I died in hell – They called it Passchendaele

I send you a very interesting photograph showing how the concrete dam across the Yser was shot away by a 15" Howitzer. It is pretty accurate shooting and it may interest your friends of the War Cabinet. Hugh Trenchard to Frederick Maurice - 2/11/17.

is that so?

thank you sir arthur hort

the english aristocracy is a joke

My old Canadian overlord rather tries me with his ‘buck’ and eye wash [bullshit]. I don’t care about Colonials. They may be better and wiser than we, but they are very wearing. Their ways are not our ways. Their views are not our views. Their language is not our language. Their whole outlook upon life is different to ours. I suppose that it is of no use enlarging upon all this, for it is clear that we have got to put up with them and stroke them and say what fine fellows they are until the end of time. They respond to flattery and nothing else. They are like children in that way and the more you are ’all over them’, the happier they are. Old Mitchell is a good old fellow, but he is terribly Canadian.

Captain Cuthbert Headlam to his wife Beatrice, 13/10/16

Lt Col Charles Mitchell for reference.

Instructional photos of blind reloading training for British soldiers from the papers of LtCol James Durrant.

About midnight a message was passed down that I was wanted on the left. Proceeding there I found an officer of the Warwicks (I believe), who stated that he had come to relieve us. Words cannot express the meaning of that word "relief" as it applied to our fellows at that moment. To a war chronicler it cannot but mean much more than a trifling operation, but its effect in our case was that after handing over our little line to the newcomers, we were making our way back down the main ride at a pace that I never would have dreamt tired men capable of. I remember very little about that long journey back, except that as a parting gift we had a direct hit on our tail which killed a number of our men as we were nearing Mametz Village. But well I remember my quartermaster sergeant meeting me somewhere with the words "Thank God! you're all right sir", having a dixie of hot soup and falling off into a dead sleep.

I flatter myself that the creeping forward of my attacking lines into No Man’s Land prior to zero and the lifting of the barrage off the enemy front line, was my own idea derived from my experiences in the Russo-Japanese War and from my raids which were always successful. I was convinced that on 1st July my men would not get in unless they pressed close up to our barrage. At the last rehearsal in the back area of the proposed attack (1st July) of the two divisions (32nd and Ulster) the GOC 4th Army (Rawlinson) attended and at the end a pow-wow of all officers down to and including company commanders was held. As was the custom it took the form of the senior officer asking each brigadier in turn what he noticed worthy of remarks and criticism. It came to my turn and Rawlinson asked me had I anything to say and I replied “The leading lines did not advance close enough to the barrage” Oh, he said, “How close do you think they should be?” and I replied “Thirty to forty yards, Sir. And they must expect some casualties.” I could see he did not like what I said for he replied “Oh, 30 to 40 yards!!” “Well Sir, I said” That’s what the Japanese did” and his reply was “Oh, the Japanese” in rather a sneering way. I never missed an opportunity of rubbing the ideas of mine into the minds of my colonels. I always told the Colonels that by this action they must expect 10 per cent casualties from our own guns and it was worth it.

Brigadier-General James Jardine on why his 96th Brigade was successful on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.