"Walking with the Ulster Division"

[Guest exuser1]

Just flipped through mine and its not bad ,super to through in the car when on the Somme and else where ,great effort and well done .

[rob elliott]

Hi,

I have deliberated for a week or so wether to reply to this topic as i feel it's rather difficult. I read Arthur's first post and took a similar view, based on my own basic knowledge of the Division.

I then thought i would say nothing & those with an interest in the Ulster Division can make their own minds up. However to give Mr armstrong a fair hearing i decided to buy a copy as it would be unfair to 'think critically' without doing so, let alone pass judgement here, particularly after the comments aimed at Arthur.

However there have been more postings from those who possibly have a limited knowledge/interest in the Ulster Division and as such i would ask a question of you, which i am going to answer.

Having gone through the book rather briefly i have noted a number of points which i feel to be incorrect or could have been expanded on to give clarity particularly for those people with limited knowledge of the subject.

My concern is primarily with the factual items not the description of touring the areas.

So the question is should i raise my concerns on this forum which may influence someone to buy the book or not.

One of the things is to who the book is pitched, if it's for a serious researcher or a student taking their first steps? Only Mr Armstrong can answer that.

I will tell you a couple of points and i would ask if these are reasonable queries.

Page 40 - photograph with notes showing a view of the battlefield on the 1st July 16. It has the Schwaben redoubt to the extreme right, behind the German third line The Redoubt was on the crown of the hill at the German 2nd line.

This has been partially caused by a poor selection of position of photograph. Somewhere near the Crucifix is better to take a picture of this.

Page 41 on - descrition of the battle. I assume the general description is taken fron Falls History. The overall description is inaccurate.

From more detailed research we know that prior to the 7:30 whistle South of the Ancre the 10th Inniskillings followed quickly by the 9th Inniskillings left their trenches and started across no-mans land while the barrage was still in progress.

North of the Ancre i believe the 12th Rifles did the same. These were not Divisional orders, but decisions by mid rank officers. Hence the reason the 109th brigade got across no-mans land so lightly and did so much damage uin the first few minutes.

The German machine guns at Thiepval and Beaumont Hamel were still concentrated on the 29th & 32nd Divisions by the time the 109th were in the German 1st line. The MG at the Crucifix did some damage but this just funnelled a more concentrated attack on the Schwaben.

The book relates the old 'the men climbed out of their trenches' and that 'some CO's disobayed the order not to go into battle'. This did not happen. No CO crossed no mans land. Crozier and Bernard of 107th came out in front of the wood to encourage the men only. These are very basic well known facts.

Page 48 - map of the same attack has the 107th Bgde next to the 109th Bgde with the 108th across the river. In fact the 108th & 109th attacked side by side, with the 108th astride the river and the 107th forming the support Bgde following through.

Just an observation, the mini bios of some of the key men could have been expanded on and more factual.

Crozier was C.O. of the Auxiliaries, these were not the Black & Tans as stated, he also resigned because he'd sacked a number of them for unofficial retaliations, who were then re-instated over his head by Tudor.

The front half of the book has the notes actually on the photgraphs used as sort of 'white labels' but the second half of the book doesn't.

One of the problems it has also is the cost. True it is a guide book and as such not quite the same but there are some extremely good, top quality, books with Ulster Division connections which are cheaper.

Road to the Somme - Phillip Orr [Veteran Interviews and 36th Story]

Three Cheers for the Derrys - Gardiner Mitchell [10th Skins]

Ballyshannon Belcoo Bertincourt - W.J. Canning [11th Skins]

Wheen o' medals - W.J.Canning [9th Skins]

The Terrors - Stuart White [16th Royal Irish Rifles]

All these priced around £17-18 for very detailed books with original photographs all cover the 1st July well.

For your information i am in a similar position to Mr Armstrong, i was born in England to a father from Londonderry and English mother. My grandfather was in Thiepval wood on the 1st July with the Ulster Division Royal Engineers, 150th Field Company, and was wounded in the morning while reparing the tramway. My grandmother's brother went into action with the 10th Inniskillings and another of her brothers' died as a result of wounds received at Plugstreet wood in 1917 with the 9th Inniskillings.

The photo on page 20 is the 150th Field Company crossing Malone Fields on their way to the Divisional review at City Hall 8th May 1915.

I grew up with these stories with a father, even though an ex serviceman of the 2nd war, who would refer back to the 'Somme' and the pride in his father and uncles. It is possibly an 'Ulster' trait not to forget and for that i am grateful to my father for giving me my interest in the 36th Ulster Division.

As said at the start it was rather difficult to write what appears to be a harsh crticism of the book when i can fully understand the pride Mr Armstrong feels for his grandfather. It is reflected in his book, which i do feel is a fine first effort.

I would suggest it would be most useful to those who are new to the subject and wish to learn more of the Ulster Division.

And yes i have learnt a couple of new bits too, one of which, to me personnally , would be worth the cost of the book alone.

To close, 18 months ago i had cause to query the work of a well known proffesor of history who wrote a book on a subject i am quite familiar with. He had made some serious factually incorrect statements i wanted to challenge but was nervous to do so due to his position and also by virtue of the fact approximately 15 senior historians had endorsed his work in the introduction.

So i fired off a couple of e-mails to two of the proffesors to say 'what if i know things to be wrong with his work do i say something or not?' Both said yes, definately, by writing the book in the first place he is challenging people to inspect and comment on his findings. So i e-mailed the author and pointed out some amazingly simple mistakes, which he acknowledged. He then published a second edition without any corrections.

Rob Elliott

[pietro]

Hi Rob

Great to hear your response. I met you at the Spectrum Centre. I haven't read the book talked about but I know you have a solid knowledge of the thread's subject. It sounds engaged and insightful as I would expect from you.

I'll maybe PM you to show photographic work I have been doing as "academic" research - see what you think!

Peter

[JonnieLincs]

Rob,

I am Jonnie Armstrong and I wrote this book.

Thankyou very much for your critic which is very much welcome. Unlike some, I know I have shortfalls and I do realise that my work is not perfect (very few books actually are!). I genuinely am interested in what people think (as you rightly said when you were talking about the professor that ignored, or at the very least disregarded, your comments – if you write a book then you should expect people to have an opinion!) which is why on essentially the last formal page (224) of this book I actively ask people to write to me and tell me of any errors that they spot. I do want feedback and so I take no offence !!!

Looking at your general point first ...

Essentially my book has an overview of the history of the Division (I agree if you are interested in the detail of a specific sub-unit of the Division then the books you list are more detailed and better for your task) but as you note my book is as much a travel guide as it is a history – indeed the subtitle of the book in my draft was ‘A travel guide for those with an interest in the 36^th (Ulster) Division in the Great War’ but I was persuaded that I should include the word ‘history’ as the book has a substantial amount of history included in it.

With such a helicopter approach to the subject, it is (as I think you hint at) much better suited to the person who is new to the Division rather than someone who is very schooled in the subject – although, as I have said in my earlier post on this thread, I do hope there are at the very least, snippets here and there that are new to the more expert follower.

When writing it I remembered my times as a boy travelling with my parents to visit the Ulster Tower. This was in the days long before the Somme Association and access to the Tower was gained via a local French caretaker who lived away from the site (indeed my father was one of those (I expect – many -) people that wrote to Northern Irish politicians to suggest that the Ulster Tower should be better looked after. I digress, in those days we, as a family, would try to work out what happened with – to be honest - very little idea. At that stage there was only really Falls’ book – which at the time had not been reprinted and cost a week wages to buy – one for the shelves not for the ground! So whilst writing the book I would always be thinking to myself ‘Think of a mum and a dad and several kids in the back of car driving through France or Flanders trying to work these complicated battles out’ – which is essentially the experience which we had as a young family. One of my hopes with this book is that Duke of Edinburgh Award groups, scouts, schools, cadet units and indeed normal families use it as a basis to plan battlefield expeditions, studies and explorations. I think to that the book is especially suited. Personally, I wish I did my DofE Silver expedition here tracing the Ulster Division rather than in the North York Moors looking at the effect of Tourism!

Looking at the specific issues that you have with the book:

The photograph on Page 40 – I note that you think it is a poor choice of photograph and I agree that the angle of the position of the photograph does make the marking of trenches difficult (the Schwaben Redoubt was of course a parallelogram and as such particularly hard to note) but I do recall spending a good deal of time with the trench map and making sure that it was as it should be – to my mind the parallelogram went (on the trench map) from the Crucifix to Clones to Enniskillen to Strabane which puts the Schweben Redoubt where I had it on that picture – but I agree - with the shape of the position it is hard to note easily. The reason why I chose this position as a photograph is because it gives a cross-view of the attackers and defenders positions and gives a view of the gentle but long rise that the Ulster Division had to traverse. I also refer back to it later in the book (page 228).

I note what you say about this photograph not really being the view of the German machine gunner (the photograph being taken from Thiepval) – that might be true in the early stages of the battle – as the machine gunners in Thiepval were looking to their own front but as the battle went on then the fortified village of Thiepval was able to turn its guns onto the Ulster Division’s position and thus it was a general view of the German machine gunner from Thiepval.

Page 41 – I agree that the way that I have put it is not as clear as it could be. Although, when one looks again I made the general point that when the whistle was blown the line (across an 18 mile front) went forward from their trenches – I do discuss the Ulster Division (specifically) moving forward before the barrage on page 39 (4^th and 5^th paragraphs) and again discuss it on page 53 (4^th paragraph) but I do accept – reading it again – that the general point that I make about the line on page 41 would have been much better made if I had reiterated where the Ulster Division was compared to the original line.

Page 48 – I agree. With hindsight this map could have been better and clearer.

Crozier Page 118/119 – I agree. You are dead right and I fell into that often made mistake and lumped the Auxiliaries into the Black and Tans. My mistake – the only (poor) defence that I can make is that I am not the only one to make this error !

Information on photos –. Whilst in the reviewing process this point was indeed made to me and I did look again at this. This, essentially, is my rationale: in the front half of the book the photos were generally taken by someone else and thus had to be referenced; in the back portion of the book the photographs essentially belonged to me and I therefore didn’t have to. So in the front half the photos had to have a text box and I feel gained value with a description. In the back portion of the book the photographs all tend to be part of an individual section of the travel guide. So, for example, on page 167 the piece is about the Mensil Ridge Cemetery – as part of that section there is a photograph of Mensil Ridge Cemetery and as such it isn’t labelled as I feel that it is obvious and thus the photograph needs no explanation. Having said that, where I feel that an explanation is needed (see page 210 for example) I have put one. But again I accept that this is a matter of opinion and given my time again I might well have done it differently.

Cost – I did spend a lot of time on this area. Essentially, my book is £19.50 and you point to other books that are £17-£18 as maybe being better value? Ignoring the content and whether we are comparing like-for-like I would point to my book being A4 and has a greater use of colour than the others. Being bigger and having more colour pages, on a pure production issue, my costs are higher. My original aim was to try to price it at just below £15 - but the only way to do this was to have a smaller book with many more black and white pages. I wrestled hard with this and – remembering my main target audience (people with little knowledge of the subject matter) - I thought it would be better to have a bigger book with maps and photographs in colour as this would be easier to follow for the novice. Across the whole of this project I will make very little - and I strongly suspect none whatsoever – profit. Money is not the reason why I did this book.

Again can I reiterate that I really do want feedback and am quite happy to get involved in any conversation with anyone about it – please email me on mail@ulsterdivision.co.uk with any comments – I suspect that the members of this forum are quite well versed in this subject and as such I hope that there will be more conversations? From Day 1 the first book I kept for myself had a sticky label attached to the front called ‘Error copy’ and anything that I find that is out of place I mark in there - rest assured if a second edition is ever published (which I actually doubt!) then all those issues will be addressed – I promise there is no bigger critic of this book than me !

Again, I do appreciate you taking the time to look through and add to the discussion.

Regards

Jonnie Armstrong

[David Filsell]

For what its worth, I think Mr Armstrong has shown very considerable grace under pressure. Well done