Time difference

[eparges]

Hi,

looking for info on the difference between german time and allied time, I found several treads on this forum. Having applied some of the remarks, I found it didn't allways work or gave wrong results and did a little research. I found that:

* germans, french and brits introduced summertime in 1916

* german time was in general one hour ahead of european time

* allies on the western front (that is french and brits) used the french time

* all applied different dates for the beginning and ending of summertime

I 'poured' all this into a some tables (that is french and german times etc, since for battle(field)research the british time is irrelevant, hope I'm correct there, and postwar history didn't converse again..). Tables are german vs allied (french)

this gives for exemple:

* german source gives 12.00 (noon) on the 10th of may 1916, which makes it 10.00 am allied time

* allied source gives 20.00 pm on the 20th september 1918, which makes it...20.00 pm german time.

Well, hope I haven't made a mistake (or an ass), else, please correct!

timedifference.doc

[Chris Henschke]

Great work.

The time change for 7/8 October 1917 for the British was at 0100h, by the way.

'At 1 a.m. night of 7th/8th inst. All watches and clocks were put back one hour in order to revert to winter time.' 2nd ANZAC War diary

'Winter time will come into use on 7th October at 1 a.m. summer time aaa At that hour all clocks will be put back one hour.' Signal, 5 Aust Div, dated 6 Oct

Chris Henschke

[Neil Mackenzie]

Many thanks.

Neil

[eparges]

Hi Cris,

you're right about the time of change, but putting the hours of change of the 2 parties (germans/allies) in the table would have made it unworkable (in my opinion. the germans had different hours for start and end for 16,17,18 and differ from the french hour of changes, at 23.00h.). the timechange date and hour however were not purely british, it counted for all allied troops on the western front, it's actually the french time-change, the brits (in england) allready changed back to wintertime on the 17th of september (in 17). What puzzles me a bit is the fact (apparently, judging from your quote) that the brits conformed to the french date for the change, but at a different hour (french is allways at 23.00h...). If someone is interested, I can post the hours of german change.

[eparges]

german changes as for 1916,1917 & 1918:

30.04.1916, 23:00 Uhr - 01.10.1916, 01:00 Uhr

16.04.1917, 02:00 Uhr - 17.09.1917, 03:00 Uhr

15.04.1918, 02:00 Uhr - 16.09.1918, 03:00 Uhr

[Muerrisch]

Any quotation of [british] time before midnight 30Sep/1Oct 1918 in 24 hour clock is wrong:

AO 23 of 1918 refers.

[eparges]

this is merelly a help to calculate time difference.....

[Muerrisch]

Yes, I realise that and I was not criticising, but this crops up every now and then, and the British army simply did not go 24 hour clock until near war's end.

[NigelS]

A slight deviation - Today's Sunday Telegraph carries a piece about the first changeover to BST on May 21st 1916 just four days after the "Summer Time Act" had received Royal assent on the 17th. There was, apparently, quite an outcry when this was drawn to the attention of the general public, with the editor of "Meteorological Magazine" calling it "Prussian Time" and "Sham time" while accusing the government of: "compelling us to keep the time of the enemy meridian". The Telegraph article continues by mentioning that a another correspondent was able to counter this allegation by pointing out that: "the fact that noon is now that of Berlin need not cause the patriot to shudder at the change, because in Germany and its subject lands the noon of Petrograd (St. Petersburg) is used to set the summer clock"; Germany itself having , apparently, introduced daylight saving during summer months so that its time corresponded with that of St. Petersburg in Russia. Although the military might not have been confused about the correct time, doubtless a large part of the general public would have been.

[Fedelmar]

Interesting ... so if a soldier was killed behind German lines say 1st ... German Red Cross notified Aust ... then the date gets recorded as the 2nd in the soldier's files ... is the time difference possibly the reason why?

Bright Blessings

Sandra

[eparges]

Hi,

1st of..?? I think difference of actual time of death and the one recorded has possibly more to do with the time the soldiers body was recovered/identified, registred etc, especially if this was done by one of the opposing forces. As far as I understood, casualty-lists didn't (allways) come 'straight in', so there was allways the chance (..) of a difference between time of action, actual time of death, time of recovery and registration, forwarding information and notification. Hope I understood your question well...