War Diaries Talk

German spy

  • Stork by Stork

    Several questions about the 4th day---

    The asterisk before 'Reported' is in pencil, as is the note in the right column, so was it a German spy who did the reporting? That doesn't make sense, though- why would a German spy report to the British?

    What does 'got the teams up' mean?

    'the enemy had the range to our guns' does that mean the enemy's guns fired farther than ours?

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    To me, the pencil note seems to be saying that the information they got about the breakthrough was false information provided by a german spy, probably in an attempt to sow confusion.

    When they say they 'got the teams up', they mean they brought the horses up so they could move the guns and limbers.

    And the enemy having the range to their guns means that they were the target of accurate German counter-battery fire, which is why they were going to move anyway. Probably at this stage, the Germans had fired registration shots, but if the batteries hadn't moved, you can be pretty certain they would then have come under heavier bombardment.

    Posted