1914
THE WORLD REMEMBERS — LE MONDE SE SOUVIENT
1918
SOLDIERS’ WORDS
“At the beginning of the war, when someone was killed — no matter whether we knew him personally — we felt it deeply,
we went to look. But when we became hardened, we didn’t even change direction when he was lying in front of us. We
became hard. “
— Interview, Jules Leroy, 3de Regiment Karabiniers, 1914-19, Belgian soldier
“I caught sight of a German the day before yesterday. He was building fortifications 50 metres away from me. I had to kill
him, didn’t I? I took a rifle, quite calmly I took aim, and he fell. And yet I can see the features of that man with perfect
clarity. I think it’s very much like a murder. Horrible!”
— War diary, Maurice Laurentin, Lieutenant, 77ème Régiment d’Infanterie, Herenthage front, 1.1.15, French soldier
“Then the German behind put his head up again. He was laughing and talking. I saw his teeth glistening against my rifle
sight and I pulled the trigger very slowly. He just grunted and crumpled up.”
— Letter, Julian Grenfell, Captain 1st Royal Dragoons, Ieper front, 16 November 1914, British soldier
“What would happen, I wonder, if the armies suddenly and simultaneously went on strike and said some other method
must be found of settling the dispute!”
— Letter, Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, November 1914.
Photo from Jonathan Vance Collection.
1914
THE WORLD REMEMBERS — LE MONDE SE SOUVIENT
1918
“Oh Lordy! Oh Lordy! you never saw anything like it in your life. I’d go back and do it over ten times through just for
the fun. This was a hell of a scrap, I was in for seven days and over the top three times. Gee I’m about the oldest man in
the battalion now, and I went through the three scraps without a scratch. Pretty lucky or I miss my guess. I didn’t bother
much the first two scraps but that last Cambrai show I sure did think at times that my number was up. But here I am you
see, all in one piece and going strong
I sometimes wish I could get sick and go to hospital for a rest, but I can’t so there you are. I’m a healthy brute I am.”
— Jack Stratford, Canadian soldier
“I adore War. It’s just like a big picnic without the objectlessness of a picnic.”
— Letter, Julian Grenfell, Captain 1st Royal Dragoons, 24th October 1914, British soldier
“A soldier had killed his corporal in shocking circumstances at the prison in De Panne. At dawn, I went with some officers
to the place where we waited with a squad from our battalion in front of a sand-hill against which a beam had been placed
to act as an execution-pole. The military prosecutor told us during the course of the conversation that according to an old
law, anyone who asked for a pardon for the condemned man at an execution had to be executed himself then and there. The
firing-squad was calmly waiting. The soldiers who were there, a little further away, as spectators, were pale, but their eyes
were shining with an unhealthy curiosity. An order was given. Then a Red Cross vehicle arrived. The condemned man, in
chains, was helped out. A thin little lad. His coffin was already in the vehicle, and he had come like that from De Panne. He
marched resolutely towards the execution-pole, turned towards the firing-squad and said in a loud voice, ’Hey, aim well,
lads!’ He was fastened to the execution-pole. The chaplain, very pale, stayed with him for a moment. He was blindfolded.
An order was given. And them the second order we were waiting for: the shots rang out together like a single volley. The
lad gave a kind of silent, trembling sigh, and a wide stream of blood burst from his chest like a fountain; he crumpled up
and hung from the execution-pole like a sack. The adjutant ran up to him and fired his revolver into his ear. The squad fired
a military salute. It was all over. I moved away through the dunes in silence. I wanted to be alone.”
— Longinus, Frans De Backer, lieutenant in the Belgian army, 1914-18
Photo from Imperial War Museum.
1914
THE WORLD REMEMBERS — LE MONDE SE SOUVIENT
1918
“I died in hell –
(They called it Passchendaele)”.
— Memorial Tablet, Siegfried Sassoon, Lieutenant Royal Welch Fusiliers, November 1918, British soldier
“We could not believe that we were expected to attack in such appalling conditions. I never prayed so hard in all my life. I
got down on my knees in the mud and I prayed to God to bring me through. My whole life went before me and I couldn’t
see any future. I really prayed, believe me.”
— Interview, Pat Burns, Private, 46th Canadian (South Saskatchewan) Infantry Battalion, Passendale, October – November
1917, Canadian soldier
“There was not a sign of life of any sort. Not a tree, save for a few dead stumps which looked strange in the moonlight.
Not a bird, not even a rat or a blade of grass. nature was as dead as those Canadians whose bodies remained where
they had fallen the previous autumn. Death was written large everywhere. Where there had been farms there was not a
stick or stone to show. You only knew them because they were marked on the map. The earth had been churned and rechurned. it was simply a soft, sloppy mess, into which you sank up to the neck if you slipped from the duckboard tracks
— and the enemy had the range of those slippery ways. Shell hole cut across shell hole. Pits of earth, like simmering fat,
brimful of water and slimy mud, mile after mile as far as the eye could see. It is not possible to set down the things that
could be written of the Salient. They would haunt your dreams.”
— Interview, R.A. Colwell, Private, Passendale, January 1918
“It achieved little except loss.”
— The ‘Road’ to Passchendaele, Basil H. Liddell Hart, Captain King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 1915-1918, British soldier
Photo from Imperial War Museum.