British rifle-fire mistaken for machine-guns

[Pete1052]

The veracity of German casualty stats, honour-rolls etc. that you (and Pete) refer to was seriously challenged in the Machine Guns of Mons thread. GAC's posting, for example, raised many questions about the veracity of the German figures that have yet to be adequately answered. This is a lengthy post by GAC but well worth a read for those interested in these matters: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105402&view=findpost&p=1012424.

'

Two years ago when I read the Machine Guns of Mons thread I was more persuaded by Jack's casualty figures from German unit histories than by those who wish to preserve the heroic legend. George's post that you provided a link to denies the veracity of almost everything the Germans ever wrote about these engagements:

German unit histories -- they wanted to make their regiments look good so they can't be trusted

Reichswehr -- you can't believe anything those guys ever said or wrote

Sanitaetsbericht -- that was published after the Nazis came to power, so it must have been rewritten by the Nazis to make the German army look good.

Archives in Berlin bombed in 1945 -- the truth will never be known, so we can select our own facts

George's rebuttal of German sources was ad hominem. I don't want to enter into a long exchange of messages on this subject, but as I stated I found Jack's evidence in the earlier thread to be more persuasive than the other posts.

[SiegeGunner]

I'm pretty sure, John, that my post does not support your assertions that German bodies were "shipped-out". This is the first I've heard of such a thing happening, and, although it would solve the paradox I talk about, I have to say that I would need to see plenty of evidence before accepting it as fact.

I have certainly translated a German document dated March 1916 that referred to the prohibition in 1915 of the repatriation of bodies to the homeland, but that was akin to the British ban of similar date, and related to the return of individual fallen soldiers, in coffins, to their next-of-kin in Germany.

I have also seen numerous photographs of German bodies being transported away from the front on railway wagons, but they were trench railway wagons and the bodies were subsequently buried with the usual due ceremony in cemeteries behind the lines. The image of mainline railway cars filled with bodies is perhaps all too credible to some people because such things did happen in WW2.

Wherever German bodies ended up in WW1, the men would no longer be with their units and would therefore have been registered in those units' casualty returns. German records in 1914 were not compiled with any thought for their later scrutiny by the Allies. They recorded losses that needed to be replaced and men whose fate needed to be notified to their NoK. The Zentral-Nachweisebüro in Berlin received details of all casualties and kept extremely detailed records in order to answer queries from NoK. Virtually every German soldier had someone 'at home' and there is simply no question of train loads of bodies being shipped away for anonymous disposal, with no-one questioning what had become of them. German units were regionally-based and men could not simply be 'disappeared' without their surviving comrades writing letters, passing on information when on leave, etc.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Pete, me old squirrel munching mountaintop dweller, I'm entirely happy for you to feel free to remain unconvinced by anything I write. But if you are going to purport to represent what I say, at least do so in my own words and not with reductive and distorting summaries of your own devising.

You claim I say:

German unit histories -- they wanted to make their regiments look good so they can't be trusted.

In fact, in my post which you refer to, I built upon a point made by Jack in his excellent The German Army on the Somme: "Quite apart from a natural human tendency to put the best gloss on past events, it is undeniably the case that what was produced was intended to chronicle a lost war in such a way that the reputation of the German military in general and the Reichswehr in particular, would be enhanced."

You claim I say:

Reichswehr -- you can't believe anything those guys ever said or wrote.

See above for the point I was actually making about the Reichswehr.

You claim I say:

Sanitaetsbericht -- that was published after the Nazis came to power, so it must have been rewritten by the Nazis to make the German army look good.

I didn't say anything as crude as that the Sanitaetsbericht was "rewritten." The points I made were that: "One does not need to know " precise circumstances" of the publication of the Sanitaetsbericht. One only needs to know that it was published in Nazi Germany in 1934, and that the Nazis had passed the emergency decree 'For the Protection of People and State' on 28 February 1933. With one brief paragraph in that decree, the liberties enshrined in the Weimar constitution - including freedom of speech, of association and of the press, and privacy of postal and telephone communiations - were suspended indefinitely. Henceforth no newspapers or books could be published without the approval of Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda. [....] Contrast the 1934 Sanitaetsbericht casualty statistics with the account from the 3 Guard Field Artillery History published in 1931 (pre Nazi), which Jack quotes in post #198 - the 1931 work supports British accounts of the casualties inflicted by the BEF before Mons - as do others such as Bloem - whilst the 1934 Sanitaetsbericht is entirely unsupportive. Draw your own conclusions."

You claim I say:

Archives in Berlin bombed in 1945 -- the truth will never be known, so we can select our own facts.

Whereas in fact the point I actually made on this was to once more reference Jack's The German Army on the Somme: "Here, Jack reiterates what both he and I and others have noted on this thread: "A major obstacle to the study of any aspect of the Imperial German army is the fact that a bombing raid on Potsdam by the Royal Air Force, on 14 April 1945, completely destroyed the Prussian archives. Because Prussian formations and regiments accounted for almost 90 per cent of the army during the First World War, the seriousness of the loss of these documents cannot be overstated."

I had (and have) no intention of re-engaging on this subject on this thread as I've already posted my thoughts on the issue elsewhere, but I wanted to expose the crudely reductive misrepresentations of what I actually said on an old thread which you have posted here in order to make your own point - which appears to be that those who disagree with the suggestions of a paucity of German casualties are quixotically attempting to "preserve the heroic legend." Well, include me out of your transparent and fact-free attempt to undermine the credibility of those who come to conclusions other than your own - I'm not interested in legends, heroic or otherwise. And I mean to say, as if I would use a dreadful Americanism like "you can't believe anything those guys ever said or wrote" when discussing the Reichswehr......

Misrepresented George

[salesie]

'

Two years ago when I read the Machine Guns of Mons thread I was more persuaded by Jack's casualty figures from German unit histories than by those who wish to preserve the heroic legend. George's post that you provided a link to denies the veracity of almost everything the Germans ever wrote about these engagements:

German unit histories -- they wanted to make their regiments look good so they can't be trusted

Reichswehr -- you can't believe anything those guys ever said or wrote

Sanitaetsbericht -- that was published after the Nazis came to power, so it must have been rewritten by the Nazis to make the German army look good.

Archives in Berlin bombed in 1945 -- the truth will never be known, so we can select our own facts

George's rebuttal of German sources was ad hominem. I don't want to enter into a long exchange of messages on this subject, but as I stated I found Jack's evidence in the earlier thread to be more persuasive than the other posts.

Pete, I have no intention of preserving any legend, heroic or otherwise, if legend is what it actually is. But, let's be frank, your post simply proves my point - in that, you treat the serious questions raised by myself, GAC and others, with less than adequate answers. In fact, anyone reading GAC's post and then your highly simplistic rebuttal of it could be forgiven for seeing nothing but non-answers.

Cheers-salesie.

[salesie]

I have certainly translated a German document dated March 1916 that referred to the prohibition in 1915 of the repatriation of bodies to the homeland, but that was akin to the British ban of similar date, and related to the return of individual fallen soldiers, in coffins, to their next-of-kin in Germany.

I have also seen numerous photographs of German bodies being transported away from the front on railway wagons, but they were trench railway wagons and the bodies were subsequently buried with the usual due ceremony in cemeteries behind the lines. The image of mainline railway cars filled with bodies is perhaps all too credible to some people because such things did happen in WW2.

Wherever German bodies ended up in WW1, the men would no longer be with their units and would therefore have been registered in those units' casualty returns. German records in 1914 were not compiled with any thought for their later scrutiny by the Allies. They recorded losses that needed to be replaced and men whose fate needed to be notified to their NoK. The Zentral-Nachweisebüro in Berlin received details of all casualties and kept extremely detailed records in order to answer queries from NoK. Virtually every German soldier had someone 'at home' and there is simply no question of train loads of bodies being shipped away for anonymous disposal, with no-one questioning what had become of them. German units were regionally-based and men could not simply be 'disappeared' without their surviving comrades writing letters, passing on information when on leave, etc.

Thanks for that, Mick. As you've probably guessed, I'm extremely sceptical about the "shipped-out" claims made by Gunner (as much as I'd like them to be true).

Cheers-salesie.

[Piorun]

I too have no military background, and am at the beginning of a steep learning curve.I doubt if I will ever reach the level of expertise of Jack, or Peter, or many more of the excellent pals on this forum.

Are most of these old accounts unrealiable?

Cheers Mike

Not unreliable in the sense of untrue, Mike. Just unreliable in the sense that any witness statement, even today, is not necessarily an account of fact. It is an account of perceived fact; that is, fact coloured by emotion, whether by fear, by surprise, by horror, etc. The young soldier who says, "I was too fly for them" is making a very unreliable statement if one considers the speed of a shrapnel fragment travelling over, say, two hundred yards. "Fly" or not, if it had his name on it, he'd be dead. He was not fly, he was lucky. However, if you accept the uncolored statement that shells were bursting about him and throwing great lumps of tin about, then the account is quite reliable. Did ten men take the place of one? Possibly not. Was it nine? Was it twelve? What really matters in understanding the mind of the soldier under fire is that many dead men were almost immediately replaced by many more live ones. This is what gives the reader the feeling of reality and truth. This is what makes the account reliable - one's reliance on the feeling of the soldier who was there. I can tell you that one bullet too close can make your a***e tighten. Others might tell you it can't. Neither statement is unreliable in and of itself. It's all in the perception of one's own reality. Antony

[salesie]

Not unreliable in the sense of untrue, Mike. Just unreliable in the sense that any witness statement, even today, is not necessarily an account of fact. It is an account of perceived fact; that is, fact coloured by emotion, whether by fear, by surprise, by horror, etc. The young soldier who says, "I was too fly for them" is making a very unreliable statement if one considers the speed of a shrapnel fragment travelling over, say, two hundred yards. "Fly" or not, if it had his name on it, he'd be dead. He was not fly, he was lucky. However, if you accept the uncolored statement that shells were bursting about him and throwing great lumps of tin about, then the account is quite reliable. Did ten men take the place of one? Possibly not. Was it nine? Was it twelve? What really matters in understanding the mind of the soldier under fire is that many dead men were almost immediately replaced by many more live ones. This is what gives the reader the feeling of reality and truth. This is what makes the account reliable - one's reliance on the feeling of the soldier who was there. I can tell you that one bullet too close can make your a***e tighten. Others might tell you it can't. Neither statement is unreliable in and of itself. It's all in the perception of one's own reality. Antony

You're quite right, Antony, to point out that one man's fact is another's fiction - and I would add that that simple truism applies to all walks of life not just soldiering. But, in the case of Mons in particular, and the retreat-from in general, there is a remarkable, virtually universal, consistency in British accounts. A consistency that comes from all ranks, comes from units at different points on the battlefield, comes from contemporary accounts as well as post-war ones, comes from plenty of primary as well as secondary sources.

And, this consistency has stood the test of time. Legends, by definition, grow in stature during the re-telling - the tale of Mons etc. has not changed one jot since late August 1914. Legend it is not, and it will take more than decidedly iffy casualty stats, and a few technical discussions about the difference between rifle and machine gun fire, to overcome the fact that the German First Army, whether believing they were up against massed machine guns or not, came to quickly realise that the Old Contemptibles could, and did, punch well-above their weight.

Cheers-salesie.

[MikB]

At 200-300 yards I would have thought there were lots of examples. At 600 yards bullet velocity would have dropped by about 300 fps, but I still would not want be behind someone who had been hit.

John

With a ballistic coefficient of around 0.43, velocity will have dropped by 1000 fps or more at 600 yards, and stability is considerably reduced, so that penetration will be substantially less. The 303 that hit the Red Baron at a similar range only just exited.

Regards,

MikB

[Gunner Bailey]

With a ballistic coefficient of around 0.43, velocity will have dropped by 1000 fps or more at 600 yards, and stability is considerably reduced, so that penetration will be substantially less. The 303 that hit the Red Baron at a similar range only just exited.

Regards,

MikB

Not according to the ammunition makers data I was looking at recently. If a bullet 'starts its journey' at say 2400 fps there is no way it would be down to 1600 fps at 600 yards.

Regarding the Red Baron it is clear the fatal shot came from an unknown soldier with an SMLE and the range is completely UNKNOWN. There is no way you can state that as fact.

There was case in New York in the 1970's where a woman was shot in the head whilst driving her car on a freeway. The bullet pentrated her head but did not exit. The Police eventually found out it was an accident. The shot had been fired at geese on a lake by a man using a WW2 Lee Enfield. The range was 2 miles (3500 yards).

John

[Chris Boonzaier]

I really think that if anyone says the German records cannot be trusted, then he has a bias that overrules his knowledge.

If anyone believes this, then I think they should take a week off, pay a subscription to ancestry.com and go into the bavarian military records.

You can scroll through military record after military records, checking out the awards, wounds, missing and killed.

Choose 2 regiments at random and check the personnel records, see if the deaths tally.

The regimental histories were a monument to the men who served in the unit... do you not think the families and old soldiers would have noticed if people were left out? Or were they all part of the conspiracy that would later hide Jim Morrison and Elvis in Paris

[salesie]

I really think that if anyone says the German records cannot be trusted, then he has a bias that overrules his knowledge.

If anyone believes this, then I think they should take a week off, pay a subscription to ancestry.com and go into the bavarian military records.

You can scroll through military record after military records, checking out the awards, wounds, missing and killed.

Choose 2 regiments at random and check the personnel records, see if the deaths tally.

The regimental histories were a monument to the men who served in the unit... do you not think the families and old soldiers would have noticed if people were left out? Or were they all part of the conspiracy that would later hide Jim Morrison and Elvis in Paris

Perhaps if you dealt seriously with the points raised in post #78, Chris, your last post wouldn't come over as a desperate act of blind-faith. Answer those points in a detailed and rational way and, you never know, your touching but wholly fact-free act of faith may be given some credence.

Cheers-salesie.

[Piorun]

You're quite right, Antony, to point out that one man's fact is another's fiction - and I would add that that simple truism applies to all walks of life not just soldiering. But, in the case of Mons in particular, and the retreat-from in general, there is a remarkable, virtually universal, consistency in British accounts. A consistency that comes from all ranks, comes from units at different points on the battlefield, comes from contemporary accounts as well as post-war ones, comes from plenty of primary as well as secondary sources.

And, this consistency has stood the test of time. Legends, by definition, grow in stature during the re-telling - the tale of Mons etc. has not changed one jot since late August 1914. Legend it is not, and it will take more than decidedly iffy casualty stats, and a few technical discussions about the difference between rifle and machine gun fire, to overcome the fact that the German First Army, whether believing they were up against massed machine guns or not, came to quickly realise that the Old Contemptibles could, and did, punch well-above their weight.

Cheers-salesie.

Salesie: you're quite right (although I wouldn't have suggested that fiction is the opposite of fact - just inaccuracy) - and have pointed up the dangers of old men posting late at night when tired. My energy ran out before my argument Yes, it is the consistency found in the perceived reality of several witnesses that make an account historically reliable, not so much the perceived reality of one (no matter how factual that one account may actually be). When several accounts have been filtered through several emotional reactions and the reader is still left with consistent perceptions of fact, then the reader is entitled to assume that those perceptions are actual fact. That, and the unarguable physical data of bullets per minute deliverable by a steady line armed with SMLEs, makes large the probability that some Germans in certain places in certain circumstances believed that they were facing machine guns. Yours, Antony

[dutchbarge]

I really think that if anyone says the German records cannot be trusted, then he has a bias that overrules his knowledge.

If anyone believes this, then I think they should take a week off, pay a subscription to ancestry.com and go into the bavarian military records.

You can scroll through military record after military records, checking out the awards, wounds, missing and killed.

Choose 2 regiments at random and check the personnel records, see if the deaths tally.

The regimental histories were a monument to the men who served in the unit... do you not think the families and old soldiers would have noticed if people were left out? Or were they all part of the conspiracy that would later hide Jim Morrison and Elvis in Paris

Hello Chris,

Thanks for your interesting posting. I'll spend the weekend doing as you suggest. While Americans (and Germans?) view the debate as to whether or not the Germans at Mons believed they were facing machineguns or massed rifle fire as a mere footnote to the battle, to the Brits it is central to spinning their defeat at Mons into a moral victory. In the broad strokes of history the material fact is that the Germans drove the Brits out of Mons. To the Brits the take away point is that while out numbered and out gunned they nonetheless managed to inflict a disproportionate amount of casualties upon the Germans, a testament to the moral superiority of the professional British Infantryman. This superiority is evidenced by the argument that the Germans believed they faced machineguns and not massed rifle fire. Thus a tactical defeat becomes a moral victory. In wartime, this is a very smart way to put a positive spin on a negative event. As we say in America, 'if you've got lemons, you make lemonade'. However, whenever you are asked to believe something is true because of the consistency of collective perceived reality, remember the Angels of Mons. Cheers, Bill

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons

[SiegeGunner]

Salesie, could you please remind us what personal experience you have of researching, evaluating, cross-referencing and translating German records.

You evidently espouse a variant of reductio ad Hitlerum that might be called Godwin's Curse, whereby any German official source post-1933 can be dismissed out of hand without the need for evidence. This does not seem to square with the experience of the Nuremberg Tribunals, which time and again were able to document and substantiate Nazi crimes by reference to their own comprehensive, minutely detailed and excruciatingly explicit official records.

Mons was regarded by the Germans as a relatively minor engagement and received scant attention in the relevant volume of Der Weltkrieg, published in 1925. Nevertheless, we are invited to believe that, for some reason, Mons was so high on the Nazis' list of 'Things To Do' that within 12 months of coming to power, Goebbels's goons not only had the inclination and the opportunity but also the time and the resources to devote to 'cooking' the casualty statistics in the Sanitätsbericht in advance of its publication in 1934.

[salesie]

Salesie: you're quite right (although I wouldn't have suggested that fiction is the opposite of fact - just inaccuracy) - and have pointed up the dangers of old men posting late at night when tired. My energy ran out before my argument Yes, it is the consistency found in the perceived reality of several witnesses that make an account historically reliable, not so much the perceived reality of one (no matter how factual that one account may actually be). When several accounts have been filtered through several emotional reactions and the reader is still left with consistent perceptions of fact, then the reader is entitled to assume that those perceptions are actual fact. That, and the unarguable physical data of bullets per minute deliverable by a steady line armed with SMLEs, makes large the probability that some Germans in certain places in certain circumstances believed that they were facing machine guns. Yours, Antony

There are many more remarkably consistent British accounts of Mons etc. than just several, Antony - but there are several German accounts (discovered so far) that are consistent with British ones, and even von Kluck, the German commander, tells us how effectively the Old Contemptibles fought against his First Army. This collective body of evidence is a historically powerful tool; so may men telling an identical story.

Ranged against it are modern iconoclasts, who tell us that all of these accounts are at best mistaken, or perhaps a localised viewpoint, or at worst lies born out of the need for propaganda. They initially focus on the "machine gun story", but when it's pointed out that this is but one tiny part of the whole story and thus an irrelevance they switch to German casualty stats as "proof" - they tell us that because these German figures are only just coming to light then the whole story of Mons should be changed. But, when searching questions are asked about the veracity of this "new evidence" they fail to come up with any answers and turn their argument back full circle to the "machine guns" story (we even have one jumping in and talking about the Angels over Mons now, as if that's some kind of evidence).

In a nutshell, they can't answer the questions put to them because they don't have any - yet they persist in their blind-faith, iconoclast way; it's as if they can't come terms, after all these years, with the fact that, in essence, the German Army wasn't quite up to the job in 1914.

Cheers-salesie.

[salesie]

Salesie, could you please remind us what personal experience you have of researching, evaluating, cross-referencing and translating German records.

You evidently espouse a variant of reductio ad Hitlerum that might be called Godwin's Curse, whereby any German official source post-1933 can be dismissed out of hand without the need for evidence. This does not seem to square with the experience of the Nuremberg Tribunals, which time and again were able to document and substantiate Nazi crimes by reference to their own comprehensive, minutely detailed and excruciatingly explicit official records.

Mons was regarded by the Germans as a relatively minor engagement and received scant attention in the relevant volume of Der Weltkrieg, published in 1925. Nevertheless, we are invited to believe that, for some reason, Mons was so high on the Nazis list of 'Things To Do' that within 12 months of coming to power, Goebbels's goons not only had the inclination and the opportunity but also the time and the resources to devote to 'cooking' the casualty statistics in the Sanitätsbericht in advance of its publication in 1934.

Now come on, Mick, you've kept up with all the debates on this. You know as well as I do that the Nazi angle is just one of the doubts - there are also substantial discrepencies between the Sanitätsbericht figures and at least two other "official" German casualty counts. In other words, they don't bloody balance - so which one would you choose to make which point?

Cheers-salesie.

[dutchbarge]

Not to deviate from a fascinating thread but I don't think this (the danger/possibility of through-and-through casualties) was really one of the primary considerations (although it may be a "side benefit") - As far as I know, the change had more to do with rates of fire & weight of ammunition to be carried and arguments over the relative ballistic capabilities of the rounds, where the 7.62mm round was considered "overkill" in most combat situations and, particularly in semi-auto weapons, unnecessarily powerful - anyone who has compared the recoil of an M16/SA-80 to that of an M14/L1A1 will know what I mean. There were also political and economic considerations in the context of NATO standardization (which had also influenced the earlier adoption of the 7.62mm round!)One example where there were considerations of this is the use by counter terrorist/hostage rescue teams of low velocity 9mm rounds (or even semi-frangible ammunition)in sub-machine guns where there is a concern with rounds injuring those other than their intended target after passing through that target or a wall/floor etc.

In the context of the Great War I think it highly probable that quite a few casualties were sustained by both sides by ricochets, rounds passing through one individual and hitting others, friendly fire, and extreme range (spent) rounds etc. The number of examples of "bullets stopped by bibles/mirrors/cigarette lighters/matchfolds" etc (we have had several threads with pictures in the past) suggest it was relatively common for individuals to be struck by spent or nearly spent rounds - as under normal circumstances it would take significantly more than a soldiers' new testament to stop a 7.92mm Mauser round or a .303" I suppose a medieval parchment old testament might do it.

Sorry for the deviation and again - a wonderful and well informed thread I have read with great interest.

Chris

Hello Chris, May I add that one of the reasons we accepted the M-16 into service was that due to its shorter length, lighter weight (both rifle and ammunition) and lighter recoil, it was considered to be a more appropriate weapon for our Vietnamese allies than the M-14 due to the Vietnamese soldier's smaller physical stature (in comparison to the average US soldier). US soldiers at the time complained that the M-16's range and lethality were inferior to the M-14 and many soldiers continued to carry their M-14s long after the Army had offically classified the M-16 as the standard infantry rifle in 1968.

M-14 through and through hits did indeed cause multiple casualties. As the M-14's .308 is comparable to the Enfield's .303 I can see no reason why there would not have been be single round/multiple wounds caused by rapid fire at massed infantry at Mons (or anywhere else).

Regarding the question of rapid rifle fire being mistaken for machineguns, a soldier quickly learns to differentiate between and assess the relative immediate danger presented by his enemy's various weapons. I can't speak to Imperial German training, but modern training(at least from 1967 on in the US) includes exposure (often at close range and over ones head) to the various small arms employed by ones enemy. For several reasons it does matter what your enemy is firing at you (the tactics of neutralizing crew-served emplaced machineguns is different that of neutralizing individual riflemen). I can't accept that any German soldier with experience, much less a general officer, could mistake even the highly developed rapid fire of the British Army for machinegun fire.

Cheers, Bill

[Latze]

"One does not need to know " precise circumstances" of the publication of the Sanitaetsbericht. One only needs to know that it was published in Nazi Germany in 1934, and that the Nazis had passed the emergency decree 'For the Protection of People and State' on 28 February 1933. With one brief paragraph in that decree, the liberties enshrined in the Weimar constitution - including freedom of speech, of association and of the press, and privacy of postal and telephone communiations - were suspended indefinitely. Henceforth no newspapers or books could be published without the approval of Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda. [....] Contrast the 1934 Sanitaetsbericht casualty statistics with the account from the 3 Guard Field Artillery History published in 1931 (pre Nazi), which Jack quotes in post #198 - the 1931 work supports British accounts of the casualties inflicted by the BEF before Mons - as do others such as Bloem - whilst the 1934 Sanitaetsbericht is entirely unsupportive. Draw your own conclusions."

George and Salesie,

there are two books written about the workings of the Reichsarchiv covering the period of the publication of the 'Sanitätsbericht'. These are:

Matthias Herrmann: "Das Reichsarchiv 1919-1945"

Markus Pöhlmann: "Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik: Der Erste Weltkrieg. Die amtliche deutsche Militärgeschichtsschreibung 1914-1956"

Both are critical of the 'official military history' but in both books there is no evidence mentioned that the casualty figures were tempered with. Not even an attempt to do so is recorded. The view you seem to hold that immediately starting February 1933 not a single word was published uncontrolled is false anyway. Books much more 'outside' official doctrine were still published in Germany even later than 1934. Not to mention that this was a technical document necessary for planning future wars and was published by an institution carrying much clout.

I think that the burden of proof lies with you two. Do you have clear evidence of tampering with the casualty figures? Do you have clear evidence that the Nazi party line had an interest into playing down Great War casualties?

Concerning Bloem - one of the key witnesses for the British version - his book describes text book German assaults in 'lichten Schützenlinien' (extended skirmish lines) not massed ranks. And there is no mention of concentrated machine gun fire. It is even said in the text that what they took to be some flanking rifles were in a fact a machine gun (which the British abandonedand that was found the next day).

regards

Matt

[Piorun]

There are many more remarkably consistent British accounts of Mons etc. than just several, Antony - but there are several German accounts (discovered so far) that are consistent with British ones, and even von Kluck, the German commander, tells us how effectively the Old Contemptibles fought against his First Army. This collective body of evidence is a historically powerful tool; so may men telling an identical story.

Cheers-salesie.

Point made, Salesie. However, I was only using "several" in a conceptual sense, rather than in direct application to Mons. I'm aware of the overwhelming evidence on hand; just making the observation that, to the forensic examiner, the best practice of evaluating evidence as to reliability or probability hasn't really changed. Regards, Antony

[Piorun]

Regarding the question of rapid rifle fire being mistaken for machineguns, a soldier quickly learns to differentiate between and assess the relative immediate danger presented by his enemy's various weapons. I can't speak to Imperial German training, but modern training(at least from 1967 on in the US) includes exposure (often at close range and over ones head) to the various small arms employed by ones enemy. For several reasons it does matter what your enemy is firing at you (the tactics of neutralizing crew-served emplaced machineguns is different that of neutralizing individual riflemen). I can't accept that any German soldier with experience, much less a general officer, could mistake even the highly developed rapid fire of the British Army for machinegun fire.

Cheers, Bill

Ah, now, Bill, this could open a wonderful new thread on the efficacy of US training infantry (and maybe even bring into play the recent w***leaks comments about British competence in Afghanistan or how to rescue hostages ) Only joking!! However, I would suggest that live-fire training, while useful in several ways, may not fully prepare a soldier for being asked to advance upright and in the open against an entrenched enemy. Another factor of unreality is that no live-fire exercise I've ever undertaken or witnessed approached anywhere close to the volume of men, ammunition and noise that must surely have been mind-numbingly overwhelming during Mons. When sense and intellect are overwhelmed, the vast majority of sacrificial lambs suspend reality and slog on like automatons. Afterwards, when the accounts are being compiled and written, then does the emotional human element return to reason and words like, "We thought they were using machine-guns" or, "The effect was like machine-guns" or, "Mein Gott! So many dead! They must have been using machine-guns" find their way into the reliable records. By then, it doesn't really matter that a few well-seasoned men noted the position of m/gs and altered tactics accordingly. They did their job or were dead. If alive, they supported the perception by confirming the presence of m/gs. If they were dead, neither their perceptions or their reality mattered any more. Regards, Antony

[salesie]

George and Salesie,

there are two books written about the workings of the Reichsarchiv covering the period of the publication of the 'Sanitätsbericht'. These are:

Matthias Herrmann: "Das Reichsarchiv 1919-1945"

Markus Pöhlmann: "Kriegsgeschichte und Geschichtspolitik: Der Erste Weltkrieg. Die amtliche deutsche Militärgeschichtsschreibung 1914-1956"

Both are critical of the 'official military history' but in both books there is no evidence mentioned that the casualty figures were tempered with. Not even an attempt to do so is recorded. The view you seem to hold that immediately starting February 1933 not a single word was published uncontrolled is false anyway. Books much more 'outside' official doctrine were still published in Germany even later than 1934. Not to mention that this was a technical document necessary for planning future wars and was published by an institution carrying much clout.

I think that the burden of proof lies with you two. Do you have clear evidence of tampering with the casualty figures? Do you have clear evidence that the Nazi party line had an interest into playing down Great War casualties?

Concerning Bloem - one of the key witnesses for the British version - his book describes text book German assaults in 'lichten Schützenlinien' (extended skirmish lines) not massed ranks. And there is no mention of concentrated machine gun fire. It is even said in the text that what they took to be some flanking rifles were in a fact a machine gun (which the British abandonedand that was found the next day).

regards

Matt

Firstly, let me say for one last time - the "machine guns" story is in many ways a red-herring, thrown up by the iconoclasts when they have no answers to searching questions about the veracity of German casualty stats. It doesn't matter whether one Jerry or one-hundred-thousand believed the BEF had massed machine guns at Mons - it is an irrelevance - the German army was critically delayed by a much smaller force, a smaller force it had laughingly derided until meeting it in action.

As for the Sanitätsbericht - on this forum there are a few threads with posts giving at least three versions of "official" German casualty stats. None of these give the same totals, and the discrepancies are pretty big. There is no balance between these differing versions, which means that, logically, they can't all be correct, but they could all be wrong. Which one of these non-balancing totals shall we choose? The Sanitätsbericht has considerably less deaths recorded than the other two versions (search German casualty stats and find the threads for yourself - because you'll have to do much better than your last post, Matt, to make anything like a viable case).

As for the Nazis; if a nazi told me that I was a 59 year-old Yorkshireman, living in Sheffield, married for thirty years to an Irish lass, having produced two daughters and a son - I'd doubt my own life and check-out the evidence before believing him.

Cheers-salesie.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Perhaps if you dealt seriously with the points raised in post #78, Chris, your last post wouldn't come over as a desperate act of blind-faith. Answer those points in a detailed and rational way and, you never know, your touching but wholly fact-free act of faith may be given some credence.

Cheers-salesie.

That is rather pathetic.

Do you seriously believe the Huns went back and falsified the records of individual soldiers to make it look like they had less casualties?

That they took the records of men killed in 1914 or 15 and added battle entries and awards to make it look like they had never been killed?

If you do, then I realise that my time is too precious to discuss it with you.

Best

Chris

[MikB]

Not according to the ammunition makers data I was looking at recently. If a bullet 'starts its journey' at say 2400 fps there is no way it would be down to 1600 fps at 600 yards.

Regarding the Red Baron it is clear the fatal shot came from an unknown soldier with an SMLE and the range is completely UNKNOWN. There is no way you can state that as fact.

There was case in New York in the 1970's where a woman was shot in the head whilst driving her car on a freeway. The bullet pentrated her head but did not exit. The Police eventually found out it was an accident. The shot had been fired at geese on a lake by a man using a WW2 Lee Enfield. The range was 2 miles (3500 yards).

John

Hi John,

A case such as the one you mention certainly offers no more substantial evidence than that of the Red Baron, and in his case it was the ballistic evidence that suggested the range was comparable to the Lewis gun shooter rather than the Vickers on Roy Brown's Camel.

The velocity loss figure comes from the Speer Long Range Ballistic Tables, 12th Edition, quoting for a pointed flatbase 165 grain .308" diameter bullet close in form, size and sectional density to Mk.VII ball. For such a bullet launched at 2400 fps the downrange residual velocity figures are:-

100 yds - 2204 fps, 200 - 2017, 300 - 1840, 400 - 1674, 500 - 1521 ; and it's obviously reasonable to assume at least another 100 fps lost in the next 100 yards travel to 600.

I don't believe an ammunition maker with as strong a form and following as Speer would overstate their velocity loss, and I don't believe their very well-finished bullets would perform materially worse than military issue ball. I don't know whose data you were looking at, but I'd be interested to see the detail of their claims.

Regards,

MikB

[dutchbarge]

It doesn't matter whether one Jerry or one-hundred-thousand believed the BEF had massed machine guns at Mons

Cheers-salesie.

Actually it does. This was the original theme of the thread before you transformed it into your personal bully pulpit for thinly veiled German-bashing and British jingoism. There are many non-British (as well as British) members of the Forum who don't share your prejudices and are here to discuss the Great War and not Nazis.

As to Moonraker's original question. While it is possible that a few inexperienced German soldiers mistook the rapid rifle fire of the British Army at Mons for machinegun fire, that it has become a legend demonstrating the 'pluck' of the British professional soldier is almost certainly the result of British propaganda. While this was no doubt good for war-time British morale, I think the true story of their courage and professionalism under fire in what they must have known was an almost impossible situation is far more interesting.

Cheers, Bill

[Steven Broomfield]

Or were they all part of the conspiracy that would later hide Jim Morrison and Elvis in Paris

Don't forget Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix ... what a band!

Seriously, though, as an outsider on this discussion, I personally find t hard to believe the Nazis had little to do with their time than rewrite the German casualty returns from what was (to them, I suspect) a somewhat minor skirmish.