyed it. Before you moan, remember it, like all documentaries, is for the layman, not the enthusiastic amateur.
So it will be perpetuating myths then.
It does at least raise the point that all the modern histories are very Anglo-centric. It attempt to show the Geeman side, showed my class the bit about the phone taps today, they couldn't believe the British...
Quote from: Leman on 19 July 2016, 06:50:19 PM
So it will be perpetuating myths then.
Not really, no. Watch it and then comment.
Mollinary
So far a bit repetitive, some extraordinary stills and movie I for one haven't seen before, made it worthwhile. See what the rest of the series is like.
History is always repetitive...it is the 'new theory' that should be analysed with caution, though, sometimes it can hit the nail. Much of the programme was nothing new, but still good stuff. In U.K we tend to forget the importance of routine intelligence gathering which seems to have paid off for the Germans in this field. Remember that in WW2 we used this to our advantage quite famously!
I liked seeing the modern views of the ground...books tend not to show such overviews...and it is often the actual land surface which is SO important.
Personally, I paused over a 'still' showing a wagon team and teamster KIA. My Grandfather, (at one time, a driver on M.G Corps ammo wagons), had an entire team killed under him at some point in the war. It rather affected him all his days...and the photo reminds you why. :(
Worth the watch.
It was the shot of the trench mortar firing that got me. My great-grandad's brother served with them as Passchedale, and was never found.
Are we talking about the one sub titled 'Both sides of the Wire'? I've seen about half on iPlayer and will see the rest probably tonight, so far it's pretty interesting, there is some use of standard stock film which was shot later but odd snippets like the 2" toffee apple trench mortar and the men in the lane waiting to attack was very interesting, as was the information about the German intellegence.
The main problem with programs about the Somme is that they concentrate on the disasterous first day, the BBC did one a few years ago called something like 'The Somme; from defeat to victory' which followed the development of British tactics methods after the first day.
What I wasn't so sure about was the assertion that the troops were 'trained but not experienced', some books I've read indicate that Kitchener's 'New Army' was raised so quickly that training was only basic at best, a major factor in the order to 'walk across no-mans land' was due to a realisation that the troops weren't able to use the sophisticated tactics like advancing by squads and companies.
That said the British High Command always seems at best culpable.
Quote from: DanJ on 20 July 2016, 08:54:28 AM
What I wasn't so sure about was the assertion that the troops were 'trained but not experienced', some books I've read indicate that Kitchener's 'New Army' was raised so quickly that training was only basic at best, a major factor in the order to 'walk across no-mans land' was due to a realisation that the troops weren't able to use the sophisticated tactics like advancing by squads and companies.
That said the British High Command always seems at best culpable.
One of the main points they made about that Dan was the men were ordered not to charge as the officers were convinced they were launching a mopping up operation after the seven day artillery bombardment and that the German army was shattered. The officers were so convinced they kept repeating it to the men, so it became 'fact' as the advance went in.
Yes, DanJ -
The Somme 1916 - From Both Sides of the Wire.
Quote from: Leman on 19 July 2016, 06:50:19 PM
So it will be perpetuating myths then.
Are you getting cynical in your old age, Andy? ;) As Mollinary says, you should watch it (the programme) (.... maybe the cynicism too? :P )
One of the things I picked up on was the evidence of 'war crimes' perpetuated by both sides, and according to the archives researched by Barton, mainly by the British. One example was the shooting & bayoneting of two German prisoners - don't know what motivated that. Was due to the actions of rogue individuals (after all, you get good, bad and just plain thick guys in every nation or society - or perhaps they were guys who had lost so many pals and were itching for revenge)? Or, as was hinted at, was it that the momentum of the advance was all important to the British who were expected to penetrate the second German defensive line and so prisoners were .... well, work it out yourself. I don't think there is any evidence that this came from Higher Command but it makes you wonder what pressures were being exerted on or by the lower level of command in specific sectors of the battlefield. :-\
The thing that really got me was the non-existent security. British prisoners telling everything they knew.
QuoteThe thing that really got me was the non-existent security.
That was quite an eye opener, I was amazed at the telephone tapping, wonder how the Germans did it with the technology of the time?
The BBC Radio 4 series "Tommies" dealt with this rather well. If accurate, senior officers were very resistant to the idea that there was a problem or that it needed addressing.
Tapping an old phone is quite easy- you just attach a device to pickup the signal to the wire. The implication is they had spies behind Allied lines.
iirc the problem was that as the front went back and forth wires that had been laid in friendly territory could end up in enemy territory instead and also that enemy raiding parties could intercept stuff too. Security discipline on both telephone and wireless seems to have been deplorable, at least earlyish on.
Watched it again last night.
I know, let's set off a huge explosion, just leave Jerry to work out we are coming!
And then have no communication with successful formations to send them reserves, while sending taw reserves into the open to form up in front of ranged in HMGs...
Only us British could be so overconfident to blow it like we did.
50-90% of artillery were duds. In a way we'll never know if the idea that the artillery was overwhelming, because only 1/£ of it went boom!
That too!
No wonder Krupp sued after the war!
So far it's enjoyable if a rather predictable iteration of what went wrong on day 1, albeit with a couple of new twists, German intelligence and high percentage of artillery duds. Although there was an anomaly in that both sides agreed the week long barrage was very impressive in terms of volume of fire over the German trenches but so 90% of shells couldn't have been duds, I'm surprised he didn't pick up on the fact the majority of shells were still shrapnel and the British artillery didn't have a working impact fuse.
I'm more interested in how Peter Barton will develop the story from Day 2 onwards.
Episode 2
The German system of self examination (oo-eer) was impressive.
Quote from: Last Hussar on 27 July 2016, 12:49:31 AM
Episode 2
The German system of self examination (oo-eer) was impressive.
Compare that to the British High Command's belief in the effectiveness of cavalry, 'no country for old men'.
Will catch up on these soon. Certainly not a period I know a lot about, but always good to learn.
Just watched episode 1 on the iplayer - better than most of the hoary old stuff that gets spouted.
Caught up on both this evening and must say I enjoyed them.
I've now watched both episodes and have been hugely impressed. It
includes a lot of information that was new to me, particularly the forced
German movement out of obliterated trenches into shell holes to avoid
the allied air force and artillery.
Well worth watching.
Watched the last of the series last night on iPlayer, very impressed, pity it wasn't made into a six part series, lets hope there's a follow up for the Messines and Pachendael battles next year..
What struck me most was the continued appalling British security, who ever took the 'Top Secret, not to be removed, destroy when read' document to the front line and let it be captured should have been shot....
Actually, given the casualty figures he probably was.
Slack security was/is the bane of all armies. It got so bad in WWII Hitler made carrying secret papers by air a capital offence; slack non reg signals procedure opened the crack in enigma. Christopher Duffy's 'Through German Eyes' is the Somme seen from the other side of the wire, they regarded it as a defeat. Must say I'm a bit sick of this Britain bashing, by 1918 our army was the best in europe, untainted by mutiny with an unsurpassed run of victories in the hundred days. Haig was a great general.
I always think that Haig was cursed with trying to do a certain job (i.e. attack the enemy) whilst the technology to do so was still developing around him. By the end of the war the technology and the tactics were in place to achieve what he needed to do. Another of Haig's problems was that he was conducting the first mass war in British history at a time when most of the population could now read and write and there were at least two forms of mass media, giving rise to outpourings of sorrow and grief which had not been experienced on such a huge scale before. This appears to have had a massive influence on the view of WWI in popular culture, coupled with the late C20th/C21st western cultural development of outward shows of grief. Just one example being that as a youngster in the 50s, 60s and 70s I never once saw a lamp post bedecked with flowers.
As with all things as big as WW1 it is a very complex subject with errors made all over the place.
Haig was probably the only person capable of running the British on the Western Front, if there had been an alternative Lloyd George would have got rid of Haig.
Haig was certainly cursed on several accounts, technology, size of army, security, training, tactics and politics to name just a few.
The idea of bashing WW1 seems to have been a product of the 1960s and 70s, the product of revisionist historians and men like Alan Clarke. I can certainly remember men who fought in the war and while they said it was terrible there was huge pride in what they'd achieved.
For anyone interested in the what the British army could achieve by 1918 I'd recommend '1918 A Very British Victory' by Peter Hart.
Quote from: DanJ on 10 August 2016, 09:41:50 AM
As with all things as big as WW1 it is a very complex subject with errors made all over the place.
For anyone interested in the what the British army could achieve by 1918 I'd recommend '1918 A Very British Victory' by Peter Hart.
Or "Forgotten Victory: The First World War, Myths and Reality" by Gary Sheffield.
Haven't heard of that one, once I'm finished Fermer I'll give it a bash.