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Remembered Today:

Stragglers Posts


Hally2k

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Hi There,

 

Does anyone have any photo's of Stragglers Posts that the Military Police used to be stationed at? Or at least does anyone have a general description of what they used to look like?  Were they tents? Were they wooden posts? Or were they just areas that Military Police used to patrol with no defining features?

 

Thanks in advance. 

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Hello, 

 

Here at the Royal Military Police Museum, we have quite a bit of info, including lots of original reports etc.

 

 

Drop me an email on collectionsofficer@rhqrmp.org   

 

Regards

Toby

Edited by Toby Brayley
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I’d be interested to see anything you come up with, Hally. Most of us are aware that the posts existed but know little more about them.

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Thank you so much Toby. I'll send you an email now.

 

Phil I'll post my findings here. I haven't been able to find anything about them at all myself so it should be very interesting! 

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According to The Redcaps by G D Sheffield such posts were often co-located with traffic controls or walking wounded assessment areas. Some were also pushed forward into trench areas. Sadly the author doesn't appear to specify the infrastructures used.

 

Just seen Toby has replied, certainly your best source.

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And this. From WW1. https://memorial.essex.police.uk/world-war-1/frederick-james-redhouse/

'Stragglers' posts' or battle-stops, as they were sometimes called, were collecting points behind the front lines where prisoners of war were taken over from the infantry, runners and message-carriers were checked and directed, walking wounded from the Regimental Aid Posts were directed to casualty clearing stations for evacuation and 'stragglers' were dealt with. This last-named duty involved halting soldiers who were obviously neither casualties, signallers or runners, re-arming and equipping them if necessary and sending them forward to rejoin their units, individually or in groups. With so few MMP or MFP men available this type of work was mostly done by 'trench police' or 'battle police', men from a division's cavalry squadron or cyclist company, regimental police or corps cavalry, who also directed traffic in communication trenches. All worked under the direction of the divisional APM. Later in the war a typical division in the line employed over 250 officers and men on provost duties within its area. They manned four 'straggler posts', provided a military police presence at the casualty collection post, operated various road traffic control posts and a number of mobile traffic patrols.
 

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The subject often raises quite a bit of interest. Here at the Museum we have some wonderful original reports into the posts and POW handling (and Military Police in general during the Great War), a real gold mine of information that anyone is welcome to come and view, should they so wish!

 

"you will need to decide how close it is to the front, we know they were set up near the front ( a “Battle Stop”) or in well signed tents and buildings further on in the rear (“collection post”). We have one account describing the post as “a collection of tents and lorries.”  They would be staffed by a couple Military Police NCOs and by “lent men” from other Regiments on “Provost Duties”.   They were really designed not to catch deserters or stop men running away (that was not generally an issue) but to re-group and re-direct “lost” or battle weary soldiers back to their units, sometimes re-equipping them if needed. Food, water, equipment such as respirators, spare rifles, helmets etc , basic medical equipment and of course Tea, were held at the posts.  There are many reports of Walking Wounded coming to the posts and being re-directed to the nearest dressing stations etc. There is a recommendation the these posts be renamed "Collection Posts" as Straggler is viewed as a "slur".  Also men, machines and transport heading to the Front would be directed from these posts, they became vital (and very much overlooked) in controlling the confusion on the battlefield. 

 

POWs were also brought to the posts, often their escorts would be relieved of their duties so they could return to their primary duty of fighting the enemy.  The POWs could then be sorted and sent to the required area the Military Police were instructed to help in “every way possible” to make sure that German POWS ( a very important source of intelligence) made their way back to be interrogated, without being looted of vital information and personal effects by souvenir happy Tommies!  

 

I hope this if of some help."

Edited by Toby Brayley
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And there was me thinking MPs and officers wandered the trenches, shooting anyone who hadn't gone over the top.

 

Revisionism gone mad.

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19 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

And there was me thinking MPs and officers wandered the trenches, shooting anyone who hadn't gone over the top.

 

Revisionism gone mad.

You left out the Tommies being forced over the top by MP's wielding horse whips...

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On 06/02/2020 at 09:54, squirrel said:

You left out the Tommies being forced over the top by MP's wielding horse whips...

 

This just is not true!  We all know that they were too far busy shooting hundreds of thousands of underage shell shocked soldiers at dawn. 

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On 05/02/2020 at 14:02, Steven Broomfield said:

And there was me thinking MPs and officers wandered the trenches, shooting anyone who hadn't gone over the top.

 

Revisionism gone mad.

I have certainly been told by survivors of 1/7/16 that they feared being shot if they didn’t go over when the whistle blew.

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