Film "1917"

[comrade]

Just saw "1917". It is an extraordinary cinematic spectacle, though IMHO not a great film.
I am a devotee of historical films, and pay attention to the clothing and every day personal items
in particular. So, one observation based on "1917". In the Great War British officers on the Western
Front wore collar pins amid the muck and mire of the trenches.

 

[Andy57]

In her book A Testament Of Youth, Vera Brittain writes about her brother and her fiancé and their experience as British Army officers on the Western Front. She writes that, at first (presumably 1914-15), officers would look like they had been in the trenches but that as the war dragged on, it became a point of pride for some officers to maintain as presentable an appearance as possible. If I recall what she wrote (it has been more than 40 years since I read her book), this meant shaving daily, and maintaining their uniforms as clean and pressed as possible and so on. So, the wearing of collar pins would fit right in to that narrative.

I do not know if what she wrote was factual or not, but it is a profoundly moving book. Her brother, Edward Brittain, her fiancé Roland Leighton, and several other friends of theirs were all killed during the war.

 

[JJ Katz]

In her book A Testament Of Youth, Vera Brittain writes about her brother and her fiancé and their experience as British Army officers on the Western Front. She writes that, at first (presumably 1914-15), officers would look like they had been in the trenches but that as the war dragged on, it became a point of pride for some officers to maintain as presentable an appearance as possible. If I recall what she wrote (it has been more than 40 years since I read her book), this meant shaving daily, and maintaining their uniforms as clean and pressed as possible and so on. So, the wearing of collar pins would fit right in to that narrative.

I do not know if what she wrote was factual or not, but it is a profoundly moving book. Her brother, Edward Brittain, her fiancé Roland Leighton, and several other friends of theirs were all killed during the war.

WW I was pretty horrific for every population involved but in the UK, due to the tradition of the upper classes going into the army, more than the other services, the loss rate of young men of that extraction was particularly grievous, IIRC.
It was felt at the time that there was an actual shortage of men for women of that generation to marry.

 

[comrade]

The French, German and Austro- Hungarian upper classes had similar traditions with comparable losses.
The film classic, Le Grande Illusion, explores the class relationships within the French military and its'
German counterpart:

La Grande Illusion - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[willyto]

I just typed WW1 officers on my search engine and there's plenty of proof of that out of the warzone and in it they wore it. Not something I actually thought out of place during the movie.