I died in hell – They called it Passchendaele

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.

Some of our finds surveying along the Struma front!

That's so cool! Whose trenches were you digging?

I don't think it's a grenade plug. I think it's the nose end of a fuze, perhaps? I'm still very new to this kind of typologies... Maybe it's clearer in the drawing?

John Ponsonby [2nd Guards Brigade] tells us of some of his men digging up two high explosive shells which had fallen near them without bursting. They set them on a wall and threw stones at them to see if they would go off! Idiots! If they had exploded they would have felt themselves (and really had been) much injured.

"In the German scheme they and the light machine guns are to go straight ahead and not stop for anything; they will not stop in your line. They are followed immediately behind (about 200 yards behind)  by masses of Infantry, so that if you massacre the Storm Troops and get the SOS going you will have a fine time. The Hun idea is that the Storm Troops will make holes and continue their advance past our strong points. They having been training them to go 12 kilometres about 7 miles, the first day. That might do for the Italians and the Russians, but it will not do for you. Not if you are in depth. "

"Then the Infantry following behind is to mop up, moving right and left from the breaches thus made.  There will be a very careful reconnaissance and these will now move up the hollows to avoid being seen by our artillery. That is what they did at Cambrai. One lot goes one way and another lot the other way and the Storm Troops go right on. They expect to paralyse you by the sudden onslaught of these Storm Troops, but you have only got to watch properly and have your men to shoot and then you will be alright."

"With the wire you have in front of you and the arrangements we are making, provided you will patrol No Mans Land and will teach Musketry to your Sections I don’t think the Boche has a dog’s chance." Lieutenant-General Ivor Maxse on the lessons learnt from the Battle of Cambrai, 12/2/1918.

"The venereal will cause us a lot of trouble, and it is very difficult to know what to do about it. We are issuing preventatives as far as possible, and I am perpetually at the Officers and Doctors and Chaplains about it, but it is still very bad. It is of course absolutely impossible to keep the men in camp, and the filthy native liquor, diluted as it is with urine, makes anyone who drinks it quite mad." Major-General Alexander Godley to the New Zealand Minister of Defence, 17/2/15.

I don't think it's usually acknowledged that WW1 officers were VERY concerned about fucking. It's mostly practical, cause a man who's sick with VD isn't fit for duty, and more men getting it is usually indicative of morale or discipline problems. But there's also a very real moral component as well, hence the role of Chaplains in trying to combat it and the strange kind of language that they use to talk about it, full of euphemism and vague generalisations.

“There was no use picking out a few bright-looking chaps and telling them that they were corporals, for there was no way of indicating their rank. We did not even have brassards with stripes on them that they could wear over their coat sleeves. So I counted the men who had moustaches and found that I had just enough, so I made them all lance-corporals there and then …"

an anonymous cartoon i found in an officer's scrap book during my research. probably done by an officer given the specific FSR reference.

i love seltzer jetpack, bomb mage kaiser bill