I expect that the accuracies won't be too hard to find, but my search for historical inaccuracies is becoming arduous, my friends.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm one of those lazy AP students who needs to do a project on this movie, noting historical accuracies and inaccuracies, and I would like it if someone, somewhere lightened the load. So who wants to help me?!!!
By the way, I need five of each.
Most of this movie is accurate, so you'll have no trouble finding 5 instances in that area. The tough part is the stuff they got wrong. Here are 5 that I noticed:
INACCURACIES:
1. The troop is shown as being comprised of mere underage high school kids, which would be far too young for any legal Army induction. Not until the very last days of World War II under Hitler did the German army ever resort to "robbing the cradle" in this way, in conjunction with their Nazi Youth movement.
2. The troop eats an uncleaned pig raw and uncooked, which would have sickened (or even killed) most of them.
3. Neither army is ever shown using nerve gas, which was so commonly used (and deadly) that it was later banned from all future wars by international law.
4. Helmets: We see the Germans wearing correctly-shaped "Kaiser point" helmets, but they're only made of felt, whereas the real ones were of course metal. (In another scene, a German is also shown wearing a metal "Hitler helmet," which wasn't used at all until the early 1930s, and not in wide use until the late '30s.) The helmets of the Allies are also wrong, showing them in some scenes wearing similar designs to the Kaiser points, whereas the Allies should have all been wearing standard metal "Dough boy" cereal bowl helmets.
5. Hospital scenes were all wrong, showing them as sterile clinics with nurses in attendance. In reality, such areas looked a lot more like the old "slaughterhouse" makeshift medic bunkers used during the Civil War.
BLOOPERS:
1. Kemmerick gets shot in the stomach, yet later in the hospital he wakes up to find that instead part of his right leg has been removed.
2. Kat gets some shrapnel in the shin, yet while being carried by our hero, he suddenly develops a mystery neck wound instead and arrives D.O.A. at the troop tent.
ADDED NOTES:
Uniforms: Outfits and bayonets from both sides also don't look quite right, but that would take an actual military detail guy to determine, which I am not.
Politics: We hear no comments from the Allies side, but the German soldiers seem totally confused as to why they're fighting a war, apparently ignorant of the fact that their German leaders - as would also happen again just 20 years later - were actively bragging to the world press that they were "going to conquer all of Europe for the Fatherland!"
The Allies used a variety of helmets during World War 1. The French Army used the Adrian helmet from 1915 and this is the one which appears in the film. The Germans used the Pickelhaube (the helmet with the spike on top) until 1916 when it was replaced by the Stahlhelm M1916 (which looks like an upside down coal scuttle). The Stahlhelm M1916 was later modified into the model which was used in World War 2.
The best book about trench warfare in the Great War was 'Storm of Steel', the memoire of German infantry officer Ernst Junger. Well worth a read.
Regarding point 2: They start cutting up the pig in order to cook it, not eat it raw.
Regarding point 3: Nerve gas was not in use during WW1, only blistering agents, such as mustard gas and chlorine gas, which attacked the lungs. Why the director did not depict a gas attack-- who knows?
Regarding point 4: The helmets are correct. The Germans originally wore pickelhaube (spiked helmets) which were made of leather or felt, but offered no head protection. Later they switched to stahlhelms (steel helmets) around 1916. The enemy are all French and wearing the proper 'Adrian' helmet. One might quibble that in the movie they wear them earlier in the war than they did in reality. No British or Commonwealth troops are depicted, probably because Universal did not want to alienate American audiences who might mistake them for doughboys, who wore the same helmet.
5. The hospital scenes are correct; the further from front, the better the conditions in the hospitals.
So-called BLOOPERS. Kemmerick is hit in the leg by shrapnel, not shot in the stomach. Baumer is the one hit in the side by shrapnel during the same barrage.
Kat is injured in the shin by one bomb, a second bomb splinter kills him, unknown to Baumer who carries him back.
Kemmerick gets shot in the stomach, yet later in the hospital he wakes up to find that instead part of his right leg has been removed.
Swing and a miss on just about every point, Moviemystic.
shareSwing and a miss indeed. Fortunately we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of the Miracle on the Marne so maybe the world will get a refresher on the special hell the Great War was.
1. Nothing is expressed or implied that they are underage high school kids. Nor was "high school" a conceivable concept in Germany in 1914. I myself turned 18 while I was at MCRD San Diego. And it's pretty well known that young teenagers as well as old men served in the trenches for the Kaiser in the end as well as for Hitler in his war.
2. The pig was cooked. They are shown sitting around the pot it was boiled in and are eating it when they were sent out on wire detail. Regardless, it wasn't unheard of for the starving soldiers in the trenches to eat raw meat or contaminated bread as well as drinking water from shell holes-severely contaminated by gas residue or the rotting corpses that littered the battlefield.
3. Nobody used nerve gas in WW I because it's a relatively modern invention.
4. The helmets are correct. I have a "spike" helmet from my Uncle's estate. It is leather (and FYI-the spike is removable so it can be replaced with a "parade plume" which explains why Paul's disappears after the wire detail scene) and while they were in the trenches it was fitted with a fabric cover, not unlike what the US military uses today. The switch to the commonly known steel helmet happened in 1916 and helps the audience follow the timeline of the movie. Nice touch by the director, I might add. The French helmet bore no resemblence to the British "doughboy" helmet, was also leather and is correctly depicted in the film.
5. A hospital area in the rear was considerably more sophisticated than a battlefield aid station. Even during the US Civil War.
Bloopers
1. Kemmerich is not shot. He receives multiple wounds from a shell burst. The wound in the stomach is obviously the more life threatening and the one treated immediately.
2. Kat didn't develop a mystery neck wound. Another bomb is dropped on the pair as Paul carries him back to an aid station. Kat is hit by shrapnel and killed.
Added notes
Uniforms: The movie was made while the war was still fresh in the public eye and many of the uniforms and weapons were readily available. The German Mauser rifle was still in use as the standard issue throughout WW II. It was an easy matter for a director whose intent was accuracy to get this right.
Politics: The reasoning behind the Great War was confusing to all, as it can be traced back in many forms to the Napoleonic era if not beyond. In a nutshell, it wasn't about conquering territory. It was about upholding obligations to protect other countries.
Some of the best reading I've come across on this (along with Remarque's book) is The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front and The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916, all available at Amazon.com. And FYI-this stuff ain't for kids.
3. Actually nerve gas was invented during 1930's in Nazi Germany, however even though they mass produced it, it was never used during WWII.
Yossi
The French helmet depicted in the film, the M15 Casque Adrian, was not made of leather. It was metal. The French Army began using the steel helmet in 1915, to replace the cloth kepi style cap. Leather helmets were never worn by the French infantry in WW1.
shareThe most obvious one....most of the Germans have American accents.
shareWell, if you really wanted to be accurate, they should have been speaking German! But we'll give the filmmakers a break: the audience understands this and mentally notes that in the "reality" of the movie, the dialogue is actually in German. To have the actors speak English with German accents would be ridiculous.
This cinematic shortcut is used in many movies, with varying results. In Paths of Glory, Kirl Douglas and the rest of the cast don't use French accents, but it works fine. However, in Khartoum, the Sudanese rebel (played by Laurence Olivier!) speaks to his people in English, but his accent doesn't seem quite right.
Anyway, I assume benfranklinstein3 has long since written his paper (although he should do his own research!), but I'll mention these:
1. Politics: The dialogue with the soldiers being confused about the war's aims comes from the novel. The way I understand it (I'm relying on John Keegan's history of World War I), Imperial Germany did not want to conquer all of Europe. Had they won, they probably would have taken some relatively small territorial gains in Belgium and France, and held on to areas they had already secured in the east (Poland, the Baltic states, etc.)
The Nazis had much grander territorial ambitions. I suppose German soldiers in World War I would generally have been less "politicized" than those of the later war.
2. A gas attack is vividly described in the novel. It was probably left out of the movie because of production/time constraints. By the way, I think some of the gases used in the war resulted in fatalities, although they obviously weren't as deadly as nerve gas.
3. The French troops wore caps in 1914. Paul does join the German army in 1914, though it's unclear when his first battle takes place. (Fall of 1914? Spring of 1915?) I'll give the filmmakers a pass on this one.
Yes, tho the paper has probably long since acquired its C minus or whatever they get these days. Still I find this an interesting exercise. So...here's my 5 of each.
INaccuracies:
1/ They don't swear. All soldiers swear, a lot!
2/ They don't talk about girls and or sex almost constantly. Soldiers do, A LOT.
3/ No one vomits in the street when they get too drunk. Soldiers do, A LOT.
4/ I don't recall much singing, especially whilst marching. WW1 soldiers sang, A LOT.
5/ When soldiers are not singing, vomiting or talking about sex they complain, A LOT. There is not nearly enough of that.
Accuracies:
1/ War is not glorious, especially when YOU are getting shot at.
2/ French girls are very sexy
3/ A good sergeant is priceless.
4/ In WW1 if you so much as put a finger above the parapet it'd get sniped, let alone reaching for a butterfly.
5/ Next to surviving, looking out for your comrades is the most important thing for a soldier.
Ah! Now we see the violence endemic in the system!
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