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WW1 Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Front
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Message 1.Β
Posted by darkm1966 (U1788418) on Thursday, 1st December 2005
How well informed were the "civilian population" in Britain regarding what was going on in France/Flanders during the Great War? I understand the guns could be heard in the South East (true?), and that casualty lists were posted locally, but how aware of the full extent of casualties during, say, the Somme or Passchendaele battles?
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Message 2
Posted by Disgruntled_Renegade (U530059) on Thursday, 1st December 2005
Considering the government told people that the Germans were cannibals, eating belgian babys to speed up volunteer recruitment, its unlikely the full extent of casualties was released to the public - werent many of the injured kept locked up in "recovery homes" during the war?
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Message 3
Posted by TonyG (U1830405) on Thursday, 1st December 2005
Apparently it is true that the guns could be heard in England. I believe that people were generally aware from such things as casualty lists and knowledge of neighbours' losses to understand that the casualties were huge. However, newspapers were censored and there was no TV, so few would know the details of what was going on. Soldiers and airmen would go home on leave from time to time, but how much they would reveal I am not sure.
There was a short film put on in cinemas, after the Somme, I think, but I'm fairly sure it was withdrawn after audience reaction to seeing the conditions.
Having said all that, there are a lot of photographs from WW1 which have been published subsequently. I don’t know whether nay of them were published during the war. I suspect not. -
Message 4
Posted by Dirk Marinus (U1648073) on Thursday, 1st December 2005
The civil population only knew what the government wanted them to know.Remember then there was no radio.
Although it was a bit better in World War 2 ( most people had radio) it was still a matter of you were only told what they wanted you to know.
As a matter of fact there are still World War 1 incidents which are still not made known to the public, and there are many many more World War 2 incidents which are still classified as secret material.
Now in the 21 st century with T.V, Internet, mobile phones and other communication systems it is very difficult to keep matters secret , but it still of the utmost importance. -
Message 5
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Monday, 5th December 2005
In WW1 and WW2 the only broadcaster was the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, and it was heavily censored. In WW2 newspapers were discouraged from printing pictures of bomb damage in case it helped the enemy, and demotivated the people here.
Enemy raids were reported but with no detail of the targets. Coventry was called a "Midlands Town" and Sheffield was a "northern town". No details of hits on factories were mentioned, but occasionally pictures of shattered housing were shown, together with stoic looking people getting on with their lives.
In WW1 there was virtually no reporting until way after the event, and considering some of the battles lasted for months, most of it was of no value by then.
Truth is the first casualty of war. -
Message 6
Posted by George1507 (U2607963) on Monday, 5th December 2005
Just realised what I wrote - of course there was no Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ in WW1.
Silly me. -
Message 7
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Monday, 5th December 2005
Hi all,
The only way to describe how the civilian population were kept informed about the war is to say that they were treated like mushrooms! Kept in the dark, and fed on b*!
The British press at the time were feeding them a constant diet of propaganda and a stream of over-exaggerated "victories". In particular the papers owned by Lord Northcliffe were putting such a positive spin on events that they would be prosecuted under the Trade Descriptions Act these days for calling themselves Newspapers!
A common headline would be "GREAT BRITISH VICTORY IN FRANCE!", with lurid claims of massive gains, the Germans on the run etc etc, and maps showing a great chunk of the map being captured. Then you look closer, and the map has a scale showing the gain is measured in yards. Reality of the situation was pretty well suppressed until the Battle of the Somme, where the massive casualty lists and the total destruction of the New Army's "Pals" battalions in Haig's attritional slaughter was just too big to be covered up. Yet, even despite the horrific losses in the Somme and later Passchendaele, the Northcliffe press continued to herald the massacres as "Great Victories". In my own opinion, it is the total lies published by Northcliffe that allowed Haig, the totally incompetent upper-class twit of a Field Marshal to remain in command, despite his utter callousness and stupidity in pursuing a policy of attrition (if they have 100,000, we have 110,000 men, and they both kill 100,000 each, we will have 10,000 left, and therefore will have won-utter carelessness with mens lives, and a crime against his own people). Had the truth been told, for example the July 1st 1916 the papers read "Great Victory on the Somme!" when the truth was "20,000 men slaughtered due to idiotic battle plan, and 40,000 more wounded in massacre of Volunteer Soldiers", had this been the headline, then Haig would have been sacked (the least he deserved, personally I'd have recommended busting him to Private and sending him over the top in the next attack!) and maybe someone with the imagination and leadership skills to tackle the problem of overcoming trench warfare to take over.
As it was, the press fed lies and propaganda to the people, and kept the myth of heroic sacrifice going when the truth was more pointless slaughter. Had the truth been told, that Generals were throwing mens lives away in doomed attacks (Described by Lloyd George I think as "Attacking machine guns with the chests of men"), then maybe something could have been done to stop it, but these lies, combined with censorship of letters home, kept the worst aspects of the truth from the people.
DL -
Message 8
Posted by Plancenoit (U1237957) on Monday, 5th December 2005
I don't know a great deal about WWI, but remembering what my dear old Granny used to tell me from her childhood memories and those of her parents, I think ordinary people had no idea of the true scale of what was going on in Flanders in WWI. In fact, they were under the impression things were going quite well, and with all the songs and stories of bravery and comradeship, the real question was "why is it lasting so long?". People happily volunteered to go off for the final victorious push in their thousands (i.e The Pals Battalions), not fully aware of what they were letting themselves in for. Information from the authorities obviously focused on the positive perhaps with a few 'inaccuracies' thrown in, and it was only in the last year or two, when it became certain a lot of relatives, friends and neighbours wouldn't be coming back, that the true scale of losses began to emerge. Bearing in mind that the majority didn't really know what was happening or what to expect, I often wonder if people would have been quite so willing to volunteer had they known the truth.
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Message 9
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Monday, 5th December 2005
Hi Plancenoit,
I agree totally, particularly your point on whether the number of volunteers would have been affected had the they told the truth. "Your Country needs.... Cannon Fodder" wouldn't have been an effective recruitment tool!!!
Later in the war, the truth was becoming known, and conscription had to be introduced to continue filling the cemeteries of France.
WW1 has always seemed a particularly tragic war IMO, massive futile loss of life, and all over a cause that no one really seems to understand.
DL -
Message 10
Posted by Turnwrest (U2188092) on Monday, 5th December 2005
Surely the troops must have been complicit in suppressing the truth, to some extent at least? Accounts I've read suggest that they didn't spread the truth when they came home on leave, and that the Great British Public didn't want to know if they did try to - look at what happened to Sassoon.
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Message 11
Posted by Plancenoit (U1237957) on Monday, 5th December 2005
Thats a good point. I think troops who did come home may have played it down a little for fear of being accused of cowardice. It's not easy to imagine yourself in that position, but I think away from your buddies in the trenches, back in the local shop or pub hundreds of miles from the front, suddenly it may not have seemed quite so bad and so much easier to play to the "welcome back our hero" crowd rather try to paint the true picture of horror, fear and death. As you say, it's unlikely people would have wanted to hear such stories anyway when their own friends and relatives were still over there. Surely the troops must have been complicit in suppressing the truth, to some extent at least? Accounts I've read suggest that they didn't spread the truth when they came home on leave, and that the Great British Public didn't want to know if they did try to - look at what happened to Sassoon.Β
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Message 12
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Tuesday, 6th December 2005
Surely the troops must have been complicit in suppressing the truth, to some extent at least? Accounts I've read suggest that they didn't spread the truth when they came home on leave, and that the Great British Public didn't want to know if they did try to - look at what happened to Sassoon.Β
That's a very valid point; and not only the troops, the few journalists who actually reached the front lines (or thereabouts) often formed such close cameraderie with the troops that they tended to self-censor regarding the true horror.
The soldiers' reticence was probably in part to protect the loved ones back home from the truth, and also because there was the perception that if you hadn't been there you just couldn't have imagined it. My own grandfather, who served with the Royal Artillery in Italy, almost never spoke about the war.
Anyone who DID speak the truth would no doubt have been branded unpatriotic, or a conchie - or, as in the case of Sassoon, declared to be suffering from a mental condition. -
Message 13
Posted by DL (U1683040) on Tuesday, 6th December 2005
Interesting point!
Just thinking about it from the soldier's perspective, and yeah I would have expected any soldiers on leave would have played down the horrors they were facing, and soldiers "not talking about it" is the way it has always really been.
Even in our times, most soldiers have extreme difficulty talking about combat experiences, even years after the event, for example in my own case, it took me about six or seven years before I could talk about my own experiences, and even now the account I give is seriously watered-down, so I would expect that in those days it would be even more so!
DL -
Message 14
Posted by darkm1966 (U1788418) on Tuesday, 6th December 2005
Thanks for the replies so far. The one thing that did occur to me when posting this originally was that the people back home would find it a little strange that so many men were "missing", especially after the loss of large amounts of "Pals" regiments during the Somme.
I suppose the populace were a lot more accepting of "the official word" during that time...?
Another though on this - assuming the true horrors had become known (to civilians on either side), say in late 1916/early 1917, how would/could this have changed the war insofar as public unrest at home? -
Message 15
Posted by WarFanatic (U2676733) on Tuesday, 6th December 2005
The main reason for the censorship was to keep morale at home high. The Government knew the horrors of world war 1 but just didn't want to reveal the gigantic losses after such disasterous campaigns at the somme.
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