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

[SiegeGunner]

22 minutes ago, EastSurrey said:

Christopher Duffy, using the same sources 'Through German Eyes-The British & the Somme in 1916', came to a rather more positive view of British performance and morale.

 

In 'Archival Sources' at the back of his excellent book, Christopher Duffy only mentions the Kriegsarchiv in Munich.  In addition to Munich, Peter also visited and found new and revelatory material in the archives at Stuttgart, Karlsruhe and Freiburg.

[David Filsell]

We all draw our own conclusions about the Somme battles (and the programmes).

British efforts (now offered to us as a defeat) and German efforts (now presented to us  (victory) above all underline that in 1916 the technology and tactics of defence were - pretty much universally -  stronger that those of attack.

They remained so until 1918.  

[Simmo]

Will this be available in Aus?

[Steven Broomfield]

2 hours ago, Alan24 said:

As a novice, I was quite pleased to learn the correct pronunciation of all those places on the Somme.

 

Alan

I dunno. My old dad passed through in 1939/40 and as far as he was concerned, the locals were all wrong.

[Old Tom]

An excellent, thought provoking, programme. It raised,  for me, several new issues which may well merit discussion as distinct topics. I have in mind, the effectiveness and speed of publication of German post action reports compared with the BEF's SS series, the BEF's handling of classified documents and compliance with orders, and a comparison of British and German disciplinary and military law procedures. As a final thought, for the moment, as others have said, the high quality of the German army, which was again shown to be better than ours.

[Chris_Baker]

1 hour ago, David Filsell said:

We all draw our own conclusions about the Somme battles (and the programmes).

British efforts (now offered to us as a defeat) and German efforts (now presented to us  (victory) above all underline that in 1916 the technology and tactics of defence were - pretty much universally -  stronger that those of attack.

They remained so until 1918.  

 

Well said, David.

 

I have not watched this series, so I must ask: did the French lose as well? Or did they win their bit of the battle? Or were they whitewashed out by the producers?

[AOK4]

I haven't watched yesterday's programme yet. However, I wouldn't dare saying that the Somme was a German defensive victory, perhaps a marginal victory but even then. Their losses were too high for a clear victory.

 

Jan

[PhilB]

Didn't PB conclude that Somme casualties favoured the Germans by a 2 to 3 ratio?

[AOK4]

6 minutes ago, PhilB said:

Didn't PB conclude that Somme casualties favoured the Germans by a 2 to 3 ratio?

 

The problem is that Germany could not afford this kind of loss of (experienced) manpower.

 

Jan

[SteveMarsdin]

39 minutes ago, Chris_Baker said:

I have not watched this series, so I must ask: did the French lose as well? Or did they win their bit of the battle? Or were they whitewashed out by the producers?

 

On ‎19‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 10:20, J Banning said:

Interestingly, despite numerous efforts on our part to include the French contribution to the battle, the BBC were just not interested in it. We argued but to no avail .

 

[Chris_Baker]

Without assessing the French element of the battle, it is all a bit meaningless in terms of the "result", isn't it? That would be like taking the experience of one British Corps and assessing whether it had won or lost.

[Old Tom]

Re the French part of the battle. Towards the end of the programme a map was shown indicating land gained, this showed their gains were much as the maximum BEF advance. 

[timsanders]

I echo many of the comments here in that this was a really great series, certainly the most comphrehensive and thorough documentary on the Somme I've ever seen.

 

My only slight concern was that German sources seemed to be universally treated as fact, but the British accounts were treated with more suspicion. I'm not suggesting this was the case here, but certain accounts could be interpreted and presented to bolster ones objective theory. 

 

I suppose any contemporary account from either side should be treated with some caution especially when looking back from a distance of a century.

[Seadog]

How about the "White  Slave" comment apparently from an Aussie plus the foul language pertaining to the mud. All pointing to a selective use of data to attempt to prove a predetermined conclusion. The saddest thing is that this so-called forum blocks any opposite view that the members may quite reasonably hold which somewhat makes any lucid discussion on this subject pointless. To discount the French part in this battle was in my view unforgivable and renders the whole production questionable to say the least.

 

Norman

[Jack Sheldon]

The German army put up a great defensive performance throughout the battle and, building on the narrow sense that there was no breakthrough and they were still in the field at the end of it, both at the time and post-war German writers talked of a German victory. However, as Jan points out, the outcome was very much to Germany's disadvantage. The 1917 cohort of conscripts had to be called up in July 1916 and the class of 1918 in November 1916 - a full two years ahead of what was standard procedure. It is quite clear that the losses in experienced men and the consequent dilution of expertise and shortage of well trained leaders had a very detrimental effect on the army. You will have to wait for my new book 'Fighting the Somme' for full details, but here is Hindenburg's final assessment of the Somme:

 

'In the battle area of the Somme it did not quieten down until the onset of wet weather began to transform the ground into bottomless mud. The millions of shell holes filled with water and became graveyards. For neither of the opposing sides was there talk of the joy of victory. Over everything lay the appalling weight of this battlefield which, in its grim desolation, seemed to surpass even that of Verdun.'

 

Jack

[Steven Broomfield]

I recall reading somewhere (Farrar-Hockley?) that Australians who experienced the end of the Somme and the end of Third Ypres always felt the condition of the ground far worse in the former.

[Hedley Malloch]

The ground conditions are one of the very few bits of the soldiers' Somme experience which can be felt today.  Go walking on the Somme on a wet day, leave the footpaths and metalled roads. Tramp up the side of a ploughed field and after five minutes your boots will be like toffee apples.  I don't mean that literally - they will taste nothing like toffee apples, but ... .

 

Most of the trenches, dug-outs, shell holes and many of the routes used by the soldiers on the battlefields have long gone, but the sun, rain, light, wind and soil are still the same.  It is through these that we can touch the soldiers' lives.  Here endeth the lesson.

[Guest]

As more archives are searched and translated more information is bound to change things. One program won't change years of study?  Very interesting though and brave stuff from Peter Barton. Pity Pete Hart, GAC and Salesie aren't here, it would make for an even more interesting thread?

 

Mike

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

I've always thought the Somme perfectly illustrated the old saying:

"In war, there are no winners..."

[PhilB]

1 hour ago, Skipman said:

Pity Pete Hart, GAC and Salesie aren't here, it would make for an even more interesting thread?

 

Mike

I can almost hear the teeth grinding at the implication that the Gerrman generals were actually smarter than the Allied!

[Don]

The three programmes for me were very enjoyable and Peter Barton is easy to listen to and understand.

One thing that puzzled me was the array of files and important documents strew around the room with just string tying them up.

I record and handle files as part of my work and there seemed to be a lack of order and indexing.

In fairness Peter handle them with cotton gloves.

Another point how did he know which ones to retrieve and why.   

[Chris_Baker]

Handling documents with cotton gloves is now generally regarded as bad practice. Having said that, I read something a week or two ago that a counter argument may be bringing the practice back into favour.

[Old Tom]

These remarks about the German documents are interesting. Certainly as portrayed they seemed to be a shambles, perhaps these shots were chosen to stress their age for casual viewers. If we have members who have used these archives, their opinion as to the typicality of those displayed would be helpful.

[seaJane]

My experience of having the BBC in is that they like portraying libraries as a gallimaufry of items strewn casually around - even naval lieutenants are unable to prevent them from having their wicked way with your precious materials. 

 

White gloves - the argument on the whole is still against white cotton gloves. The conservator we use spoke about the recent article in favour of white gloves when I last saw her, and explained that its evidence is based on what happened to one fingermark deliberately applied for longer than usual to one type of paper in an archive in Australia.

 

I suspect that the BBC wanted PB to wear white gloves, but I may be maligning them. If he had been handling photographs that would certainly explain it.

[AOK4]

I have visited the different German military archives a lot over the years and the WWI files have been neglected for many years. Thick, black dust covered the documents that often hadn't been opened for dozens of years. There's literally heaps of unopened files there (especially from more obscure units that were not in the front-line).

 

In Munich, they are now busy breaking up the old files and splitting them in new ones. However, this has totally destroyed the filing which was done per unit. Now, it's just a number. I've seen files split up in several new files. I preferred the old stacks, bound together with ropes as they were catalogued around 1940. There was military logic in them.

 

Jan