Subject: RE: BS: Christmas Truce (1914)
From: Jim Carroll - PM
Date: 11 Feb 14 - 02:57 AM "

Now that has got to be the most confused rambling and self contradictory twaddle I have ever read.

The military controlled the press, the Government controlled the military = censorship.
The Daily Mail was an avid supporter of the war effort.

Contradiction Number 1:
But Christmas this Shell Scandal that you keep banging on about – how did that come to the attention of the British Public? Wasn't it by courtesy of "The Times" and the very "Daily Mail" you mention? Surely if they had been under strict rules of censorship the story would never have been published - True??

"You have yet to produce one scrap of evidence that one single historian supports your jingoism - not one. All you have produced is fine tuning to certain aspects of the war on different by different unconnected historians."

Of course Christmas it would be far, far better if you actually pursued this discussion in English but we will persevere. What jingoism?

"1: That Britain had no choice but to resist the German onslaught;
2: That the British people overwhelmingly understood and accepted that;
3: That the army was well led."

So far the consensus of most historians who have studied and covered the subject support the contentions made above by Keith.

"Last night's programme was a damning indictment of how the war was being conducted on the home front."

These Christmas are absolutely priceless:

"Inadequate sea defences failed to prevent U-boats from devastating British shipping - putting Britain in a state of siege."

Ah Christmas and previously how common had it been for a nation's merchant shipping to be attacked by submarines? Or was this a completely new and unheard of phenomenon? Now come on Christmas let's be honest, did Great Britain and the Admiralty rise to the challenge? Did Great Britain starve? I know Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire did. Of course the challenges wet met and we overcame the threat. Tell me Christmas what proportion of Merchant Vessels in 1914 carried wireless?

"A squadron of German planes flew into Britain undetected in broad daylight and bombed London - Londoners thought they were British planes and waved at them until the bombs dropped."

And the civil population that had been bombed by aircraft before in order that the British public should have been alarmed were located where Christmas? By the way what body existed to detect them? How far advanced do you think measures were to combat this sort of threat? What measures were put in place:
- Black-out
- Evacuation of children
- Listening posts
- Home based air defence fighter squadrons
- Anti-Aircraft Artillery
- Special ammunition

Air-raid casualties suffered in Great Britain were as follows:
"Air-ship raid casualties = 1,914. Killed = 556.
Aircraft raid casualties = 2,908. Killed = 857."

On the basis of industrial man-hours expended, and the use of valuable and scarce resources, both the airship and heavy bomber campaigns were extremely extravagant. It has been calculated that the total costs to the German exchequer of all the 115 airships that were constructed was over five times of the cost of the damage inflicted by the raids on the British infrastructure.

"Rationing was introduced; the 'People's Cookbook' was issued advising the less well off how to prepare meals from inferior scraps of meat and grain - the more well off were advised to refrain from eating grain, leave that for the poor and continue with their usual diet.

Despite this, the well-off diet was not affected in any way - they continued to eat bread and cakes."

So in short Christmas, the people did as they were advised to do. Pssst Diet is one thing portion size is another.

"Food hoarding, despite being made a punishable offence, was common among the wealthy.

A wealthy poplar author, Marie Correlli was found to be hoarding food, charged and fined."

Ah so the law was enforced. By the way Christmas, how was food hoarded in those pre-refrigeration and freezer days? Stocking up on tins, dried fish and salt pork perhaps - the diet of the elite?

"The newspaper 'Herald' sent in an undercover reporter into a well-known restaurant in London - he was able to order anything he wished and was urged to eat as much bread as he wanted with his meal.
He reported leaving the restaurant and finding starving women huddled in nearby doorways."

Bread once baked has to be eaten, it does not keep. I see the undercover reporter did not feel sufficiently moved to supply said starving women with bread or a meal then?

"Prostitution was rife and syphilis became a major problem among the troops.

When was it not?

"Soldiers were coming on leave and finding that back home there was no sign that there was a war on - life had not changed in any way except among the working people - whose sons were fighting at the front.

The reports of what was happening at home given by the returning troops began to spread dissention among those fighting the war."

Contradiction Number 2:
So there was dissention?? (partisan and contentious quarreling??) spread amongst the troops at the front because things hadn't changed on the home front? Is that what you are saying Christmas?

"The Government began to stamp down on on any sign of opposition and criticism in Britain.

A family of three women opposing the war, Suffragettes, pacifists and Socialists, were suspected of harbouring fleeing pacifists."

Those the same Suffragettes who wandered about handing out "White feathers" to young men in civilians clothes?

"Siegfried Sassoon, a passionate patriot and decorated war hero became disillusioned and began writing damning indictments of the war.
The military spread the rumour that he was insane, and when he was wounded they confined him in a mental institution in Scotland treating shell-shocked patients, instead of a regular military hospital.

Not really true that is it Christmas? Why is there nothing here about the fact that Sassoon refused to return to duty AFTER the end of a spell of convalescent leave. At what point and who in the Army spread any rumour about Sassoon being insane? (Just more stuff that you have made up) The choice was a simple one either court-martial him or treat him for neurasthenia, the authorities chose to do the latter, the decision coming down from the Under-Secretary of State for War at the time Ian Macpherson.

Discharged from Craiglockhart Hospital Sassoon and Wilfred Owen who Sassoon had met there returned to France. Promoted to Lieutenant Sassoon spent some time in Palestine and returned to France in the summer of 1918 where he was wounded again, this time by "friendly fire", he was shot in the head by a British soldier near Arras. Sent back to England to be treated (in a regular military hospital Christmas) he was promoted acting-Captain, he eventually relinquished his commission on the 12th March 1919.

This was Siegfried Sassoon at war Christmas:
Sassoon's periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave actions, including the single-handed, but ultimately pointless, capture of a German trench in the Hindenburg Line. Armed with grenades he scattered 60 German soldiers:
He went over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles, and scared away the occupants. A pointless feat, since instead of signaling for reinforcements, he sat down in the German trench and began reading a book of poems which he had brought with him. When he went back he did not even report. Colonel Stockwell, then in command, raged at him. The attack on Mametz Wood had been delayed for two hours because British patrols were still reported to be out. "British patrols" were Siegfried and his book of poems. "I'd have got you a D.S.O., if you'd only shown more sense," stormed Stockwell.

Sassoon's bravery was inspiring to the extent that soldiers of his company said that they felt confident only when they were accompanied by him. He often went out on night-raids and bombing patrols and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a company commander. Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits. On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross, later he was to be unsuccessfully recommended for a Victoria Cross

"The battle of Passchendaele was shown - a bloodbath - it took the army four months to advance five miles."

Of which the German General Staff wrote at the time that "Germany had been brought near to certain destruction by the Flanders battle of 1917 (Passchendaele)".

Dr Paddy Griffith, a freelance military historian and a prolific author on military history and tactics, educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he obtained a first-class honours degree in Modern History. He was a lecturer and then senior lecturer at RMA Sandhurst from 1973–89 said this of Passchendaele, " The bite and hold system employed and executed by Plumer and Rawlinson kept moving until November; the BEF had developed a workable system of offensive tactics against which the Germans ultimately had no answer."

That Christmas, was how effective that useless bloodbath was from the perception of our enemies.

"The only outright successes in the war were the newly acquired tanks."

Nope Christmas, the tanks only played a part in the success, the success lay in using the element of surprise, artillery, infantry, tanks, cavalry and aircraft all together – that was the outright success that broke the stalemate, attrition, and constraints of static trench warfare and it was done by the British, NOT the Germans, NOT the French and NOT by the Americans.