the somme 1916 from both sides of the wire (COMbbc)

[Attrition]

Just watched the first ten minutes of episode 1, my heart is sinking.

[Attrition]

Hmmm, the good first; he mentioned an interest in what the Germans did well, not just what the British did badly and about 17 minutes concerned the Germans. He mentioned the big British-French success in the south.

The French were rarely mentioned, despite their experience offering a useful comparison to the British and there was nothing specific about the south side of the Somme. He claimed that German eavesdropping prompted them to dig more fortifications, yet that was down to Falkenhayn wanting a second then a third position dug all along the Western Front long before the battle. French and British sigint was not mentioned. He mentioned the 31st Division "walking" when they might have rushed the Germans but didn't mention the lifting barrage in front of them moving at 50yd/min, i.e. the artillery was to do the fighting. The differences between Rawlinson and Haig were reduced to matters of personality not the predictable consequences of having different posts with different responsibilities. Sheldon and Duffy might consider suing COMbbc for plagiarism and Beach for not being plagiarised.

I don't know if he's a duffer or too supine to refuse to serve up the butchers and bunglers view to COMbbc, using "new" German records to justify it. Someone should have told him that you can't trust the philistine thugs of COMbbc with things like this, it's not the 60s and 70s, when TradBBC had some integrity. I saw some familiar names whiz by at the end like Whitehead but I was too dispirited to freeze-frame it and look properly.

[jluetjen]

I assume that this was a UK broadcast since I wasn't aware of anything new on this side of the pond. I assume the documentary that you're referring to is newer than this documentary from a few years ago that seemed to do a pretty good job of looking at both sides: https://youtu.be/6cK5xL6QBM0

[Attrition]

Yes, it's this year.... I looked on IMDb but they haven't got a page for it.

[Attrition]

Last episode, he contrasted the strategic possibilities of Flers-Courcelette with the achievement as if this meant the offensive failed. He quoted from Rupprecht's diary, hardly a new source and then described the German use of captured British documents but failed to put this in context with British use of German documents. He went on about defence in depth as if it were a novelty or something that took inspiration rather than an ability to respond to the bleeding obvious and went on about storm troops without any structural analysis.

Then he went on about British killings of their own men (284 during the war) compared to 18 German shootings (I thought it was 48) but didn't mention the 90% of death sentences not carried out or the number of men shot after being sentenced to death more than once (hardly evidence of a desire to rival the German army as a Briton-killer).

Back to the Somme and the Battle of the Ancre, emphasised the failure to reach objectives more than the magnitude of the victory (7,000 prisoners isn't bad) and then referred to Boom Ravine with no context (local attacks to undermine the remaining German positions) but did find time to describe the possibility of deserters telling the Germans. He said the battle officially ended on 19 November, mentioned the Battles Nomenclature Committee but not their end date of 18 November, then he called the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line (Siegfriedstellung) the real end of the battle which I agreed with!

After that he waffled on about loss and sacrifice, denied that the battle left the BEF a better army than before, mentioned the numbers of casualties (then denounced comparing them as a bad thing) and looked forward to Arras and the Nivelle Offensive and 3rd Ypres but by then I'd stopped listening. Is Barton really this obsolete or is this what happens when you take money from COMbbc, to make a catch-penny pseudo-documentary intended to avoid anything controversial, like the last 30 years of scholarship? Badly done Peter, badly done.

[The Ibis]

Looks like I shall be skipping it. Thanks for the review.

[Attrition]

Looks like I shall be skipping it. Thanks for the review.

Not that I'm bitter about someone else getting the lucrative hackwork or anything....

[Tom from Cornwall]

Hi,

I'm not sure my review would be quite so negative as that of Attrition. I thought it was worth watching just for the fantastic panoramic camera work and the way that this provided an interesting perspective of the importance of the ground to both sides.

I was slightly bemused by the way that he took the transcripts of German interviews of British prisoners of war as evidence of the declining morale of British/Empire troops without mentioning the long historical tradition of criticising the British high command for taking the interviews of German prisoners of war as evidence of declining German morale.

I'm currently reading "Ring of Steel" which provides an interesting perspective on the war from both German and Austro-Hungarian sources - just got to the winter of 1916 with German troops sending home food from occupied France and Belgium for the hungry home front.

Regards

Tom

[Attrition]

Come on, out with it! You had the sound turned off didn't you. ;O))

[Tom from Cornwall]

Not all the time