Re: Colonel Blimp's Armistice

From: Leo Enticknap [[email protected]]

Martin Lampprecht writes:

"It seems to me there is just one problem with your solution to the Blimp c=
onundrum: The war ended at 11 AM =84Paris local time=93, and Paris sure was=
 neither under German occupation nor had ever been imposed the German time =
zone (contrarily to WW II when the Germans introduced CET to the whole of F=
rance, and the French stuck to it after the war)."

Ah ... didn't know that the armistice was at 1100 WET specifically. So in B=
elgium, the armistice took place at midday local time, changing to 1100 at =
that very moment (which I'm guessing is why the liberational changeover fro=
m CET to WET in Belgium happened at that moment, i.e. it was designed to be=
 symbolic).

All this, as you point out, doesn't explain the 1000 on Colonel Blimp's wat=
ch at the moment the cannon fire stopped.  DST doesn't explain it either, b=
ecause it ended on 6 October in France (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclo=
ck/clockchange.html?n=3D195&year=3D1918), 16 September in Belgium (http://w=
ww.timeanddate.com/worldclock/clockchange.html?n=3D48&year=3D1918) and 30 S=
eptember in the UK (http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/clockchange.html?=
n=3D136&year=3D1918).

As the original query pointed out, the armistice would have been within the=
 living memory of a significant proportion of those in the audience for 'Th=
e Life and Death of Colonel Blimp' in 1943, which would make it surprising =
if this was just a simple error on the part of the filmmakers.

Leo

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