Surprisingly, throughout the whole First World War, the British were unbelievably lax on what could be termed “personal security”. In the German Archives, therefore, battlefield expert, Peter Barton, seen below,………
………found that literally hundreds of lower ranked British officers had been captured by the Germans with top secret plans in their possession, including many labelled “not to be taken into the front line”.
Not surprisingly, the Germans found these maps extremely useful and once they had seen them, they would quickly change their defensive plans and tactics to fit in with them. For example, on one occasion, they resited all of their heavy machine guns out of range of the Allied creeping barrage. Here they are, the schweinhunds……
During the very harsh winter of 1916-1917, the morale of the British troops plunged, in large part because of the lack of success on the Somme and the huge casualties suffered there.
According to the German Archives, hundreds of British POWs shared that very same opinion. The POWs were only too ready to tell the Germans that anxiety, depression and pessimism were rife among the men in the British trenches. A war which was going to be a “walkover” had now become a very long steeplechase with an almost infinite number of obstacles.
Indeed, war weariness was such that both officers and soldiers were frequently delighted to become POWs in German captivity. There was also widespread disgust at how the British press told blatant lies about the progress of the war, especially the Daily Mail. Here are headlines about how a desperate German population was now eating the corpses of their dead soldiers…..
By 1916-197, divisions were also beginning to appear between the British and the Dominions of the Empire, with the Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders only too willing to slate the British leadership on the Somme.
The numbers of men who wanted to go on fighting were increasingly small and the Australians in particular, who were no fools and were 100% aware that they were “always used in tough battles” were beginning to see their role as the “White Slaves of the Somme”. The same would happen to them in World War Two, and the Canadians would also suffer in a similar way in both wars. In World War 2, the Poles and the French speaking Canadians could also added to the list.
Mental illness, shell shock and desertion were increasing by leaps and bounds. Haig showed them no mercy and nine times out of ten opted to have them shot. It was carried out in the most ill considered of ways, with the members of the firing squad always selected from the condemned man’s unit. On many occasions, therefore, they were being asked to shoot somebody who they may have known personally, quite possibly as a friend. Here’s a British Army firing squad, hard at work…….
Both sides tried wrongdoers at courts martial. The British did not give the accused access to a lawyer, but instead they had an officer to give them advice and to fight their corner.
The Germans made it much more like a civil trial. There was a jury whose job was to decide the guilt of the prisoner, and he had access to a fully qualified lawyer.
The Germans used physical punishments and these were carried out in the local area.
When dealing with captured German soldiers, the British constantly harassed them and tended to be very fierce and very nasty to them. The result was that they hardly ever discovered any useful intelligence information.
The Germans, though, were always very pleasant with the British POWs, who soon became much more relaxed. The two sides would begin to chat to each other, and share a cup of tea, sometimes with biscuits. Those simple aids would usually persuade the British to give up their secrets, often in very great detail. Here are prisoners in a German Prisoner-of-War camp. Some of these men might have been here for four years, since being captured, for example, at the Battle of Mons….