Well, you see, I have a better answer- the indians wanted the horses!
Exactly my point.
Sure. You know any of them that gave a rats ass over their losses? Especially as Haig seemed to think higher losses meant you were doing a better job? “Hmm, this will cost me 1600 men. Damme, Haig will get me the DSO for this.”
The incompetence of WW1 british generals can not be over stated.
How come they won the war, then?
It’s fiction. I can come up with all sorts of plausible reasons why they might have sent those two soldiers on this mission, but I won’t because that’s not the point of the movie or any work of fiction at all. Homer was not an accurate account of ancient Greek warfare. Most legal dramas do not give accurate presentations of the legal profession. Same with spy movies, medical shows, and depictions of any profession. They are trying to tell compelling stories. If you want an accurate account of WW1, there are textbooks.
Are you seriously arguing that out of the 1500-odd British generals serving in WWI, none of them would have been so competent as to risk a couple of lance corporals to save 1600 men?
This argument ignores the fact that most creators of historical fiction do, in fact, make a point of researching the settings and events they’re depicting. If the facts aren’t important, then why bother doing this? Historical accuracy must count for something. Stories need to have some baseline of credibility if they’re to engender engagement and emotional impact.
It’s a line, and not a particularly bright one. I may have been overstating things. Yes, you do not want the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor, or Napoleon using machine guns, but you can sacrifice some detail for dramatic purposes. In this particular case, I think sending the two guys out on their mission was fine, regardless of the overall callousness of British high command. Maybe Colin Firth’s character was sick of all the sacrifice and tried to make a gesture to stop an assault even more pointless than most? Who knows? It seems a silly thing to get worked up about.
I’ll admit I did think of the Eagles to Mordor thing in your OP when I saw the airplanes.
So some people on the board think the movie is unrealistic because British commanders wouldn’t have bothered sending two men to save a mere 1600 men, while others think it is unrealistic because the British commanders would never have relied on just two runners to deliver such an important message.
Can I suggest that nobody here has any idea what is realistic or not in such a scenario?
And we should be clear, that General Firth (sorry Colin but we’re never going to remember the name of any character you play) is not from ‘High Command’. He is clearly represented at the General officer commanding that particular sector of the front, so most likely a divisional commander. He is directly responsible for the safety of that force, and for tactical decision-making on that sector. Losing a regiment by letting them walk into an ambush at that stage in the war would not be acceptable.
Assuming the producers did their historical research, and there is every sign that they went beyond extrapolating from old Blackadders, then they’d know Britain was having great difficulty getting fresh men any more. Losing troops was a vastly bigger concern than it may have been in 1915. The transition from trench warfare to a war of movement was still being worked out, and is actually shown very well in the film.
Sure, but that was by releasing the pigeon from the front to go back to its home. That wouldn’t work to send a message forward to troops in newly captured terrain.
True, but again, the planes are flying over that terrain and doing recon work, then communicating to the Army. There is obviously some degree of coordination.
There were communication trenches stretching back from the front lines to areas away from the immediate combat. There were horses and vehicles in the back area. Sending a messenger away from the fighting, towards vehicle transport, to get a message to the aerodrome, seems a logical approach, less risky for the success of the mission than sending two messengers into the war zone, knowing that there are enemy soldiers trying to surround the battalion and prevent communications.
During the battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917, there was close coordination between the RFC and the Canadian Corps to relay information back from the front to let headquarters know how well the attack was progressing. Colour signals were used.
But that would not have helped at all. Colonel Cumberpatch was planning to do exactly what his standing orders were - to take the fight up to the Germans and keep the Hun on the run ['They don’t like it up ‘em, sir’ I’ve been reliably informed].
General Firth’s order was to tell them to NOT do what they thought they should be doing.
A message sent from the front reading ‘Guess what we’re doing at sunrise …?’ would have been a Bad Thing.
When the 2 soldiers are getting ready to leave for the mission, one says that they have to travel 9 miles.
Probably the civilians that the retreating Germans brutally massacred off-screen. Fair or not, that’s the kind of vibe I got from how the Germans were depicted in this film.
Why “the” civilians? We didn’t see any dead civilians near the farm, did we?
There are the exact words that General Erinmore uses to Blake and Schofield, from the script:
My emphasis. This is a giant plot hole. As a parting gift, the enemy cut all our lines. QED.
Interesting. Where’d you get a copy of the script?