Monday 29 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

29th September 1914

Jean Bouin the french marathoner olympic silver medalist of 1912 has died during battle.

Sunday 28 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

28th September 1914

German forces have started bombarding the forts surrounding Antwerp in Belgium.

Saturday 27 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

27th September 1914

The Battle of Artois has begun.


This was the second offensive in the race to the sea and two further battles would be fought here before the end of the war.

Friday 26 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

26th September 1914

The Battle of Picardy has ended with both sides moving on to attack different areas of the front line. Indian troops have arrived at Marseille. The french troops have been driven out of Peronne.

A British Prisoner of War - The Great War

When any country declares war, you always want to believe that you will have a few battles, all with victories and then the enemy surrenders. All with no causalties on our side and completed within a couple of weeks. But unfortunately, war is brutal with losses on both sides and no amount of dreaming is going to change that.
But what happened to those brave soldiers, that when loosing a battle, either got cut off from their battalion or were not quick enough in their retreat? What was life like for them as a typical prisoner of war?

On a whole, looking back, conditions were better in the first world war than in the future second world war for prisoners, however life was still a bitter struggle. At the start of the war, nobody had really thought there would be such vast numbers of prisoners and camps had to therefore be built quickly in order to house the growing number. This meant that sanitary conditions were poor and illness and disease would end up spreading like wildfire - a problem that many prisoners would endure.

As the first soldiers were captured and made prisoner, there were no proper camps. Instead prisoners were made to sleep in tents or had to dig small holes in the ground to keep warm in. As the war progressed, school, barns and other public buildings were commandeered for use as prisoner of war camps. There were several different types of camps.

The first camp prisoners were sent to was Durchgangslager camps. These were temporary camps which housed the prisoners until they were sent to the appropriate camp. This would depend largely on your rank.

Mannschaftslager camps were basic camps the for the lower ranked prisoners. These were made up of basic wooden huts that contained little or no furniture and prisoners were expected to sleep on straw or saw-dust beds.

Officers camps had a much better conditions. These were requisitioned buildings rather than tents or wooden huts. Officers each had more personal space with proper beds. They were not required to work and were exempt from labour. Instead they spent their time playing sports, having debates and reading.

Lastly, the worst camp by far was the Reprisal camps. Prisoners were sent to these camps as a punishment, mostly if they had disobeyed orders or tried to escape. These camps were near the front line and would often be moved as the war progressed. Prisoners were exhausted by the extreme climates as well as the different terrain types. They were expected to rebuild trenches and transport dead bodies and lived on a basic watery soup. The death rate of this type of camp was unsuprisingly very high compared to the other types of camps.

Lower rank prisoners were expected to be labourers and could find themselves working on road and bridge construction, carrying out railway maintainence, mining, quarrying and working on the land. From this, prisoners would earn a small wage but would be paid in camp money to be spent in the camp shop. This ensured that prisoners wouldn't be able to used real money to bribe guards and enable them to escape.

Prisoners were able to write two letters a month. This had a limit of six pages for officers and four pages for lower ranks. This meant that prisoners often felt cut off from the rest of the world and only heard about the war from the propaganda of guards or news from newly captured prisoners.

After the war, upon returning, these prisoners had endured heavy labour, illness and starvation as well as witnessed and been victim to the brutality of their captors. Many of these men suffered with ongoing illnesses for the rest of their lives with many of them too weak to ever work again.

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

24th September 1914

Russian troops have besieged the fortress town of Pzemysl and have carried on through the Carpathians, aiming to invade northern Hungary.

Monday 22 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

22nd September 1914

The Battle of Picardy has bugun.


This particular battle was one to see who could reach the sea first. This would enable supplies and troops to get through more quickly and so rearming would be made easier.

Life AT War - Day by Day

22nd September 1914

A German submarine has sunk three British Ironclads.


Ironclads, the latest in technology of warships was a steam powered warship covered in iron or steel armour plates. The sinking of these three ships left 1,459 dead.

Saturday 20 September 2014

Trench Life - Through A Poets Eyes

In 1915, at the age of 22, a man that would be remembered in history, enlisted in the British Army. His name ... Wilfred Owen.

For two tiresome years, he fought battle after battle until in 1917 he was sent home for treatment after suffering from shell-shock. He underwent the most modern and advanced treatment in mental health at the Craiglockhart hospital. Here he met fellow patient and poet Siegfried Sassoon. During their stay at the hospital they became good friends with Siegfried guiding Wilfred and encouraging him to put his experiences of war into poetry.

After his treatment finished, Wilfred returned to war. In October 1918, he was one of many brave soldiers that took part in the breaking of the Hindenburg Line and was awarded the Military Cross. Unfortunately just one month later on the 4th November 1918, just a couple of weeks before the end of the war, Wilfred was killed in the battle to cross the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors...

On the 11th November 1918 shortly before 11am, the Owen family opened their door to the devastating news that their beloved son had been killed in battle and would not be returning home. Whilst the family stood still in shock, in the background and all across the country, church bells were ringing and people were celebrating the end of the war.

For Wilfred it was to late but his memory still lived on through his poetry, where even today we still turn to for clues about the Great War. Without the support of Siegfried, Wilfred would not have found the passion and true talent to write these poems. Of Wilfreds poems there is one that for me sums trench life up and the poignant words used lingers in the air. No explanations or exploring are needed, it has been written without hidden meaning, to tell the real story of war. I therefore end this post with the very moving Dulce Et Decorum Est...

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, bloodshod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots,
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

GAS! GAS! Quick, Boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin
If you could hear, at every jolt,
The blood come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend,
You would not tell with such high zest,
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
To old lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro Patria Mori

Life AT War - Day by Day

20th September 1914

John Redmond has urged Irish volunteers to enlist in the British Army.

Thursday 18 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

18th September 1914

The Battle of Aisne has ended with German victory, General Paul Von Hindenburg has been named as commander of German armies on the Eastern front, South African troops have landed in German occupied South West Africa.

Monday 15 September 2014

Sunday 14 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

14th September 1914

German Staff of Chief Helmut Von Moltke has been replaced by Erich Von Falkenhayn, German troops have withdrawn from Aisne/invent trenches.

Friday 12 September 2014

The Daily Life Of A World War 1 Soldier - The Trenches

At the outbreak of World War one, the term "it will be over by Christmas" was a widely popular and believed term. However unbeknown to the people, not just in Britain but around the world, this war was going to be a new type of war, a total war.

As well as new weapons being used and laws dictating what news could be sent home, a new trench life would exist. These trenches were to become the home of thousands of men for up to four years. For many men, with an average age of just nineteen, would meet their end in the trenches and have never left since. But what was life really like on a daily basis for these brave men?

Trench life has always been referred to as life at the front, however, there was a set of three different trenches used during the first world war and men rotated through these continuously. They were the Front Line, The Support Line and the Reserve Line. Soldiers may have also found that they might have been able to have a period of "rest" in a nearby town or village, from which they could be recalled at any moment.

Everyday was more or less the same routine regardless of the amount of enermy bombardment receieved. The day began with a "Stand-To-Arms", whereby just before dawn soldiers would be awaken by their commanding officer and made to climb onto their firestep to guard against enermy raids. Then these soldiers would be expected to fire in front of them, known commonly as the "morning hate", to ensure the trenches safety at dawn.

Soldiers would then need to spend time cleaning their rifle afterwhich breakfast would be served. The soldiers could also have a morning shave or wash if there was any water left over.

The company commander would then inspect his men and assign duties for the day to each man. These may include repairing duckboards and barbed wire, refilling sandbags, rebuilding trenches after explosions and draining trenches using pumping equipment. 

At dusk, the "Stand-To-Arms" would be repeated afterwhich supplies and maintainence duties would be performed such as fetching rations and water, patrolling no mans land and sentry duty. Soldiers would then take it in turns throughout the night to perform sentry duty.

Soldiers may also have got a small amount of leisure time, of which timing and length of would change according to events happening that day. During this time soldiers could play cards, read and write letters. However leisure time could be cut or banned without notice if there was enemy threat or danger.

The daily trench life was a battle for many soldiers who had to live in apalling conditions. Unlike conflicts today, there were no proper field kitchens and most soldiers lived on stale crackers, unappetizing salted meat and weak tea which looked more like dirty water.

Soldiers were also to endure lice, rats feeding on flesh and leftovers, slugs, frogs carrying diseases and other vermin. There was also a horrible smell associated to trench life that was a mixture of rotting flesh, overflowing toilets, unwashed body odour, cigarette smoke, cordite and creasol, used to try to stop the spread of infection. Many soldiers later described a smell of dying and death.

Trenches were blistering hot in summer with the sun constantly bearing down on the soldiers. On the other hand, in winter it was bitterly cold with many soldiers having "trench-foot" due to the low lying trenches. Soldiers would more often than not find themselves knee deep in water, mixed with slimey mud, that could make the easiest of daily tasks difficult and dangerous.

These brave men lived their lives in constant fear of being attacked and could never even stand up straight in the trenches for fear of being spotted by the enemy and shot.

These are just some of the struggles of daily life within the trenches. Added to this, there was the enemy fire, battles and even advancing or retreating. No wonder the returning soldiers came home, scared of their own shadow and unable to adjust back to civilian life. Not including the horrors they had witnessed, they had been made to live in a way in which today we wouldn't even allow animals to live in, with no chance of luxury, rest or security and no idea of when things would improve. This was felt by all nations and soldiers from all over the world spent up to four years living in these conditions. These men are the true heroes who we owe so much to. It is just unfortunate that it is too late to say a proper thank you for all that these brave men endured for the freedom we have today.

Thursday 11 September 2014

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

9th September 1914

The creation of the Canadian Automobile Machine Gun Brigade has become the first fully mechanized unit in the British Army.

Monday 8 September 2014

Life AT War - Day to Day

8th September 1914

HMS Oceanic has sunk of the coast of Scotland, Private Thomas Highgate has become the first British soldier to be executed for desertion.


HMS Oceanic was not torpedoed or bombed but met its end by running aground whilst patrolling Scottish waters.

Friday 5 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

5th September 1914

British forces have prevented german troops from advancing into Paris, the french headquaters have moved to Chatillon-sur-seine, US president Wilson has ordered the US Navy to make its wireless stations accessible for any transatlantic communications.

Life AT War - Mental Health

Craiglockhart hospital originally started in 1877 as a hydropathic institute. However, with the outbreak of World War 1, it was to be used as a military hospital specialising in phychiatric care for the treatment of shell-shocked officers. As the war progressed this was to be just one of many hospitals treating patients with shell-shock and remained doing so until 1919.
The man that started the change in opinion of metal health was William Rivers. He did not agree with the army's use of a stiff upper lip and instead believed that talking about traumas witnessed was the best course of treatment for his patience. Both poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen received treatment from William and in later wrote about their experiences.
Willaim taught soldiers to talk about their experiences and the horrors they had faced. Quite rightly, he saw Shell-Shock as an illness that needed specialist care, unlike the army who thought Shell-Shock was a form of Cowardice, punishable by death. The army thought Shell-Shock was nothing but a lack of moral fibre and sent many soldiers to be court marshalled.
Nearly all soldiers that fought during World War 1 would have suffered some form of Shell-Shock, even if it went on undiagnosed. The constant bombardment and fighting left soldiers scared and jumpy. They had the inability to reason, sleep, walk or even talk and many sufferers were reported to have a thousand yard stare - the blank unfocused gaze of a battle-weary soldier.

In the years that followed the term Shell-Shock was replaced by the term many of us use today as Combat Stress Reaction. The investigations into its causes have meant that it is now a form of stress on the brain rather that a "shock" that you will quickly recover from.
Symptoms reported during World War 1 included headaches, dizziness, a constant tremor, tinnitus and a hypersensitivity to noises. All the these were common-place for someone suffering from a head injury but with no physical injury to be seen, the army refused to listen.
By 1917, the term of Shell-Shock was banned as an illness by the British army and reports were even band from being written in medical journals. Someone suffering from the above symptoms would simply be given a few days of to rest before being sent straight back to the front to re-join the fighting. 

When these soldiers returned home, they were different, changed somehow. Many wives and children who had been looking forward to their husbands and fathers coming home, found themselves scared an confused. War Correspondent Philip Gibbs was able to correctly explain what many peoples lives were like,
     "Something was wrong. They put on civilian clothes again and looked to their mothers and wives very much like the young men who had gone to business in the peaceful days before August 1914. But they had not come back the same men. Something had altered in them. They were subject to sudden moods, and queer tempers, fits of profound depression alternating with a restless desire for pleasure. Many were easily moved to passion where they lost control of themselves, many were bitter in their speech, violent in opinion, frightening".
This led to many families lives being changed forever, for generations. Children became witness or victims of domestic violence and many wives were raped by their husbands as they lost control. The signs were there - women who walked around sporting a black eye or cut, where they had "walked into a door". Children became skinner and pale, afraid of adults. Some deaths even occurred, although these were more than often covered up.
All of this effected the children the most I believe as many mothers told them not to mention anything. They learnt to bottle everything up inside them, which then changed them as a person and changed how they reacted when they had their own families. Violence at home was accepted by many as the norm.
It is only really in the last fifteen to twenty years that mental attitudes to this has changed and that people, today, can be moved temporary from harms way, until the person in question has received individual treatment and care.

Today, after thousands of investigations and case-studies, we now have to main branches of what was known as Shell-Shock. There is Combat Stress Reaction and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The list of possible symptoms include the slowing of reaction time, slowness of thought, difficulty prioritising tasks, exhaustion, indecision and lack of concentration.
It also affects the nervous system. Some of the symptoms include the inability to relax, shaking and tremors, sweating, incontinence, nightmares and flashbacks, a heightened sense of threat and the mistrust of others.
A more detailed knowledge has meant that it is easier to see if someone is suffering from this illness, so that they can receive help in order to get better. It is no longer an illness from which it suffer with for the rest of your life, but instead an illness which is treatable in time. 
Charities have been set up to help detect and diagnose early signs as well as help soldiers and their families adjust to civilian life together. It has opened the pathway for the future of mental help, so that now anybody who needs to can receive treatment for mental health illnesses. Over the last ten years, the issues surrounding mental health have been discussed more and more, proving that it is now okay to talk about it and ask for help, proving that a stiff upper lip isn't needed.
This wouldn't have been made possible if it wasn't for William Rivers and his dedicated staff at Craiglockhart hospital getting soldiers to talk about their experiences one hundred years ago. 

For more information on mental health and to find out how you can help visit:

Mind - www.mind.org.uk 
    
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - www.ptsd.org.uk

Thursday 4 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

4th September 1914

France, Russia & Britain have agreed in a Pact of London that none will make separate peace with the enemy, General Von Moltke ceases german advance in France.

Wednesday 3 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

3rd September 1914

The British expeditionary army & French General Lanrezacs army has attacked the Marne where french troops have vacated to Reims. Capital of Galicia is taken after a three day battle in which Russian troops have forced a disorderly retreat of Austrain troops.

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

2nd September 1914

General Von Hausen & the Countess of France have fleed to Bordeaux.The Treasury Department of the United States Congress has set up the Bureau of War Risk insurance.  

Monday 1 September 2014

Life AT War - Day by Day

1st September 1914

Lord Kitchener has arrived in Paris, St Petersburg in Russia has changed its name to Petrograd.


Russia felt the need to change the name of the city as it included the German words  Sankt and burg.