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The First World War From Above

• Message 1. 

  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Wednesday, 3rd August 2011

  Congratulations Â鶹ԼÅÄ, another triumph of inanity over intelligence. Having watched this hoping for some interesting coverage of WW1, the Â鶹ԼÅÄ yet again served up the same old 10 minutes of history (spread out into an hour) concentrating on British soldiers at the Somme yet again.
  
  For those who didn't waste their time watching this excuse for a holiday for the presenter and crew, it purported to be a recreation of a flight taken by a French pilot who filmed the western front shortly after the armistice. Despite the fact that it was filmed by a Frenchman, flying over a battlefront predominantly manned by French soldiers (who did most of the fighting and dying), the French army got a whole three mentions in the entire programme.
  
  Why does British coverage of WW1 always end up so parochial? There are plenty of good historians out there who know that the French provided men and that Austria and Serbia were still involved after 1st September 1914. So why does none of this ever get covered? Black Adder Goes Forth is about as good as Â鶹ԼÅÄ coverage gets.

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by VF (U5759986) on Saturday, 6th August 2011

  You would have thought that there had been no naval war either.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Saturday, 6th August 2011

  Austria and Serbia were still involved after 1st September 1914. 
  
  Good point.
  
  And comparing the stats of the various combatants provides some remarkable results. For example let's compare the UK to, say, Italy.
  
  The UK lost approximately 885,000 military dead during the First World War while Italy lost 650,000. The population of the UK at the time was about 45,000,000 while that of Italy was about 35,000,000. In percentage terms, therefore, both countries lost about 2% of their population in combat.
  
  This is a remarkable stat when (as you say cloudyj) one considers that Italy does not really feature in the Â鶹ԼÅÄ (and much of the rest of the UK media) story of that war. As far as they're concerned the Western Front was the 'major front' and may as well have been the only front. According to the UK media the Eastern Fronts were a side show and you can can just forget about the Italian Front.
  
  So bearing this in mind - to think that Italy's losses in the First World War were actually, and proportionally, more or less the same as those of the UK's is quite astonishing.
  
  In November 2007 I visited Venice with my partner and we were struck by how virtually every church we passed, (and needless to say there are a lot of them in the city), had a substantial First World War memorial on the side of the building. The memorials tended to take the form of a plaque listing the names of the parishioners who had fallen in the war. Our attention was drawn to these as (it being Sunday 11 November) the memorials were bedecked with wreaths and ribbons etc.
  
  I have to say it was quite a moving sight.

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by MB (U177470) on Saturday, 6th August 2011

  Austria and Serbia were still involved after 1st September 1914. 
  
  Good point.
  
  And comparing the stats of the various combatants provides some remarkable results. For example let's compare the UK to, say, Italy. 
  
  
  It hardly seems fair to blame the Â鶹ԼÅÄ. Go into bookshops or libraries and look at the range of books on WWI and I suspect that there will not be many about the Italian contribution.
  
  How much do books in Italy on WWI cover the UK forces (and don't forget the big contribution from the Empire)? Do programmes on RAI concentrate on the Italians in WWI or give equal prominence to the British.
  
  Proportionally the larges WWI casualty rate in the British Empire was the Western Isles, does that get mentioned in Italian books and TV?
  
  

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• Message 5

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 7th August 2011

  I’m not sure that I did ‘blame the Â鶹ԼÅÄ’. Looking at my post I specifically wrote ‘the Â鶹ԼÅÄ (and much of the rest of the UK media)’. That would include the UK publishing sector.
  
  In fact in defence of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ the landmark series ‘The Great War’ (1964) did indeed devote episodes to the Eastern Front, the Italian Front, the Balkan Front, the Dardanelles Campaign, the Levant Campaign, the Mesopotamia Campaign and the war in Africa, the Far East, the Pacific and the war at sea. But that series is over 45 years old and cloudyj’s point stands that overall Â鶹ԼÅÄ coverage of the First World War tends to be very much fixed on the Western Front in general and on the UK sector of that Front in particular and this is to the exclusion of others.
  
  I’m pretty sure that Italian histories (and programmes on RAI) on the First World War do indeed give due weight to the Western Front (and the UK sector) even though there was little or no Italian involvement there.
  
  It’s not clear how relevant the point about the Italians acknowledging the casualty rate of the Hebrides. To expect as much would seem parochial in the extreme. Besides – it seems to be quite a spurious stat and somewhat contrived.
  
  If we’re going to look at the casualty rate of localities within the various countries of the then British Empire then England’s Isle of Thanet had one of the highest casualty rates losing over 5% of its population. I would imagine that that would be pretty close to the Hebridean percentage. And (with a nod to VF’s valid post) neither were the Thanet casualties all down to soldiers serving in The Buffs etc but also included considerable numbers of sailors and seamen both RN and merchant navy.
  
  And there are other localities around the British Empire which suffered proportionally high casualties such as the Canterbury Region of New Zealand and also the town of Corner Brook in Newfoundland. And if we take the proportional casualties of British Empire localities to its logical conclusion (and take into consideration micro-locations) then the Gunstone household in Sheffield, England suffered a catastrophic 66.66% casualty rate of their male population when both sons of the family, brothers Frank and William were killed serving in the Sheffield City (Pals) Battalion on 1st July 1916.
  
  Of all the countries involved in the First World War, the one which suffered by far the highest proportional casualties was Serbia losing over 15% of its people. That, of course, returns us to cloudyj’s opening post.

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• Message 6

  , in reply to message 4.

  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Monday, 8th August 2011

  It hardly seems fair to blame the Â鶹ԼÅÄ. Go into bookshops or libraries and look at the range of books on WWI and I suspect that there will not be many about the Italian contribution. 
  
  MB, in one sense I agree, the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is trying to talk to a mass audience and as such we may as well have a new documentary on the Somme every year. But, my real complaint is about the totality of Â鶹ԼÅÄ programming about WW1 (for which the Â鶹ԼÅÄ is to blame). It's not that programme X is parochial - there is certainly a place for that, but that ALL coverage seems equally unadventurous. I guess it mirrors Â鶹ԼÅÄ's apparent history policy in other areas where ALL programmes are gateway programmes for infotainment with nothing for the slightly more informed viewer.
  
  But British armies fought on the Italian front, in the Balkans, in the Middle East, in Africa and in China. We can still be self-absorbed and also learn something new.
  
  "The First World War From Above" continually stressed that the flight was along the entire front, so why almost ingore the French who occupied most of those lines?
  
  How much do books in Italy on WWI cover the UK forces 
  
  I'd imagine most of them since more than a few British soldiers saw service there. The British were present at Caporetto and Vittorio Veneto and that the disaterous 10th Battle of Isonzo was timed to support pushes on the Western Front.
  

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• Message 7

  , in reply to message 6.

  Posted by MB (U177470) on Monday, 8th August 2011

  I was just trying to point out how each country or area will concentrate on their own history which is why I mentioned the Western Isles. I did not know that Medway had such a high rate of losses but I suppose it would be expected around each of the RN base ports - I wonder what the corresponding figures are for Portsmouth and Plymouth?
  
  I was walking by a war memorial last week and I am sure I heard two American tourists expressing confusion over WWI war starting in 1914!

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• Message 8

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by ArweRheged (U14720560) on Monday, 8th August 2011

  On a (slightly) related point, do we know the size of each army in the conflict? As a percentage of the able bodied men who were in the forces, I suspect the casualty figures look more gruesome still.
  
  Regards,
  
  A R

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• Message 9

  , in reply to message 8.

  Posted by MB (U177470) on Monday, 8th August 2011

  I think Wiki has some figures.
  
  One complication is that areas like Medway and the Western Isles particularly had a higher proportion in the Merchant Navy and many of their losses were not classed as war dead by the CWGC.
  
  '
  

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• Message 10

  , in reply to message 5.

  Posted by cloudyj (U1773646) on Tuesday, 6th September 2011

  ...In fact in defence of the Â鶹ԼÅÄ the landmark series ‘The Great War’ ... 
  
  Thanks for the recommendation. I've recently been watching this and am very impressed.

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• Message 11

  , in reply to message 10.

  Posted by caissier (U14073060) on Tuesday, 20th September 2011

  The Great War had an assumption of academic rigour, as did the The World at War.
  
  This programme was shot through with sentimentality, digressions and was misleading in various ways ...... styled to be an attractive 'viewing experience'.
  
  I feel that's very dangerous. It looks like it is presented as proper history ..... but that is the enfeebled way the Beeb is going, as also suggested by criticisms of Newsnight ...... and anything which threatens the Â鶹ԼÅÄ worries me greatly.

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