BBC2 'The Somme 1916: From Both Sides of the Wire'

[Guest]

15 hours ago, brummell said:

Peter Barton himself writes in his 'The Somme - A New Panoramic Perspective', p.147, 'It is today suspected that this method of eavesdropping gave the Germans far more information than that obtained from prisoners, deserters, local spies, information recovered from the dead or from captured documents and equipment... It has not yet been ascertained how many other [than the Rawlinson 'good luck' message on 30 June] British communications has been intercepted, how long the practice had been going on, nor how many other Moritz systems were employed.'  The book was published in 2006.

 

By the sounds of it, Mr Barton's research presented in the programme does bring new information to light which touches on the relative amount and value of information received from Moritz versus other sources, on the number of communications intercepted and on how many systems were in use in the Somme area - but to present the fact of Moritz's use as a great revelation could be misleading.

 

Having that said, the majority watching the programme would never had heard of Moritz at all, so to those viewers its existence would indeed have been a revelation.

 

 

- brummell

 

The German's use of the Moritz and the amount of intelligence it produced is nothing new. Charteris recorded in correspondence on 5th July 1916 with Macdonogh the 'extraordinary amount' of material the Germans had intercepted by this method. All are carefully referenced in Haig's Intelligence by Jim Beach [published in 2013]. The files have been in the public domain since 1967. Beach also offers a publication dated 1924 as further evidence. 

 

I dont think by any stretch of the imagination one could argue that the British intelligence were unaware that the Germans were listening in to the British phones. We know for a fact that at Army level this was discussed months before the Somme. The large amount of material is also no revelation given Charteris' comments. 

 

To be fair, Charteris  does state that the amount of material might have had an impact on the failures of 1st July, however in Beach's assessment this is overplayed.

 

MG

 

 

Edited 17 August , 2016 by Guest

[brummell]

40 minutes ago, David Filsell said:

... Equally I am unaware of the balance between the number of guns firing HE and those firing Shrapnel. The point then becomes if the percentage given on the programme includes both HE and Shrapnel. 

 

Just over 1000 of the 1500 guns of all calibres available for the offensive were devoted to wire-cutting and thus fired shrapnel.  The figure comprises all 1010 field guns, which were only suitable for that purpose, but also a proportion of the heavier guns allocated to counter-battery fire, as some of these (60-pdrs and 4.7" guns) were required to split their time between the two activities when it became evident that wire was going uncut in some areas.  Generally speaking, just over two thirds of the guns were dedicated to wire cutting, and thus fired shrapnel.  Also around 1 million of the 1.6 million shells of all natures were shrapnel.

 

 

- brummell

 

[brummell]

On ‎14‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 17:16, QGE said:

 

The history of the Ministry of Munitions (13 volumes) covers the level of quality-control in mind-boggling detail. The war diaries corroborate this. Their observations were that 'prematures' were by far the greater risk during this period. The idea that the British could take over a million shells and have no idea of their reliability is at best naive and at worst rather ill informed.  It is a curiosity how this ridiculous stat managed to be aired on the BBC by professional researchers without any challenge. MG

 

MG - I agree.  By this time, post-Shell Scandal, manufacturing quality had improved.  However, to be fair, there are numerous other factors beyond manufacturing defects which can cause blinds.  For example, damp bursting charges or exploders, dirty or incorrectly handled fuzes, incorrectly set fuzes or overly shallow angles of descent (for graze fuzes) could all cause blinds.  All of these are errors at the gun-line or by the observer and are perfectly possible even with ammunition of the highest quality.

 

But to such an extent as 40-90% of all rounds fired?  Hard to credit.  I don't doubt for a moment that Mr Barton found reports to that effect in the German archives, but I do question their veracity and I will be interested to read what he has to say on the matter in the forthcoming book.

 

 

- brummell

[Jack Sheldon]

Just to act as Devil's advocate, Brummell, assuming that Peter's reporting of what he read is accurate, why would you 'question their veracity'?  What would be the point of reporting the facts incorrectly up the chain of command?

 

Jack

[David Filsell]

Reporting up the line is important if it is accurate. I am open to persuasion, but I find it hard to accept that in the maelstrom of fire anyone is likely to be able to distinguish duds from effective grounds with any degree of accuracy I would have thought.

[brummell]

1 hour ago, Jack Sheldon said:

Just to act as Devil's advocate, Brummell, assuming that Peter's reporting of what he read is accurate, why would you 'question their veracity'?  What would be the point of reporting the facts incorrectly up the chain of command?

 

Jack

 

Sorry, I was a bit imprecise with my words there.  I meant accuracy.

 

- brummell

[Perth Digger]

Another estimate from a respectable source:

'Quality would remain a problem through 1916, and roughly a quarter of the shells were duds ...'.  Paul Strong & Sanders Marble, Artillery in the Great War, p.90.

 

If only 10% of the shells fired could cause the devastation that happened on the Somme, just imagine what would have happened if all the shells had exploded properly. Perhaps the infantry could have just walked through smoking cigars.

 

One of the big differences between academic history and popular history is that in the former most big statements are followed by qualifications. Editors of TV documentaries have no time (literally and figuratively) for such quibbles. 

 

Mike

[Liz in Eastbourne]

5 hours ago, M.Durey said:

.................

 

One of the big differences between academic history and popular history is that in the former most big statements are followed by qualifications. Editors of TV documentaries have no time (literally and figuratively) for such quibbles. 

 

Mike

 

Exactly, Mike, and there is the additional factor that individual assertions direct from the people who were there are more striking to the audience than statistics, even if available.  It is not easy to make good, interesting historical programmes which are also accurate in every fine detail, even when there is no disagreement between those involved.  I worked for a few years as a freelance radio producer/presenter for the World Service and R4, and even when (as happened on low-budget radio programmes) I was doing almost all the research, selection and presentation myself, there were agonising decisions forced by shortage of time. Mistakes are made under these pressures, obviously.

 

For this reason I don't sympathise with blanket condemnations of the media, which is a term covering a very wide range of productions and people.  There's a discipline and skill in selecting from the facts to construct an interesting story which is not to be scorned and which is beyond the abilities of many very worthy researchers.

 

Liz

Edited 17 August , 2016 by Liz in Eastbourne

[PhilB]

Mr Barton`s revelations make me wonder if it`s possible to write credible WW1 history without being reasonably fluent in German (& maybe Turkish and French) and having read as many foreign language texts as English. Surely writing a history based solely on English language texts leaves a lot to be desired?

[brummell]

PhilB, I think that's a very good point.  The 1st Duke of Wellington remarked that one might as well try to write the story of a ball as of a battle; I think that holds just as true with a war, in which, unlike a ball, there are at least two sides.  Still, if someone achieved the impossible by attaining perfect knowledge of all the facts from all sides and wrote a 100% accurate account of the Great War, we'd have little left to discuss here!

 

 

- brummell

[Jack Sheldon]

Personally I feel encouraged that authors are now willing and generally keen to present both sides of the story. I have assisted at least six authors with German material relating to the Somme during the past year and, without exception it was used in some form or another.

 

Jack

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Jack Sheldon said:

Personally I feel encouraged that authors are now willing and generally keen to present both sides of the story. I have assisted at least six authors with German material relating to the Somme during the past year and, without exception it was used in some form or another.

 

Jack

 

Which makes the claim in the programme that German sources have been 'practically ignored' even more strange. If memory serves the British Official History used German material and consulted German archivists during the preparation of the OH. I note Jack that your own book on the German Army at the Somme was published in 2005.  (99p on Kindle by the way)

 

[Edit. note: for anyone interested in this thread it is essential reading. The Moritz intercepts and their consequences are explained. There are also many fascinating first hand accounts, including the earlier quotes about duds. ]

 

The programme also presents a case that the British versions of events are 'self serving'. I found this comment rather odd as the Battles of the Somme are probably the one part of the Great War where British views and opinions are very widely spread and steeped in controversy and heated disagreement. The programme gives the impression that there is a consensus view among British historians. I am pretty sure there isn't a consensus view. Far from it in fact. The views of Sheffield and Clark would be difficult to place in the same part of the spectrum. Separating the Somme from Haig is difficult and authors are equally split in their attitudes to the Chief. One only has to read the periodic raging debates on GWF to get a feel of how polarised opinions are with regards to The Somme and Haig in particular. 

 

Again I found this type of broad brush comment on British historians rather challenging as it really didn't fit with my experience of reading about this battle. I dont think it can be explained away by the time limitations of TV.  At times I felt exaggerated statements were being made - such as Haig allegedly not knowing the Germans were listening to British phones - in order to maximise the shock factor for a mass market audience. I am mindful that the sometimes heavy hand of the BBC was involved. It would be interesting to hear the extent to which the BBC's agenda overrode the authors and if they thought their original aims to tell the story from the other side of the wire were in any way compromised. I will definitely buy the book. 

 

MG

 

Edited 17 August , 2016 by Guest

[Chris_Baker]

4 hours ago, PhilB said:

Mr Barton`s revelations make me wonder if it`s possible to write credible WW1 history without being reasonably fluent in German (& maybe Turkish and French) and having read as many foreign language texts as English. Surely writing a history based solely on English language texts leaves a lot to be desired?

 

A fair point. But language skills are not enough. I can read French and Dutch (and from the latter, can usually figure out German). For my Lys book I also had to read Portuguese (but that is not too difficult: artilheria, bombardamento, etc). But could I afford to travel to France, Belgium, Germany and Portugal for work in archives on a book from which I might earn £1 a copy if I am lucky? Let alone, in my case, Australia and South Africa. No, clearly not. So I ended up relying on published regimental histories etc from those places rather than their primary sources. If one is a lottery winner, well known author or TV presenter than perhaps you can afford to do that from your advance or however the work is funded. 99% of people can't. So what can one do? Collaborate with someone in the place of interest? Maybe. Or do your best within the constraints?

Edited 17 August , 2016 by Chris_Baker
Minor typo

[AOK4]

46 minutes ago, Chris_Baker said:

 

A fair point. But language skills are not enough. I can read French and Dutch (and from the latter, can usually figure out German). For my Lys book I also had to read Portuguese (but that is not too difficult: artilheria, bombardamento, etc). But could I afford to travel to France, Belgium, Germany and Portugal for work in archives on a book from which I might earn £1 a copy if I am lucky? Let alone, in my case, Australia and South Africa. No, clearly not. So I ended up relying on published regimental histories etc from those places rather than their primary sources. If one is a lottery winner, well known author or TV presenter than perhaps you can afford to do that from your advance or however the work is funded. 99% of people can't. So what can one do? Collaborate with someone in the place of interest? Maybe. Or do your best within the constraints?

 

Hello Chris,

 

I try to always do some research in archives for my books or articles. I try to spend some two weeks a year in German archives. It costs quite a bit of money of course but I think it's worth it (and I would think that my readers appreciate that as well). In the end, I'm lucky when I somehow manage to get the costs covered.

 

Jan

[Chris_Baker]

I admire your financial generosity!

[Jack Sheldon]

I am with you there on cost Chris. I have to be more selective than I should like to be, but still try to have a week in an archive or two per book then absolutely blitz the work when I am there, ordering copies for study later. For my current 'Fighting the Somme' I paid for a week in Munich and at least 60cents a page for the 1200 sides I selected. It is just as well that I enjoy doing it, because I am yet to break even after 15 years. Cue violins. Mind you, if you want anything and I have it, just ask and ye shall receive.

 

Jack

[PhilB]

I appreciate the economic (& other) constraints upon your work, gentlemen and you are to be thanked for your efforts. It does not alter the basic fact though that historical writings will always be less than ideal if the research is monoglot or not sufficiently polyglot.

[EastSurrey]

I have been reading 'Putty' by Anthony Leask on Pulteney, the commander of III Corps at the Somme. In a letter of 9 July'16 to a lady friend' Some of the sound recording instruments we captured at Boisselle are very clever, I actually had a copy of one of my own messages asking where certain wire was cut down put down on the Boche's paper and we had no telephone instrument within 200 yards of his listening post and even that was forbidden to be used except for SOS signals.'

The problem of 'duds' is mentioned on a number of occasions, e.g. 17 July, Putty writes to a lady ''The 'duds' are strewn all over the place, one curses the fuse on each occasion'. However, there was also the problem that the shelling  caused so much damage to the German trenches that they could not be reused. The Germans could have their own problems with ammunition, especially with soft ground. 23rd Division reported on 17.1.16 that of 18 German shells arriving only 3 exploded.

Michael

[horrocks]

On 16/08/2016 at 19:27, brummell said:

 

Just over 1000 of the 1500 guns of all calibres available for the offensive were devoted to wire-cutting and thus fired shrapnel.

 

- brummell

 

 

This is a specific matter I get very confused about. I am sure that I have read that shrapnel was not effective at cutting wire, and that high explosive was. It may well have been in Peter Barton's panoramas tome. I believe I have also read the opposite!

 

Can you put me out of my agony Brummell...

[PhilB]

Similarly, I have often wondered why wire cutting shrapnel didn`t have the lead balls in a shape other than spherical and more suited to breaking any wire it hit. Or did tests show that spherical was the optimum shape?

[brummell]

I'll get my geek on here - sorry, but you asked...!

 

Shrapnel balls could cut wire effectively if the shell burst within extremely narrow constraints.  The shell itself remained intact, hence the stacks and stacks of the things you see at museums, etc., but the bursting charge forced the fuze off the head of the shell and projected the bullets out the resulting gap.  The bullets therefore travelled forward and downwards in a cone.  To cut wire, they needed to still have a high velocity, so the shell had to burst very low, perhaps three metres above the wire, much lower than if one was engaging infantry. It also needed to burst a few metres in front of the wire. All the bullets were projected from a gap just two inches wide, so when the shell burst that low, the resulting cone of bullets was quite narrow, meaning a lot of ammunition was required to do the job.  Achieving such accuracy was tricky - a split second too long on the fuze and the shell would hit the ground and although it would still burst, all the bullets would still travel forwards into the ground.  Too short a fuze and the shell burst too high, resulting in bullets travelling too slow to cut wire. A wire belt was of course a narrow target, difficult to hit, so guns tried to cut wire in enfilade to maximise chances of the rounds being effective.  But it was still very fine work - you needed skilled observers with good command of the ground and engaging a target near enough for them to judge effectiveness accurately, good drills on the gun-line to ensure the guns were laid and fuzes set within the very narrow limits, and stacks of ammunition.

 

High explosive shells burst and send fragments in all directions, again mostly forwards due to the momentum of the shell, but definitely with a bigger area of effect than shrapnel.  Therefore one didn't need to be so accurate - so long as the shell hit the wire belt, it would have some effect.  The blast of the shell achieved nothing - the effect all came from the high-velocity fragmentation.  The key development was an effective instantaneous fuze to burst the shell as soon as possible after it hit the ground, so that the body of the shell was still above ground when it burst and sent as many fragments as possible through the wire to cut it.  If an HE shell burst below ground due to an insufficiently sensitive fuze, the explosion would simply throw the wire up in the air without cutting it, most of the fragments would be absorbed by the ground, and the wire would simply come down in a worse tangle than before.  Sadly such a fuze took a while in coming for the British field guns (the 106 fuze not entering service until early 1917), although the French had an effective design before the British.  I am not sure what the state of play was with the German artillery.

 

In short, shrapnel could cut wire effectively provided the shell burst within tight constraints and plenty of ammunition was available.  The margin for error in aiming was wider for HE shells and the area of effect for each shell was bigger with HE shells - provided the shell was fitted with an appropriate fuze, not available at the time period in question.

 

 

- brummell

[sjustice]

13 minutes ago, brummell said:

I'll get my geek on here - sorry, but you asked...!

<snip>

...the shell would hit the ground and although it would still burst, all the bullets would still travel forwards into the ground...

</snip

 

- brummell

 

VERY interesting and informative post brum, thank you.

 

I wonder if 'late' shrapnel shells could be interpreted as duds to infantry suffering a bombardment...?

 

Cheers,

SMJ

[Gibbo]

On 8/17/2016 at 14:40, QGE said:

 

Which makes the claim in the programme that German sources have been 'practically ignored' even more strange. If memory serves the British Official History used German material and consulted German archivists during the preparation of the OH. I note Jack that your own book on the German Army at the Somme was published in 2005.  (99p on Kindle by the way)

 

[Edit. note: for anyone interested in this thread it is essential reading. The Moritz intercepts and their consequences are explained. There are also many fascinating first hand accounts, including the earlier quotes about duds. ]

 

 

Thanks. Bought it and Scorched Earth: The Germans on the Somme 1914-18 by  Irina Renz, Gerd Krumeich and Gerhard Hirschfeld, which is also 99p on Kindle.

 

Hopefully, Jack's royalties on this copy will pay for one of his 1,200 pages from the German archives!

[PhilB]

50 minutes ago, brummell said:

I'll get my geek on here - sorry, but you asked...!

 

 

- brummell

But is spherical the best shrapnel shape for wire cutting?

[brummell]

'Cutting' is a slightly misleading word, evoking the image of a knife or scissors snipping.  If a bullet hit a strand of wire, the wire broke, sheered apart by the impact; a sharp edge wasn't required.

 

Ballistically, regularly-shaped but non-spherical bullets (cubes, for example, for anything with an edge) would lose their velocity more quickly due to greater air resistance and tumbling, and so lose their effectiveness more quickly.  Irregularly-shaped bullets (more like shell fragments) would be impossible to pack into a shell regularly, resulting in an imbalanced and unstable shell.  So I think  a spherical bullet was the only practical option.

 

 

- brummell