Saturday, 22 August, Michael Duffy. The Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was the first ever delivered by telegram. Home Site Map. This could go on for days as German batteries continually shelled telephone communications out of existence. Messages went from company to company in the trenches, back to battalion headquarters or even further, to brigade or divisional HQ. They were expected to be self-sufficient and were often left to find a route for themselves with no guidance.
One man admitted to nearly wandering into German lines looking for an officer before the recipient stopped him, took the note and gave him directions to get home safely. Another recalled ambling around Mons during a battle with no clue where headquarters was.
Though runners might have been awarded a little extra comfort for looking after an officer, it was by no means a safe job. At the beginning of the war, one messenger recalled that no communication trenches had yet been dug to link up the burgeoning British system. To deliver a message, he would have to wait for dark, roll out of the trench, run to the next one and roll in, hoping to evade any German snipers. The Germans spotted him, sent up a star shell that illuminated his position and began shelling him.
The barrage landed perilously close either side of him until the Germans finally found their mark and blew him up. Buried alive, with just one arm and his head sticking out of the mud, the messenger was trapped until someone pulled him out. He suffered from deep shock and remembered nothing from the next 24 hours. Perhaps the most in famous runner of the Great War?
One Adolf Hitler. Debate reigns as to how close to danger he actually came, and it is hard to separate historical fact from later propaganda. As a regimental runner, the future dictator did not occupy the most dangerous of positions; working further forward with a battalion or a company would have been more perilous. He was awarded the Iron Cross twice. The first was a common award, but the second, not so though it was often awarded to soldiers who happened to work in proximity to Headquarters.
Hitler received his after an attack in which normal communications were rendered obsolete and messengers were absolutely crucial. The British Army tried every back up they could think of to maintain contact with troops when they went into battle.
Feathered messengers were prevalent, and pigeons were used to maintain knowledge of where troops were on the map and how they were progressing. But still the runner was a crucial part of any engagement when men disappeared over the top and out of sight of their commanders.
Set amidst Operation Alberich and the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, the film follows two young soldiers as they aim to deliver a vital message preventing what would be a disastrous attack on an enemy position.
The events of the film are only loosely based in truth — inspired by stories told to Mendes by his grandfather. But the messengers it depicts tell a fascinating true story of their own.
Commonly known as runners, they became crucial to communication in the trenches and battlefields of the Great War. You may be asking why human lives needed to be risked in order to deliver messages in an era when alternative communication methods were established and in use.
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