Oh good heavens Jim has just read something on the internet and instantly accepts it as Gospel, God's honest truth, something that must be true and completely beyond question.

But wait a minute Jim Carroll always questions everything, from a lifetime of completely disbelieving anything anyone in a position of authority says ever if Jim reads IT on the internet - so why isn't he questioning this?

Well OK I will challenge Jim Carroll to question this entry from Paul Hinkley (About whom nothing, and I mean nothing is known). His Battlefield Colloquialisms appears on a Griffiths University website but Mr Hinkley was neither a student or a professor there, they know nothing about him. The glossary of terms was found on an early University Website that allowed amateurs to post hobby material for free and the University seeing no harm continues to make it available.

I also challenge Jim Carroll to come up with one single instance of this ever happening.

Ask GUEST,Rahere about"Battle Police" we thrashed this out earlier on one of these threads. These guys were not even military policemen (First World War you had MMP and MFP) the battlefield police were men of the stay behind company and when detailed they operated under the orders of the Assistant Provost Marshal. No such authority as being permission to carry out summary executions was ever given.

So c'mon Christmas give us some evidence of:

- Battlefield police lining the trenches to force men to go over the top.

- Battle field police carrying out summary executions of those suspected of being deserters.

Just one will do in an Army of over 5.3 million over a time span of four years three months - just one. But I will not be expecting anything, I will not be holding my breath, because it is yet another of those dearly held myths about the First World War, probably blabbed out to Jim from some old soldier who told Jim that he'd been there and had seen it and of course Jim knows that everyone who speaks to him always tells the truth.

Great Britain - Military Police

Excerpt from above related to the First World War:

" As far as provost duties were concerned, no instructions existed as to what these might be, and they had to be defined and acted on as they became apparent. In France these mainly included the manning of 'stragglers' posts', traffic control, dealing with crime committed by British soldiers, the control of civilians within the battle area, handling prisoners of war, and patrolling rear areas and ports. Of these, perhaps the operation of stragglers' posts has become the least understood, giving rise to the legend of the Redcap, pistol in hand, forcing shell-shocked Tommies forward to certain death. THE FACTS PAINT AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PICTURE. 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 Regimental Aid Posts were directed to casualty collecting stations for evacuation, and 'stragglers' were dealt with. This last-named duty involved halting soldiers who were obviously neither casualties, signalers 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."