Battle: John Lucy is in the Thick of It, the Grenfell Twins are Confused, and...
Today, a century back, being the British Army’s first day of real combat,[1] we should have a brief word about military history, specifically that breed of military history known as the “Battle Piece.”...
View ArticleAlf Pollard Blusters Off to War; Donald Hankey Makes For An Unusual Sergeant;...
Before we get to the daily activities of several of our familiar writers, a brief note about a Big Writing Thing of today, a century back. Masterman’s big propaganda meeting has borne fruit, in the...
View ArticleRupert Brooke Chatters Away in Camp… But a New Front is About to Open
Rupert Brooke is finally a full-time soldier. Writing to Lady Eileen Wellesley, he shows the usual mix of self-centered silliness (evolving from poet to platoon leader in only a few weeks leaves very...
View ArticleGhastly Days in Antwerp for Sarah Macnaughtan; Rupert Brooke Arrives
Julian Grenfell and the rest of the Royal Dragoons at last embarked today, a century back. They loaded their horses aboard ship during the wee hours, enjoying a “lovely night with blazing moon, which...
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Rupert Brooke Rails and Thieves; Edward Thomas is at Last a Poet; The Guards...
For Edward Thomas, the pieces have been coming together. We have seen him hesitantly voicing the stirrings of poetic intention, working observations over into stories, and being shaken to the core by a...
View ArticleSir Edward Hulse on Activity in the Trenches; Vera Brittain on Inactivity and...
My Dearest Mother, …I have got all your letters and parcels now. They came in a rush, and everything is coming regularly now. I have got O.’s socks, your Balaclava helmet, three lots of chocolate, a...
View ArticleBalderdash on Stage; Henry Williamson Sees His First Attack
The bias of this war literature project has swung rather heavily toward poetry, novels, and memoir, as well as the semi-literary genre of diaries and letters. But what about the stage, I ask you? It...
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Billy Congreve, Alf Pollard, and John Lucy in the Battle of Bellewaarde; A...
Billy Congreve’s Sketch of the Southern Flank of the German Mini-Salient Near Hooge, Made in Preparation for Today’s Attack Some days we make do with a scribble or two. Today, three of our writers are...
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Inferno at Hooge: Donald Hankey Takes One for the Honor of the Brigade and...
Before we get to an overflowing daily cup of horror and death at Hooge, a brief note and a surprising letter. First, in an echo of Henry James’s recent bureaucratic vote of allegiance, Ford Hermann...
View ArticleArthur Graeme West on the Futility of Training; Sherlock Holmes Gets a Tour;...
The 2/RWF are no ordinary battalion, but Dr. Dunn’s chronicle–nicely poised between a battalion history and a collective memoir–often provides excellent bits of day-to-day local color. (Appropriate,...
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