Viewing the Past with the Technology of the Future

How satellite and aerial photography brings the war diaries to life

by Cynthia Gast

Most people, and especially the volunteers working on Operation War Diary, will recognize the names of the locations that played the biggest roles in World War I. Cities such as Ypres and Passchendaele along with regions such as the Somme were the sites of horrific fighting. Poperinghe was known to the soldiers as a place where they could have a break behind the lines, and the unfortunate mademoiselle from Armentieres is immortalized in song.

Image © Harold Robson/IWM (Q 50717) – Armentieres, Grande Place and Hotel de Ville, December 1914.

There are countless other towns, villages, farms, and forests that appear in the diaries. Each one is a place where the men of that unit fought, marched, or slept. To me, an important part of the story of the men on the Western Front is where they were. Where did they spend Christmas? What did they see in the villages behind the lines where they spent their rest periods? Where was that hill that caused so much trouble for the transport on a dark rainy night? I’ve spent a lot of hours searching for some of these locations.

Image © IWM (Q 53135) – Dickebusch, 1915

Google Maps

The first step, even before filling in the Place tag, is to search for the name on Google Maps. I’ve learned that not all diary authors had a good grasp of the intricacies of spelling French place names and the search function in Google Maps helps with this problem by supplying several suggestions before I’ve even finished typing in the entire name.

Google Maps has a couple of other helpful features as well. I’ve learned that clicking on the town’s name on the map puts that name in the tab at the top of my browser. This is quite handy for spelling when I return to the diary page to type it into the Place tag. Another interesting detail is that while many of the very tiny hamlets are not labeled on the basic Google map, they do show up on the Google Earth view. An example of this that I came across recently involved the 1 st Division Trench Mortar Batteries. Their diary said they were in the village of Berthaucourt and I knew they were somewhere near Saint-Quentin. A search on Google Maps told me that Berthaucourt is now part of Pontru, but no matter how closely I zoomed in, there was no indication of its exact location. However, when I switched the view to Google Earth, I learned that it is just to the east of the crossroads that form the heart of Pontru.

Farms

As I’ve moved through the diaries, I’m less content with locating just the villages and towns mentioned by the author. These days, I’m digging deeper and looking for the farms and chateaus used as billets and bivouacs. I’m amazed at how many of the farms mentioned in the war diaries are still in existence today.

Image © IWM (Q 57347) – Farm used as a billet by the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards at Meteren, November 1914.

When I want to find a farm, I start on Google Maps, where search results are more likely to show me a road rather than the farm itself. However, when I zoom in on Google Earth view there’s often a cluster of farm buildings along that road. Sometimes I hunt using Google’s basic search function, which is particularly useful for chateaus.

Trench Maps

Many World War I trench maps are now available online. Some sites offer sets for purchase but, along with IWM’s map collection, there are at least two sites that allow users to examine them at no charge. The National Library of Scotland and McMaster University in Canada both offer collections covering the areas where most of the fighting occurred. They both also offer information and links that cover how to read the maps, including the grid references. As an added plus, McMaster University also has a collection of aerial photographs of the Western Front.

Trench maps are fascinating. They reveal the complexity of the trench systems and show just how the features of the landscape fit into the systems. They also show the sometimes dark sense of humor possessed by the men who named the trenches. Whole sections of trenches are named for weapons, animals, or birds, as well as places back home, commanding officers, and the units occupying them. One system near Delville Wood featured trench names relating to beer, such as Pint Trench, Hop Alley, Ale Alley, Beer Trench, and Lager Lane.

Image © IWM (Q 61622) – The badly damaged Hooge Chateau near Ypres, May 1915.

Trench maps also often include farms, chateaus, villages, and anything else of importance to the men in that area, such as quarries and brickstacks. They also indicate the roads existing at the time the maps were drawn, many of which still exist today. When I want to find a farm or chateau, I compare the trench map with the modern map or Google Earth view using the roads as a guide. The National Library of Scotland also offers side-by-side and overlay features to help compare the old and present-day maps.

Image © IWM (Q 78112) – A column of Scottish troops marching along the road at Magenta near Mareuil-sur-Ay, 1 August 1918.

When I began as a volunteer at OWD, I had no idea of the things I would learn. The geography of the Western Front and how to read trench maps are just two of the amazing aspects of World War I that I now know. There are still many diaries to read and men to get to know through the official diaries they kept, and lots of spaces for more volunteers.

The Evolution of Operation War Diary

Operation War Diary has been running for over two years now. Together, we have placed hundreds of thousands of tags, made similar numbers of comments, and followed the journeys of hundreds of units through the conflict at the Western Front.

And, like all things, we have evolved over that time.

Image © IWM (Q 11811) – Encirclement and liberation of Lille by the British 57th and 59th Divisions. Crowd in the Grande Place, many of whom carry Allied flags, 17 October 1918.

When we began, we followed in the footsteps of other great crowd-sourced digital humanities projects like Old Weather. But the content we are dealing with at Operation War Diary is unique in its depth, breadth and richness. It meant we had to make certain assumptions when we started out.

Mainly, this was around what should and shouldn’t be tagged, which in turn was based on what we thought the data we would produce might look like and how it would be used. In part, we were led by the transcription mantra, which is that only what is there should be written down. However, tagging is a very different activity to transcription, with a quite different set of applications.

Under our initial guidance, volunteers tagged only what was explicitly mentioned on a diary page, and we also told them not to tag certain everyday activities for units like ammunition columns, mobile veterinary sections and engineers – the movements, collections and checking of infrastructure which might be considered the bread and butter of the units in question.

In part, this was to make the process less onerous for our taggers. We have 1.5 million pages to get through, after all! But, as I said before, it was also partly because we hadn’t quite left the transcription mindset behind.

However, we now have our first real use of Operation War Diary data to refer to, courtesy of Professor Richard Grayson, and it makes for very interesting reading. If you haven’t read the article already, you can find it here.

Image © IWM (Q 61585) – Troops of the Motor Machine Gun Corps unit reading the “Illustrated Sunday Herald” by their dugout, 1915.

To some extent, the quality and richness of the data which can be used to support studies like this is limited by what was included in a diary in the first place – some are much sparser than others. However, by following the transcription-oriented method of only tagging what we can see, are we also unnecessarily reducing the coverage of the data we produce?

What about the case of a unit which we know to be in the line, because the author tells us so on one day, but over the course of the next four or five day’s worth of entries, that fact isn’t explicitly mentioned again? Very often, it’s clear that the unit is still in the line, but that information is then lost because there’s nothing for us to drop a tag on.

Or the Mobile Veterinary Section who spend a week travelling from place to place, picking up sick horses to take back to the depot? Again, under our starting assumptions, that detail would also have been lost, because we felt it wasn’t necessary to tag activities we already knew certain units spent much of their time doing.

That’s fine from the standpoint of our knowledge and common-sense understanding of these units and the functions they carried out during the war. But if we shift the perspective to one of providing evidence, quantitative facts which we can use to illustrate our understanding, then by not tagging certain things we know to be true, we aren’t realising the full potential of Operation War Diary.

Of course, there’s a line between inferring what to fill the blanks with and making things up, but as our understanding of the project evolves, so too does the knowledge and experience of our long-term taggers, who may have started off knowing very little about the war diaries, but who have now read and tagged hundreds, if not thousands of pages and are very well placed to see patterns in the information and extrapolate from what is written down to what is only implied.

That will mean making judgement calls at times, but the Talk forums provide a great environment for testing out any inferences before we press the ‘Finish’ button. The whole concept of Operation War Diary is that it is built on consensus, so why not extend that to these situations too?

Image © IWM (Q 8802) – Military traffic control signal post at Blendecques, 6 May 1918. Note signboard pointing way to No. 7 General Hospital.

There are practical issues to overcome – where to place a tag for an inferred activity, for example, or which tag to use. For the former, I would suggest dropping inferred tags close to the date to which they should be linked – our clustering algorithm will then group them together and ensure the information is recorded in the way it was intended. For the latter, we may have to recourse more frequently to the unsatisfactory ‘Other’ option for activities which do not fit neatly into the standard list, but that at least will still allow us to build up a comprehensive timeline for each unit and will clearly indicate what they were not doing, even if we can’t provide specifics beyond that.

With our first published use of Operation War Diary’s data, I believe we now have a clear and compelling case for tagging as much information as we can as accurately as we can. And that is the beauty of Operation War Diary – we can evolve and improve what we do and, in doing so, can tell the stories of the Western Front in the most effective way we know how.

 

The Prisoners of the First World War

During the early years of the war, Germany captured many more prisoners than Britain (see here for an account of a group of Scots Guards being surrounded and taken prisoner). By 1915, there were estimated to be over 1 million prisoners of war in Germany, far more than the authorities had anticipated. These men often had to sleep in fields, suffering from exposure while camps were built to house them. Often they built the camps themselves.

In contrast, significant numbers of military prisoners did not begin arriving in Britain until 1917 (although others had already been interned in France). Although this necessitated the opening of many more internment camps, the British already had a relatively organised system in place for dealing with their prisoners, having already engaged in the wholesale incarceration of the German civilians of military age living in Britain at the outbreak of war.

Image © IWM (Q 64122) – Sleeping quarters for German prisoners at Eastcote Prisoner of War Camp, Northamptonshire (also known as Pattishall).

The conditions endured by prisoners varied widely, depending on who they had been captured by and where. For some men, being held captive was actually more dangerous than serving at the front. Italian and Romanian soldiers seem to have had a particularly bad time of it. British prisoners taken by the Turks suffered similarly. Some men captured on the Western Front were used as forced labour in front line areas, but for many conditions were generally better. The main danger came from illness and disease: during the later war years, several hundred prisoners of war held in Britain died as a result of influenza outbreaks. Typhus was a particular problem in many of the German camps and, after several severe outbreaks, vaccination and hygiene programmes were established to try to control it.

Less obvious, but equally dangerous, were the psychological effects of incarceration. Prisoners had to be active in combating the effects of having little or no privacy, no idea of how long they would be imprisoned for and at best intermittent contact with loved ones back home. Prisoners in many camps did all they could to alleviate boredom and keep their minds occupied, including programmes of education, theatre productions and even camp orchestras.

Image © IWM (Q 23670) – British prisoners of war with a heap of discarded gas masks at a German temporary POW camp on the Western Front.

Conditions in the main camps were monitored by the Red Cross, who also kept extensive records on prisoners’ whereabouts and attempted to establish contact between them and their families. These records have recently been digitised and are available to search at http://grandeguerre.icrc.org/.

While some prisoners attempted to escape (one of the best known escapes was from the Holzminden camp, when 29 British officers escaped through a tunnel they had dug over the course of nine months) the vast majority had to wait for the Armistice before being repatriated. Over 185,000 British soldiers had been captured by that point. Their return home was relatively speedy – the first arrived at Calais on the 15th of November, 1918 on their way back to Dover. The French took longer to bring all their citizens home, partly because there were a great many more of them to deal with. It was the Russian prisoners, though, who had it worse. Many are recorded as still being in Germany as later as 1922.

Chaplains on the Western Front

The Army Chaplains’ Department has existed since 1796. Recruiting from the ranks of Anglican clergymen to begin with, the department broadened its scope in the years before the outbreak of the First World War, covering Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Jewish congregrations. Around 4,400 chaplains served with British armed forces from 1914 to 1918. 179 of them never came home again.

Image © IWM (Q 12109) – A chaplain conducting church service from the nacelle of a Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2b night bomber at No. 2 Aeroplane Supply Depot, 1 September 1918. Note a military band on left in RFC uniforms playing.

Chaplains took on various duties while serving at the Western Front, but the common thread which unites them was the welfare of the men they served with. The 3rd Dragoon Guards mention cinematograph entertainments organised by their chaplain, while the 1st East Lancashire Regiment comment on the bravery of theirs, who dressed the wounds of injured men. Chaplains were unique amongst the troops in that they were unarmed, although they did get involved from time to time in military preparations. The 1st King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, for example, records the case of Revered Captain Burrell, who built models of the German lines prior to an anticipated attack. Unarmed or not, Chaplains were often to be found in the thick of the fighting, comforting the wounded, helping stretcher bearers, doing what they could for the men under their care. The 1st East Surrey Regiment diary mentions the Reverend E.J. Sandford, awarded the Military Cross for gallantry.

Two chaplains on the Western Front went so far in their devotion to the men they served with, that they were awarded the Victoria Cross. The first, Theodore Hardy, had been turned down for service as a chaplain at the beginning of the war due to his age – he was 51 in 1914. He persevered, and eventually joined British forces in France in 1916. He was attached to the 8th Lincolnshire Regiment, with whom he won The Distinguished Service Order, the Military Cross and, finally, the VC. His citation for the latter reads:

For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty on many occasions. Although over fifty years of age, he has, by his fearlessness, devotion to men of his battalion, and quiet, unobtrusive manner, won the respect and admiration of the whole division. His marvellous energy and endurance would be remarkable even in a very much younger man, and his valour and devotion are exemplified in the following incidents: —

An infantry patrol had gone out to attack a previously located enemy post in the ruins of a village, the Reverend Theodore Bayley Hardy (C.F.) being then at company headquarters. Hearing firing, he followed the patrol, and about four hundred yards beyond our front line of posts found an officer of the patrol dangerously wounded. He remained with the officer until he was able to get assistance to bring him in. During this time there was a great deal of firing, and an enemy patrol actually penetrated between the spot at which the officer was lying and our front line and captured three of our men.

On a second occasion, when an enemy shell exploded in the middle of one of our posts, the Reverend T. B. Hardy at once made his way to the spot, despite the shell and trench mortar fire which was going on at the time, and set to work to extricate the buried men. He succeeded in getting out one man who had been completely buried. He then set to work to extricate a second man, who was found to be dead.

During the whole of the time that he was digging out the men this chaplain was in great danger, not only from shell fire, but also because of the dangerous condition of the wall of the building which had been hit by the shell which buried the men.

On a third occasion he displayed the greatest devotion to duty when our infantry, after a successful attack, were gradually forced back to their starting trench.

After it was believed that all our men had withdrawn from the wood, Chaplain Hardy came out of it, and on reaching an advanced post asked the men to help him to get in a wounded man. Accompanied by a serjeant, he made his way to the spot where the man lay, within ten yards of a pill-box which had been captured in the morning, but was subsequently recaptured and occupied by the enemy. The wounded man was too weak to stand, but between them the chaplain and the serjeant eventually succeeded in getting him to our lines.

Throughout the day the enemy’s artillery, machine-gun, and trench mortar fire was continuous, and caused many casualties.

Notwithstanding, this very gallant chaplain was seen moving quietly amongst the men and tending the wounded, absolutely regardless of his personal safety.

He was one of the 179 chaplains killed in action, dying of wounds only weeks before the end of the war, after once again going out to rescue wounded men under fire.

Image © IWM (Q 11128) –
King George V presents the VC to the Reverend T B Hardy, Army Chaplain, at Third Army HQ at Frohen-le-Grand, 9 August 1918.

The second chaplain to win the VC on the Western Front was Edward Noel Mellish, who served with the 4th Royal Fusiliers. His citation reads:

On three consecutive days, the 27 to 29 March 1916, during the heavy fighting at St. Eloi, Belgium, he went to-and fro continuously between the original trenches and the captured enemy trenches, attending to and rescuing wounded men. The first day, from an area swept by machine-gun fire, he rescued 10 severely wounded men. Although his battalion was relieved on the second day, he returned and rescued 12 more of the wounded. Taking charge of a group of volunteers, on the third day, he again returned to the trenches in order to rescue the remaining wounded. This excellent work was done voluntarily and was far outside the sphere of his normal duties

The story goes that one of the wounded men he brought back in was a hardbitten cockney, with deeply anti-religious views. When he made it back to hospital, the soldier asked what religion Reverend Mellish belonged to, declaring that:

I’m the same as ‘im now and the bloke as sez a word agen our church will ‘have ‘is ****** ‘ead bashed in.

The chaplains served a vital humanitarian role on the Western Front. Why not join us at Operation War Diary and help uncover the history of all the other troops they worked amongst?

The German Army during the First World War

The war diaries are full of tantalising hints about the enemy British and Indian troops were facing. There are mentions of different uniforms, equipment and regiments, but like the men themselves, we rarely get a full picture of troops on the other side of no-man’s land.

The truth is that the Imperial German Army of the First World War was not so much one unit, as several working in extremely close cooperation. Based on the kingdoms of Germany prior to unification, they were dominated by the Prussians, who absorbed many of the pre-unification armies into their ranks. Troops from Bavaria, Saxony, Baden and Württemberg, however, remained semi-autonomous, and had identities quite distinct from the Prussian army. All had their own War Ministry, for example.

Image © IWM (Q 55009) – German infantry advancing in artillery formation on the Aisne canal.

The Prussians were the largest contingent in the German forces. Their doctrine was based on mobile, encircling manoeuvres, which although impossible to achieve on the Western Front, led to great success against the Russians in the east.

Image © IWM (Q 52767) – Kaiser Wilhelm II is amused at an orphan adopted by the troops during an inspection of troops with Prince Heinrich of Prussia. Note uniform of the Chaplain in the centre background of the group.

Bavaria did standardise itself to some degree with the Prussians – they adopted field grey uniforms to replace their traditional light-blue, but still distinguished themselves with cockades and blue and white edging on their collars. During the early battles of the war, they fought as a united army under the command of Crown Prince Rupprecht, but as the war progressed and casualties mounted, they increasingly found themselves mixed in with troops of the other army corps. They began the war with a little over 87,000 men. Over the four years which followed, 200,000 were killed.

Image © IWM (Q 50349) – Bavarian troops, with their pickelhaube helmets decorated with flowers, preparing to move off for a forward area. One of the soldiers quickly finishing his pint of beer. Photograph probably taken in 1914.

Saxony mobilised almost three quarters of a million soldiers during the First World War. Almost 230,000 never made it home. The troops were formed into two regular army corps and one reserve corps and fought mostly on the Western Front.

Image © IWM (Q 87443) – Troops of a Saxon Grenadier Regiment in front of their dugouts. The floral monogram on the left is of King Frederick Augustus III of Saxony.

The army of Württemberg was the smallest of the old independent kingdoms. Comprising a single army corps in the Imperial German Army, it nonetheless saw extensive action on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. During the war, a Württemberg mountain battalion was formed, for service on the Romanian and Italian fronts. It was in this battalion that the young Erwin Rommel made a name for himself, winning the Blue Max (Pour le Mérite), Prussia’s highest gallantry award.

Image © IWM (Q 52257) – King Wilhelm II of Wurttemberg examining a flamethrower on the Western Front, April 1917.

There’s much more fascinating information contained in the pages of the war diaries, including mention of the different ranks used by the various German units and the British and Indian troops’ impressions of the men who faced them.

Why not join us at Operation War Diary and see what insights into the German army you can uncover?

Poets at War

The Royal Welsh Fusiliers were a poetic bunch. Among their number, they could count both Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, whose poetry shattered the jingoistic messages of 1914 and exposed the truth of war in all its grim horror. Neither escaped unscathed.

Siegfried Sassoon had enlisted in the army even before the outbreak of war. He joined the Sussex Yeomanry, but broke his arm so badly in a riding accident that he spent most of 1915 convalescing and only arrived in France in November of that year, as a Second Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers (who would later become the Royal Welch Fusiliers). A few days later Robert Graves arrived. He had been with the 3rd Battalion since enlisting with the Fusiliers just after the outbreak of war.

With poetry in common, the two men became close friends.

Image © IWM (Q 101780) – Siegfried Sassoon in uniform, whilst serving with the Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Graves published his first volume of poetry, Over the Brazier, in 1916, but almost didn’t live long enough to see it in print. At the battle of the Somme, he took a shell splinter through the lung and was so badly wounded that he wasn’t expected to survive and was even listed in the official reports as having died of his wounds. There’s a letter in the Imperial War Museum’s collections from the poet and author John Drinkwater to Graves’ father, offering his congratulations for finding out his son’s reported death was not in fact true. His recovery was long and arduous, and although he did go back to France for a brief spell, most of the rest of his war was spent in England.

Sassoon’s poetry, meanwhile, grew darker and darker. He opened up the dark underbelly of the war, writing of rotting corpses, horrific injuries and men driven to suicide by the horror of what they endured. Paradoxically, he himself was a great favourite with the men under his command, and proved himself an extremely able and daring company commander. In July, 1916, he was awarded the Military Cross. Later he was recommended for the Victoria Cross (although it was never awarded).

Image © IWM (Q 723) – Troops of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers at rest after being relieved from the trenches; near Acheux, 28th June 1916.

Graves described Sassoon’s bravery as ‘suicidal’, and it does seem that as Sassoon’s despair at the horrors he witnessed increased, he drove himself to ever greater levels of self-sacrifice. In 1917, after a spell in hospital in England, he decided to make a stand. In Finished with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration – a letter to his commanding officer, which was also published in newspapers and read out in parliament – he refused to return to duty. Some saw his stance as treasonous, but his sympathisers, Graves among them, helped ensure that instead of a court martial, he was officially diagnosed as suffering from shell shock.

He eventually returned to the Western Front, and was even promoted, but in July 1918 he was badly wounded, shot in the head by fellow British soldiers, who had mistaken him for a German. His war was over.

Although both Graves and Sassoon carried the physical scars of their time in the trenches their whole lives, perhaps the more enduring legacy was the effect it had on their work. It’s through that that so many others have been able to get a glimpse of the horrors they lived through and survived, but which claimed so many of their contemporaries.

Tagging of the diary of the 1st Royal Welsh Fusiliers is still at an early stage. Why not join us at Operation War Diary and follow the journey of these two remarkable men?

A very Western Front Christmas

The fabled football match of Christmas 1914 might never have happened, but there were certainly truces between British troops and the German units they faced. Often they began with competitive carol-singing, followed by shouted greetings and festive wishes. In places, men even met in no-man’s land and swapped small gifts and souvenirs.

Image © IWM (Q 11745) – British and German soldiers fraternising at Ploegsteert, Belgium, on Christmas Day 1914. Possibly Riflemen Andrew (middle) and Grigg (second from the right, background) of the London Rifle Brigade with troops of the 104th and 106th Saxon Regiments.

The diaries are full of references to that first Christmas of the war. The 39th Garhwal Rifles recorded in detail the moment they came face to face with the enemy:

About 3 o’clock the Germans, who had since the morning been shouting and singing in their trenches, made signs to our trenches that they wished to communicate with us, and eventually they began to climb out of their trenches. We did the same, as did also the regiments on our right and left. Both sides fraternised for about an hour, several Germans coming over to our trench and talking and conversing by signs with officers and men. They gave our men tobacco cigarettes and newspapers, and for about an hour both sides walked about freely outside their trenches and in the open space between the 2 lines.

This moment of peace was not without its reminders of the violence and bloodshed which had preceded it. The Garhwalis took the opportunity to search for the bodies of the officers and men missing after a night attack made the month before.

Captain Burton found Captain Robertson Glasgow’s body lying on the parapet of the enemy’s trench. The bodies of several men were also found near the trench, but the situation did not admit of a careful search sufficient to identify them.

You can read their full diary entry here: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0002yt7

While truces of this nature were widespread in 1914, they did not happen everywhere. The Christmas day entry in the diary of the 2nd Grenadier Guards says simply:

Considerable sniping, and lit up by star shells during early morning.

You can read the original entry here: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD00023p1

This is the situation commanders would have preferred and they were quick to communicate this to the troops. After their friendly encounter with the enemy, the 39th Garhwal Rifles recieved orders that such mutual armistices must not happen in the future. The 1st Royal Fusiliers were sent notice that any man associating with the enemy would be court martialled. You can see the order here: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0000ryb

Despite this, some truces lasted well into the New Year. The 1st Somerset Light Infantry reported on the 11th of January, 1915 that their:

…truce came to an abrupt end, sniping resumed. “Presumption is that our “friendly” enemy of the last fortnight has been relieved.

Have a read of their diary entry here: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0002fy4

Image © IWM (Q 51524) – Sergeant Major Malins and 2nd Lieutenant Nicholl of the 1st Battalion, Cameronians (Scottish Rifles) checking for snipers from ‘Cabbage Patch Trench’ in the Rouges Bancs – La Boutillerie sector of the front line, 5 November 1914.

By Christmas 1915 there were signs that the British attitude to the enemy had hardened. Perhaps the dire warnings from on high had had the desired effect, or maybe by then the men had suffered too much to be able to set it aside. Either way, the 1/16th London Regiment (Queen’s Westminster Rifles) reported that there was no repeat of the previous year’s truce.

The Germans shouted across to our men this morning, but recieving no encouragement the conversation ceased. [A shell] hit the corner of [a] dug-out and knocked a bottle of whisky off the table on to the floor, but by the grace of God it did not break.

At least they still got their own little Christmas miracle! Read the full diary entry here: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0000s9u

By 1916, there was even greater determination to avoid human contact with the Germans. On Christmas Eve, the 1st East Surrey Regiment recieved notice from their HQ that:

There are already signs that the enemy intends to fraternise during Christmas as he did in the winter of 1914 and 1915.

An artillery and trench mortar bombardment was ordered to prevent this. Commanders feared that it would be very difficult for young and inexperienced officers and NCOs to stop their men going out to meet the enemy if they were seen to leave their trenches in peaceable fashion.

Read the full account here: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0000r2i

Sadly, the widespread coming together of opposing units during the winter of 1914 was an anomaly, a brief respite before the full, brutal horrors of trench warfare became the norm. Yet in that moment, we see the spark of humanity which binds us all together, the ability to find common ground in even the darkest of places. Who knows what friendships could have sprung from those handshakes made 100 years ago, how different things might have been if the two sides had not returned to their lines. Perhaps that would have been the greatest Christmas gift of all.

A beginning, a middle and an end – the story of the war

The war diaries are never more emotionally engaging than when they show the effect the First World War had on the men who fought in it. Whether on individuals, or on the units as a whole and their attitude to the conflict, the weight of the long years of toil and sacrifice can be felt in the tone of the words, the brief glimpses into their innermost thoughts that some diary authors allow us.

Like all stories, the First World War has a beginning, a middle and an end. How closely these intersected with the personal beginnings, middles and ends of the men we read about was often down to blind luck. For some, the end came all too quickly. Others saw out the whole story.

Image © IWM (Q 66223) – The 1st Life Guards parading before leaving for France.

In narrative (as well as actual) terms, mobilisation was where it all began. Whether in India or the UK, the diaries are crisp, efficient. You get a sense of the great military machine grinding into action – reservists arriving at their depots, kit being issued, travel arrangements made. Then there’s almost a drawing of breath, a moment’s respite before we get to the middle of the story. For some it’s a day or two, a boat ride across the channel and a train trip to the battle area. For others it’s a crossing from another continent. Either way, the destination is the same. Barely suppressed excitement leeches from the pages of some diaries, trepidation from others.

Image © IWM (Q 730) – Battle of Albert. Men of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment resting in reserve; Jacob’s Ladder, opposite Beaumont Hamel, July 1916.

The middle part is the longest, of course. The four years of fighting, mobile at first, becoming bogged down in the trenches later on. This is where the changes are most noticeable – the switch from intrepid expeditionary force to hardbitten veterans of a war that must have seemed endless, life after life eaten up in the giant mincing machine. Each diary author deals with it in their own way. Some produce dry accounts of death and loss – casualty lists, terse descriptions of the circumstances in which their comrades died. Others turn to humour, describing the blackest of days in wry tones. Sometimes the official veneer slips – the army record becomes a more personal narrative, a snapshot into the mind of a man caught in the midst of hell.

Some of the most moving accounts appear in the diary of the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs, one of the Indian Army battalions which made the crossing to France. After moving back from the line, the author writes of how the

numerous green fields with hedges and trees bursting into bud make a most welcome change to the desolation left behind.

He goes on to describe the physical deterioration of the troops after six months of trench warfare.

Those who have gone right through it…march with a shuffle, bent knees and backs beat with the weight of the…constant fatigues.

You can see the original diary page here: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0002xfr

Image © IWM (Q 7545) – Demobilized men handing in their rifles before boarding the Rhine steamer. The steamer took them to Rotterdam on their way to England. Cologne, 23 April 1919.

Finally, for those who made it through the long, gruelling middle the story came to an end: Demobilisation and the return home. In many of the diaries, this was preceded by a period which many of the adjutants seemed almost bored by – a fighting army becoming a garrison, days filled with drill and training and lectures. After what had gone before, just imagine what a blessed relief that boredom must have been!

Stay tuned to the blog – in future posts we’ll have a look at the German Army of the First World War and try and build up a picture of the enemy the authors of our diaries were facing. The National Archives will also be doing a series of posts on their ongoing digitisation of the war diaries – we hope to have some pictures of the original diaries to show you – pretty incredible to see the original documents we’re all tagging!

Here’s to a succesful week, Citizen Historians! Keep tagging! (or join us at http://www.operationwardiary.org/ if you’re new!)

Shells screaming into the unhappy town – the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs at Ypres

On the 26th of April, 1915, the 15th Ludhiana Sikhs were assembling ready to move up into the Ypres Salient. Shortly after they moved off, the march was halted due to enemy shelling. All non-essential transport was left behind and the Sikhs continued onward by companies, leaving a three minute gap between each. Around them was absolute chaos – heavy traffic in both directions, transports full of wounded, groups of refugees, other bodies of infantry. They pressed on.

‘The spires and towers of Ypres soon came in sight and simultaneously the whistling and screaming of shells followed by loud explosions as they fell into the unhappy town.’

Image © IWM (Q 1687) – An enemy shell bursting near the front line trenches, Beaumont Hamel, December 1916.

Imagine the sight – endless salvos of shells slamming into this ancient and beautiful town, history being undone right before their eyes.

The Sikhs left the main road then, passing north of the town, where comparatively few shells were falling. The diary author notes that it was still sufficiently unpleasant to keep them from dawdling on the way.

It was here they came under fire from 42cm shells for the first time. Probably fired from a Big Bertha howitzer (a super-heavy mortar) these enormous shells tore through the air with a noise…

‘…best compared to that of an express train’.

Enormous columns of debris and smoke were thrown 300ft into the air. You can almost sense the diary author’s awestruck horror and, just for a second, imagine the hellish noise and destruction they must have been marching through. Have a look for yourself; the links to the diary pages are below:

http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0002xes

http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/subjects/AWD0002xhm

Image © IWM (Q 1688) – A shell bursting amongst the barbed wire entanglements on the battlefield at Beaumont Hamel, December 1916.

This episode is just one of many where the dry, official tone supposed to be adopted by diary authors gives way to something much more personal. It’s difficult for us to imagine exactly the things these men experienced, but as their personalities and feelings start to find their way into their words, it’s possible to feel a connection to a human being, rather than an historical account. One hundred years might separate us from them, but it no longer seems like quite such a long time. Josie Pegg, the Citizen Historian who first came across this account finds it…

‘…very moving to read accounts that reveal poignant details and the emotions of the men involved. I originally started tagging the diaries as an interest when I retired and was lucky to be able to start with the 11th Leicester Pioneer battalion as my Great Grandfather served with them. The many small incidents and asides that are mentioned in most of the diaries have been fascinating. It has also become apparent that life for the average soldier was mostly mud, boredom and waiting around, interspersed with moments of horror.’

Why not join Josie and the rest of our Citizen Historians in preserving these links to the men who chronicled the First World War? With your help, their legacy will live on for many generations to come. Get involved at Operation War Diary.

 

Let’s Remember Together – Three Life Stories from the War Diaries

Today’s post is the third and final in our Let’s Remember Together series. Three days, three names chosen at random from the diary pages, the beginnings of three Life Stories. Today, I’ve been researching Private A. Morrall, mentioned in the diary of the 1st Battalion King’s Shropshire Light Infantry. You can see the diary entry by clicking here.

Image © IWM (Q 1684) – Officers inspecting chunks of ice broken up by shell fire on the battlefield at Beaumont Hamel, December 1916.

Private Morrall is included in a list of NCOs and men recommended for the Military Medal for gallantry. His service number is 8196. Further research on Lives of the First World War tells us he was Alfred Edward, a career soldier. He enlisted in the Army on the 30th of August, 1906. The 1st Battalion of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry deployed to France at the outbreak of hostilities in 1914 and remained on the Western Front all the way through the conflict, making Private Morrall one of the ‘Old Contemptibles’ of the British Expeditionary Force, apparently derided by the Kaiser. He was discharged on the 28th of May, 1917 because of illness.

Beyond that, details are sparse. Why not have a look at his Life Story and see if you can add to it?

I hope this series has shown how Operation War Diary and Lives of the First World War can be used together to breathe life back into the names we uncover on the diary pages. We hope eventually to feed the data generated by Operation War Diary into Lives, to allow evidence from the diary pages to be attached directly to Life Story pages. I’m looking forward to building up a more detailed picture of the names I’ve encountered over the last few months – Captain Swaine, who thought his Cyclist Company might have fired the first shot on the Western Front, Sergeant Lowe, who led a party of the Durham Light Infantry into enemy trenches and Rifleman Bajbir Rana, of the 1/1st Battalion Gurkha Rifles, who volunteered to go out into no-man’s land on the 16th of February, 1915, to scout enemy positions.

I can’t pretend that doing this work makes me any more capable of understanding the hardships and horrors they must have endured, but I feel it’s valuable nonetheless. In tagging their names, our Citizen Historians are ensuring that they do not become lost in the pages of history. In building up details around them, we can see them as real people once again, people just like us, who because of time and situation were thrown into a conflict that devastated a generation. So many of them were lost on the journey through, and yet in some small way we can now make sure that loss is not forgotten.