yesterday channel

[mandy hall]

Just starting now about WW1, looks like this prog may interest us.

Mandy

[IanA]

It might have done. Pity it was manipulative tosh.

[Roxy]

Just watched the re-run; I'm inclined to agree with IanA!

Roxy

[War13Memorial]

I have just watched a repeat of the programme mentioned above by Mandy.

I personally found it very interesting and I am now more knowledgeable on the subject than I was before.

Could I please ask IanA to expand on "manipulative tosh" so I can see where I have gone wrong and put me to rights .

I wonder if Mandy thought it was "manipulative tosh" ? Maybe Roxy might respond ?

Billy

[Roxy]

Billy,

I appreciate that Great War executions can cause extremes of views - at one point, due to threats of legal action, the subject was forbidden on the Forum; however, I felt that the programme was based on why it was wrong that Harry Farr was executed, rather than an exploration of the subject. That said, it was noted that 97% of death sentences were commuted and, if it raised your interest in the subject, it can't have been too much of a bad thing. If you are interested in further research, I'd recommend 'Blindfold and Alone' by Corns and Hughes-Wilson (There are other books available!) or search the Forum for 'Shot at Dawn'.

Roxy

[George Armstrong Custer]

Here's a review of the 'Find My Past' programme which I posted on the Haig FB page:

The first thing to say, of course, is that its main function was to act as an extended advertisement for ‘Find My Past’, the commercial genealogy research company. The second obvious point was that, despite the participation of respected military historians – Sheffield, Strachan, Robertshaw – there was clearly no editorial input in the finished programme from these historians. As ever, it will have been produced and the agenda set by media studies graduates, and the resulting programme was highly manipulative in the way it attempted to steer contributors towards the fulfilment of that required agenda. In short, that agenda was obviously to contrast an innocent man shot at dawn at the behest of his Colour Sergeant, in a process which was rubber stamped by ‘Butcher Haig’ – with the climax of the programme being a hoped for clash between the descendants of the three participants. Unfortunately for the programme makers, neither the facts of the case, nor the contributions of the historian contributors, played along with that agenda – which perhaps explains why their appearances were so brief. And the three descendants, far from being confrontational with each other, behaved with great dignity and rose above the rather crass attempts of the programme makers to manipulate the story by judging it through present day sensibilities, rather than by the contemporary evidence of the rules and mores by which the actual participants had been bound in 1916.

For the benefit of those who did not see it, in brief the programme revolved around the story of a soldier who repeatedly left his mates in the lurch, rejected every attempt by his RSM to persuade him not to, and ended up getting tried, found guilty and sentenced to be shot for it, with precious few of his mates or superiors expressing any sympathy for him. Given this, there was little room for the C-in-C not to confirm the sentence. These bare bones of the story were quite apparent from the input of the various experts consulted, and no amount of editing could take away from that. With their being little sympathy for the soldier in question from his contemporary peers and superiors, the programme makers were in something of an evidential dilemma in so far as presenting the story in terms of present day sensibilities was concerned.

They seem to have attempted to get around this by keeping the historians’ onscreen time to a minimum, and writing a script for the presenter – who normally reports on sport for BBC Breakfast - which subverted much of the unavoidable but inconvenient evidence from the experts. His script therefore trotted out the usual calumnies – most soldiers in 1914 thought the war would be over by Christmas; the focus on the casualties of the first day of the Somme, but no mention of the uniqueness of that. Instead we were told that “Haig continued to press on for weeks”, as if it was all more of the same without consequence for the Germans. So there is no contextual mention of the German High Command’s conclusion at the end of 1916 that they could not bear another Somme, nor that they fell back to new positions at the end of the four months of attrition from the BEF on the Somme.

And so it went on. For instance, the programme makers had obviously been informed by one of their team of historians (probably Sheffield) that Haig had in fact commuted over 90% of the death sentences passed by military courts martial whilst he was C-in-C. Yet, instead of simply reporting that fact by saying that “Haig was remarkably lenient and in 97% of cases of cowardice commuted it to a lesser punishment,” we instead get the pejorative rider “Despite being nicknamed the Butcher of the Somme, Haig was remarkably lenient and in 97% of cases of cowardice commuted it to a lesser punishment.” Not only does this give the erroneous impression that ‘Butcher of the Somme’ was a contemporary nickname for Haig, it also implies that those executed by the BEF were only found guilty of cowardice, rather than the reality of a whole host of crimes, including rape and looting. The programme also failed to mention that latter fact when informing the viewer that all those shot at dawn in the Great War were pardoned in 2006.

The three descendants who participated were in turn sat alongside a genealogist with a laptop, who gave them specious information on their families, before getting to the point of which ancestor the programme was interested in. In Peter Howard Johnston’s case we had the ludicrous situation of a genealogist telling him about his mother’s marriage from the ‘Find Your Past’ page on her laptop. Not only would Mr Howard Johnston clearly be aware of his parent’s marriage, but the whole story was set out in great detail just last year in Adam Sisman’s biography of Hugh Trevor Roper. In other words, the whole programme was contrived in order to promote its commercial sponsor, ‘Find My Past’.

For similar reasons we were given the impression that Mr Howard Johnston needed to meet with Huw Strachan to see where his grandfather was buried and be told something of his role as C-in-C of the BEF. In reality, Mr Howard Johnston has attended services of commemoration at Dryburgh Abbey where his grandfather is buried in the past. None of this is Mr Howard Johnston’s fault – both he and the other two participants were shamelessly manipulated by the programme maker’s agenda. Despite that, all three emerged with a quiet dignity and commendably rose above the clear intent of the production team to generate some friction at the end of the programme when all three were brought together to ‘confront’ each other. None rose to the bait, and the production team were reduced to tacking on a piece filmed later in which they got the descendant of the soldier who had been executed to say she wished she’d been harder on the other two descendants. She also said that if only Haig had known the truth about her ancestor then he might not have made the ‘mistake’ of confirming his sentence. Which again is an example of the programme maker's completely ignoring the contemporary evidence put forward by the various historians in their programme that the evidence passed up the chain of command to Haig showed no mitigating sympathy for the accused either from his peers or his superiors.

A manipulative programme, which determinedly tried to circumvent the evidence of its own historical advisers, and which attempted to manipulate three descendants of the original participants in order to make ‘good TV’ and promote the ‘Find My Past’ brand.

George

[truthergw]

I am waiting for a programme to put forward the point of view of the men who did their duty and stuck it out. Just as scared, just as wet, cold and hungry and who suffered the same stress. No gallantry awards, few, if any, poems written about them. The men who ate their bully beef and did their bit. The vast majority.

[squirrel]

Well said Tom - I completely agree.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Me too.

George

[John_Hartley]

I am waiting for a programme to put forward the point of view of the men who did their duty and stuck it out.

I'd have thought you need look no further than the BBC "Great War" series,from the mid 1960s.

[George Armstrong Custer]

Indeed, John - but that was nearly half a century ago. The BBC series was in fact mentioned by way of contrast in the discussion on the Haig FB page about the shortcomings of the 'Find My Past' programme:

Television histories of the Great War are never going to raise their game until the historians they employ to comment are also given some measure of editorial input over the finished product. The BBC's landmark 'The Great War' series from 1964 has of course dated in many ways. Nontheless it has stood the test of time for nearly half a century and retained its credibility largely because of the script and editorial input of historians of the calibre of John Terraine and Correlli Barnett. The companies who churn out product for the 'History Channel', 'Yesterday' and others, could learn a valuable lesson there - they might even find that they increase their audience by ditching the current ubiquitous dumbing down in favour of historical credibility.

George

[truthergw]

I'd have thought you need look no further than the BBC "Great War" series,from the mid 1960s.

A great series, John but I would like to watch something based on the research of say, the last ten or twenty years.

[mandy hall]

In reply to Billy in post 4, I don't know enough to comment on the subject. I was just flagging up a WW1 programme on TV. I was also trying to compete in the GWF quiz at the same time without much success.

Mandy

[IanA]

Could I please ask IanA to expand on "manipulative tosh" so I can see where I have gone wrong and put me to rights .

What George said.

The producers of this programme were clearly looking for a bust-up which failed to take place. There were resonances from another television programme where Dan Snow ended up apologising (rather foolishly) for actions taken by an ancestor he had never met and which took place before he was born.

[Steven Broomfield]

I do wish George would get off the fence sometimes and tell us what he really thinks.

[Seadog]

I viewed some of the prog I must say at a more basic level. The presenter with the very weak voice puts me off for starters and how he ever got a job presenting programmes beats me, secondly when Andy Robertshaw made an apperance that for me was the time to either switch off or look for something more interesting like the weather forecast!.

Regards

Norman

GWF Member and TV critic.

[War13Memorial]

Thanks for all the responses for putting me right.

A lot of what George says I do agree with

One final comment on the programme

"that's en ter tain ment"

Billy

[RaySearching]

Programme !

and here’s me thinking it was a rather long advert for Find My Past

Must have consumed to many cans of the Amber Nectar

regards Ray

[kenf48]

Programme !

and here's me thinking it was a rather long advert for Find My Past

It was! Amber nectar notwithstanding they seem to have achieved their objective!

http://uktv.co.uk/ne...item/aid/645241

To promote the series FMP have also taken full advantage of social networking and modern media

http://www.findmypas...t-tv/about.html

The fact the series is a media driven marketing tool for Brightsolid does not mean it's immune from criticism but the content has generated the usual controversy from those pursuing their own agendas not only on this forum but also on rootschat and I guess, Titanic/Jack the Ripper/ Dunkirk etc forums as well!

It is ironic the media the critics seem to despise gives them a platform to promulgate petty rivalry and jealousy without challenge. Their anonymity allows them to browbeat into submission anyone who dares to say they found the programme entertaining and woe betide anyone who says they learned something.

If the programme makers do no harm to the reputation of their subjects or the participants and, in the episodes I've seen, they have been balanced and fair to all. There has been no attempt to provoke a confrontation among the participants but simply to allow them to share their 'journey'. Criticism of the content is subjective and open to interpretation and debate. I thought the academics for example, were given a reasonable opportunity to make their point. I also found it interesting that Haig's grandson was able to say he kept quiet about his relationship when at school but now in the light of recent research felt proud to be associated with his ancestor.

As history becomes more closely linked to genealogy and outside academia, as Professor Jeremy Black recently noted interest in WW1 is largely genealogical, the desire to cash in has echoes of Richard Aldington's telegram to his American agent in May 1929, "Referring great success of Journey's End and German war novels urge earliest fall publication Death of a Hero to take advantage of public mood. Large scale English war novel might go big now'.

The expectation was to make money not A level literature syllabus.

I don't think you can criticise FMP for promoting their records and attempting to make a profit from their business.

If the series increases sales presumably that helps maintain subscription costs at an affordable level.

Hopefully that's not all it does but in that regard alone the series is to be applauded, even by the amateur 'critics'.

Ken

[War13Memorial]

Well said Ken

Billy

[Steven Broomfield]

Billy, I'm intrigued - which side of the fence are you coming down on? One post agrees with George's criticism of the rogramme, while another agrees with ken's defence of it. I've not seen the programme, by the way.

Confused of Eastleigh.