I was somewhat surprised to see The Trench's depiction of No Man's Land as a verdant pasture; I would have thought that by July 1916, the ground would have been torn up by artillery fire. Does anyone know if this depiction is historically accurate?
shareNo, it's not remotely historically accurate. This is the only thing I didn't like about this otherwise excellent film. When Eddie Macfarlane looks out the loop hole and sees, and describes, perfect green grass 'like a meadow' I couldn't believe it! Likewise, when they 'go over the top' and advance through an unblemished field, I couldn't help but wonder why the film makers didn't make a bit of an effort to make it look the part. The first world war battlefields were quagmires where men and even horses often drowned in the mud. After years of shelling it was unusual to even see a single tree standing - in fact the largest commonwealth cemetery in Europe is called 'Tyne Cott' which means lone cottage, named after the remains of a cottage which stood on the battlefield in Belgium.
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Remember, it wasn't always the muddy quagmire you talk about. It started out as countryside. It was only as battle after battle destroyed the landscape did it become such a state.
Plus there were different areas that were battlefields throughout the war. It wasn't all in one place, it stretched for miles.
I don't know enough about the dates, but it probably would have been a bit messy because of the artillary like you said.
But not necessarily the stereotypical mess we think of when someone mentions the trenches.
"Every jackass thinks he knows what war is. They're the ones that have never been"
maybe he was on the weed and imagined the pasture!
shareI'm afraid you're not quite right here. A great deal of research was done for this film. Including consultation with respected historians and indeed with some who were actually present during the Battle of the Somme. In fact, even some of the sound was carefully researched, let alone the visuals!
shareIf you look at No-Mans Land before the assault on 1st July 1916 on the Somme sector, it is rolling fields and valleys and plenty greenery.
A famous photo of the Tyneside Irish Brigade moving out over No-Mans Land from the Tara-Usna start line shows the landscape as swaying wheatfields, unchurned by war. The despoilation would come later. In fact, the Somme was chosen for the summer offensive partly because it was unaffected by war until then, a previous quiet area of the French/British line. How that all changed !
Around Ypres though, was terrible. Flat land, churned over again and again by shells, it somehow held together until the British summer offensive of 1917. It started well enough at Messines, but when later massed shelling in the Ypres destroyed the centuries-old field drainage system, the whole area flooded and became deep quagmire where men and horses disppeared. The hell of Passchendaele.
Around Loos and Lens was a mainly mining slagheaps, with fields and industrial areas.
We Are The Mods ! We Are The Mods ! We Are - We Are - We Are The Mods ! (Quadrophenia)
HEre is the photo you are talking about.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Tyneside_Irish_Brigade_advancing_1_July_1916.jpg
~Thanato
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Ok, I'm fine with the explanation for grass instead of mud. But this gras area looked like it was mowed just a few days before the attack.
shareWasn't there a week of artillery bombardment between the two sides before the battle started? While I hardly think the ground would be in the condition we usually associate with No Man's Land at the start of each battle I would have thought there would have been at least some signs of damage.
shareIt was the British arty shelling the Germans. (With little effect.)
shareNo, it's not remotely historically accurate.