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Don't know if I feel a bit uncomfortable about that as a marketing propaganda tool? Wonder if there might be a backlash? What's the message? Stick a chocolate bar in someone else's pocket if you're ever at war!
Well I like it. And, as an ex-serviceman I'd like to say it's tactful, poignant and given the year very topical. A glimpse of peace during a horrible war, based on a factual event. Made with one of my favourite institutions - the British Legion.
As for it being a piece of marketing propaganda - it's an advert, what do you expect.
Well done Sainsburys - but I still prefer Booths!
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 19:04 - Nov 13 with 5603 views
I wouldn't disagree with any of your points Tejas and I didn't immediately pick up The British Legion link I must admit . And I'm probably wrong in assuming everyone knows about the event itself . However I do feel uneasy with it , I think it is the very poignancy of the event that you refer to that doesn't sit well with an advertising campaign in my mind .
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 21:43 - Nov 13 with 5565 views
From a self confessed WW1 pedantic's point of view, it's actually rather good. There is some evidence that games of football took place (the Lancashire Fusiliers claimed a 3-2 victory!), items were certainly gifted and traded, photos were taken and Tommies did get their hair cut out in no-mans land. Nicely shot with due respect shown to those involved in the original event, I thought.
Sainsbury's are selling similarly packaged chocolate up until Christmas with all the proceeds going to the British Legion, so fair play to them.
I understand where you're coming from though, Harry.
[Post edited 13 Nov 2014 21:55]
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 23:05 - Nov 13 with 5527 views
Hate this...showing The Somme as 'alittle bit frightening, but hey it's all right because Sainsbury's will cheer us all up.' Next day they were all shot to pieces. Can't mix advertising with something so serious. Yes there was probably a football match on Chistmas day in 1914 , but I'd like to bet there was no return match in 1915,16, and 17.
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 14:29 - Nov 14 with 5440 views
Yes, sanitising what must have been a truly terrifying experience. That is it's sin, making trench warfare scenes look beautiful, with a robin perched on the barbed wire. Aaaah. They didn't pan down to film the rats scurrying around their feet gnawing on rotting body parts in no man's land, did they?
As an aside, the largest shareholder in Sainsbury's is the Qatar Investment Authority which owns more than a quarter of the company (26%). You know, the state investment arm of those lovely chaps who bought the 2022 World Cup with bribery and corruption. The Sainsbury family and their charities own less than 9% now.
Now, would that fact trump the nice advert and make you boycott Sainsbury's ? Does for me.
[Post edited 22 Nov 2014 0:28]
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 15:10 - Nov 14 with 5423 views
An interesting piece in the Guardian but the writer rather undermines the gist of his own argument by acknowledging that the same accusation of 'exploitation' could be aimed at just about anyone who has made money from war.
And he's right. Every producer of every war film, every publisher of a war memoir or historical recount, the record label of every anti-war song - they have brought their product to market with an eye to profit. Should we stop watching, reading and listening? Hundreds of 'I was there' books were published in the 1920's. Are we saying that the writers 'exploited' and profited from the events in which they took part and their colleagues died or were maimed in? Some of the manufacturers of the cars we drive profited immensely from both WW1 and WW2, and not necessarily from the winning side either. Should we stop driving them? And what about the tour companies that sell battlefield holidays to France, Belgium and Turkey? Are they just in it for the money or is there perhaps also a genuine desire to perpetuate the memory of those who served on the Somme, at Ypres or Gallipoli?
As for the ad 'sanitising' the events of Christmas 1914 in the Ypres salient, is that not also true of every filmed depiction of warfare? I doubt that the true horrors of the battlefield have ever been accurately depicted on screen anywhere at any time.
I'm certainly not in the business of defending Sainsbury's and I can see why people feel discomfort watching the ad and I share that discomfort to a certain extent. But I think, at the very least, we should recognise that there are some pretty big double standards being applied here.
[Post edited 14 Nov 2014 20:49]
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 20:55 - Nov 14 with 5366 views
Yes, I would have nailed it more deeply, if someone had not gone and deleted various posts. It seems Censorship about the First World War is still active and functioning on AVFTT. My previous comment was that the British Army Command threatened to decimate (that is, shoot 1 in 10 soldiers) from those units which participated in any future unofficial ceasefires, after they heard of the 1914 Christmas truce.
Did you know that there are so few pictures surviving today of mutilated corpses in the trenches simply because the Army generals took the view that it wasn't good for the morale of the home front and confiscated cameras and film. That was done as a national effort. Whenever they found a private who had a camera on him, it was an extremely serious military charge. And letters sent home were severely censored at the lowest unit level, the platoon, by their lieutenants. "Tell your Ma and Pa everything is tickety-boo and don't mention Joe's head lying in the mud at the bottom of the trench."
The Army Staff didn't want the families to see the brutal destruction of human bodies caused by shell fire because they thought it would undermine THEIR war effort (while billeted in the chateau miles behind the front lines). Sanitising the reality started the moment the cannons roared; that old saying "the first casualty of war is the truth" applied then and still does now.
[Post edited 22 Nov 2014 1:15]
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 10:54 - Nov 22 with 5145 views
Archie, thanks for that, the decimate bit was entirely news to me, thought it went out with the Romans
Personally love the add for all these reasons, normal people 100 years ago, for a very brief spell on one of the holiest days of the Christian calendar, stopped killing and met, played footie, exchanged gifts (that was real, not a Sainsbury made up) and were forced apart again. To me, it is a message of hope in the midst of the madness of warfare lead by "Donkeys" To remind the world of that, in Association with the Royal British Legion, might actually make a few people, in this commercialised, selfish world, think what is really important.
Life isn't fair. Learn that early on, and you will worry less and do more.
It's entirely news to me too. I've studied the First World War for many, many years and read literally hundreds of books and articles on the subject and even used to run my own WW1 website. Not once have I come across any mention of a threat to shoot 1 in 10. I'd be very interested to know your source on that one Archie because I find the idea incredulous.
I don't accept your points about photographs and censorship either. There was no restriction on cameras until 1915 and even then soldiers (including high and middle ranking Officers) continued to take pictures. It's not difficult to find them if you care to look. They generally didn't take pictures of mutilated bodies for reasons other than the ones you've suggested (just think about it) but they do exist. Official war photographers had no qualms about taking such pictures and indeed the official 1916 film of the 1st day of the battle of the Somme had shots of the dead and injured and that was seen by 20 million people just a few months after the event. And don't forget that casualty lists were made public and published in the papers.
Letters were censored, that much is true, but only in terms of where they contained information which might have been useful to the enemy, such as location or forthcoming operations. Again, it is not difficult to find plenty examples of letters from soldiers of all ranks taking about the horrors of the trenches, friends being killed or maimed etc. The truth is that soldiers self censored their own letters home as they didn't want their families to know the truth about the danger they were facing.
Of course, the public back home were not fully conscious of all the facts but they were far better informed than you're suggesting.
And no-one was executed as a result of the 1914 truce, Osbourne. Don't know where you got that one from.
[Post edited 22 Nov 2014 21:27]
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Sainsburys Christmas Advert .. on 01:10 - Nov 23 with 5093 views
You are a WW1 buff then? Read a lot of books? Me too. Fascinating and yet bloodily futile existence. But over 100+ years we have lost some of the connections which explain how the carnage was allowed to happen. Much of the recent writing (since Alan Clark in 1961) speaks of donkey generals and their exploitation and sacrifice of the millions of reluctant soldiers. But at the time it was a patriotic response to enlist and although they knew not of the mechanised death they were to face, it was the honourable thing to volunteer. Max Hastings is revisiting this period now, and is a masterful historian.
Most of the books and memoirs from WW1 were published in the period ten years after the war ended. There was not the appetite for such accounts immediately following the Armistice and, to be fair, a lot of the writers could not bring themselves to recount it for some years. In the 20s and 30s a lot these were simply reportage, as in ' I was there and this is what I did'. "Twelve Days on the Somme", by Sidney Rogerson, is good example of a relatively stoic account. But political thinking was also deeply affected, obviously, hence 'war to end all wars' and appeasement.
I didn't discriminate between pre-1915 and the other 3 years of the war. It is true that trench photos of the injured and shattered corpses were censored, seized and destroyed by the Army command. Even the Imperial War Museum admits as much. The decimation threats were passed down by word of mouth, obviously not in writing. There is some dispute about how widespread that was. Probably limited to some hothead divisional commanders, but it happened and has been alleged in histories. Nevertheless, top Army command were expressing their extreme anger within a day of two of the events, and that anger was swiftly passed down. It is significant there were never any more such events like the 1914 Christmas truce.
edit to add: After Christmas 1914, whenever subsequent significant dates came up that might indicate an increased risk of fraternisation, the top brass usually arranged an extensive artillery barrage of the Germans' trenches to keep everyone's heads down. This usually included the Good Friday-Easter Sunday period as well as Christmas-New Year in case religious zeal seized their thoughts.
Tell me, when you look at the standard WW1 text books, why do you see the same pictures again and again? Why is the same film of a soldier carrying his wounded mate over his shoulders through the trench the image of the Somme? And the explosion of the mine at Hawthorn Ridge ever present? Because they are part of the official Army film. And they are the best quality we have. But other than that, apart from official film and photos, much else was caught by the censorship. I have seen a few of the worst of the rest, from unofficial soldiers' sources, including half of a chap cut vertically in two by shrapnel from head to groin sitting on a fire step. But considering that was much more likely than a clean death from a bullet through the head there is very little such material still extant. It is likely that Tommies would be keener on photos of enemy dead than their mates, I agree. I suppose a visit to the IWM would ratify the extent, but that is too far and ghoulish for me.
"Official war photographers had no qualms about taking such pictures and indeed the official 1916 film of the 1st day of the battle of the Somme had shots of the dead and injured and that was seen by 20 million people just a few months after the event."
I am afraid that statement is somewhat misleading as well. While there was some footage shot on the 1st July, mainly of preparations, key sequences of the attack shown in newsreels in the cinemas at home were a reconstruction. The scenes of going over the top were filmed a week of so later, in trench areas already captured. Although some of it was staged after the event, the recovery of casualties and retreat to the trenches was real. But there was not much footage shown of the carnage in no man's land or up against the German wire. The cameras they used were just too heavy and bulky to get forward with, they needed tripods. Surely you know about this ? See the link on the film.
"The truth is that soldiers self censored their own letters home as they didn't want their families to know the truth about the danger they were facing."
That, I accept, is perfectly valid. This was largely a civilian volunteer army from 1916 whose thoughts were always turned to home. However, there were guidelines as to what to write about. Yes, of course casualty lists were in newspapers. Often phrased in terms of our glorious dead. They were biased towards officers in the nationals. But papers like the Bury Times covered all ranks including a young private who lived in the house I now own. They were perhaps the one focus that could have led to protest but society was not like that. It was very subservient.
I did not say that people were uninformed, but the information they were given of casualties was scanty and with no possibility to find the truth of the circumstances. They could have benefited from the platoon officers' duty to write a short letter home to relatives. Occasionally, later, they might receive visits from close comrades home on leave. Both the officers' letters and their comrades accounts would tend towards kindness and decency, stressing a merciful death with little suffering, no matter the truth. Officially, they simply got a telegram, Killed or Missing or Died of Wounds (which was actually the worst, since it implied suffering). Even families of soldiers shot for desertion were often told they were KIA.
What is your family experience? Your in-depth interest suggests you have some deep family connection. My great uncle, aged 20, disappeared on the Somme on 8th July 1916 between Contalmaison and Mametz Wood in a catastrophic frontal attack by the 2nd Manchesters. The details have only just been discovered. No-one in the family knew, for decades, much other than he was gone, they did not know how to enquire. He was lost in history, no known grave, presumably a field grave or more likely just chopped up and dissolved into the mud. His name is simply one listed on a panel on the Thiepval Memorial, amongst 72,194 of his countrymen lost in the battle, all of them with no known grave.
That is one of the main legacies of WW1; the people never truly unquestioningly accepted their lot again, due to the callous nature of the establishment in their inability to deal with the huge number of casualties. I think the Tower of London poppies installation has been very profound in bringing an understanding of the scale of the disaster into today.
Edit to add: Like you, I try and take a realistic view. I am not a 'Blackadder' adherent although the comedy is grimly apposite. And many of the mistakes made in 1914-1916 were learned from, so that by 1918 the British Army was one of the most well-organised and tactically wise of any. But it did not stop the generals viewing them as numbers to be expended, as required in table-top battles. Attrition was the strategy and that did not change. For that, the conduct of the war deserves its reputation.
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