I just wonder why they just did not fly a plane over the Battalion and drop a message to them not to attack it was a trap?
Matt
A question asked on line and well answered. Remember planes were just born:
"Potential answers posted here are: a) The time it takes to send a message to the aerodrome with the hope that they have a free plane to send over make it too risky
and/or
b) In the big scheme of it, saving 1,600 men would not get the attention it deserved at higher levels, so the general took care of it directly, without having to rely on other units."
and
"The mission wasn’t that important and 1600 men death means nothing in the cheer horror of WW1. 19 240 British soldiers died in The battle of Somme just in the first day.
I thought this too as soon as I saw the airplanes. It could be that getting the message from the general to an airplane unit would have taken longer than sending infantrymen asap. (remember, there was no radio back then obviously) In reality they probably would have done both. "
I haven't seen the movie, only the trailers, I expect to ss it within days.
On the relatively importance of saving "1600" men in the big picture, I'm not a veteran, but in seems to me in typical military camaraderie, just saving your buddy next to you, is alone worth your life, we here are using the lens of hindsight, and at that period, nobody knew what the final body count of the war was going to be, and as Patton(?) said, basically, its not about giving your life as a soldier, its about getting the enemy to give his.
Spent a number of days in the Verdun area visiting WW1 sites, they frowned on any off path excursions, in that its reported every square ft of the battlefields received at least one artillery shell, and they all did not explode.
