Movie 1917

Movie 1917
The Movie, 1917, was awarded best picture at the Golden Globe Awards. I have not seen the movie but have seen the trailers on TV. The equipment appears to be authentic, at least as far as the SMLE rifle and bayonet and the Brodie helmet go, but I am not familiar enough and do not get a good look at other items in the short trailers to judge. The precept of the movie is that the British High Command (BHC) was trying to avert an action that would result in a casualty loss of 1900 men. I cannot accept this as a reality for the BHC in the “dispatches” indicated that the “wastage” (not my words but theirs) on the Western Front was approximately 2000 per day during quiet periods. The Somme campaign (July to October 1916) resulted in somewhere near 800 K casualties with reported 60 K casualties on the first day, (30K with in the first hour). During the Passchendaele campaign, which occurred in October 1917, the BEF incurred a 275K casualty count which leads me to believe that a battle resulting in only 1900 casualties would only be a minor footnote in any BHC dispatch.

I became interested in WWI history because my father enlisted in the National Guard in March 1917 and served with the AEF through two major battles in WWI (St. Mihiel and the Argonne) and being discharged in 1919. There have been many books written about the World War. There are two that I found to be unbiased and interesting –Over the Top, by Arthur Guy Empey and the other Myth of the Great War by John Mosier.

Over the Top was published by A. L. Burt Company, New York, circa 1917. Guy Empey was a member of the New Jersey National Guard who became disenchanted with the lack of US response to the sinking of the RMS Lusitania -so much so that he traveled to London and enlisted in the British Army and served on the Western Front as a machine gunner until he was “invalided” out of service after being wounded on a trench raid in preparation for the Passchendael offensive of October 1917. He gives a good description of warfare for the common soldier’s life on the Western Front. The book has long been out of publication so may not be readily available.
This book is avaialble on lie at:

- Arthur Guy Empey - Google Books

Myth of the Great War was initially published by HarperCollins Publishers in 2001 one may be more readily availed. There are some fallacies I the book but overall it is quite good.
Just my thoughts for what they are worth.

Cosine,
Based on this thread they did their best to get the equipment correct.
https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=69205

Regarding the story, well it's Hollywood, so maybe somebody dropped a zero...

thanks for the info.
cosine 26