Armistice ~ Sunday WW1 Remembered...

At "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" in 1918 the guns grew silent on the Western Front. The Armistice of Compiègne was signed between the Allies and Germany and went into effect at 11am, Paris time, on the 11th November, 1918 .

©Digital Images

Listen here : IWM Voices of the First World War : Armistice

And There Was a Great Calm

BY THOMAS HARDY

(On the Signing of the Armistice, 11 Nov. 1918)

                                       I

There had been years of Passion—scorching, cold,

And much Despair, and Anger heaving high,

Care whitely watching, Sorrows manifold,

Among the young, among the weak and old,

And the pensive Spirit of Pity whispered, “Why?”

                                       II

Men had not paused to answer. Foes distraught

Pierced the thinned peoples in a brute-like blindness,

Philosophies that sages long had taught,

And Selflessness, were as an unknown thought,

And “Hell!” and “Shell!” were yapped at Lovingkindness.

                                       III

The feeble folk at home had grown full-used

To 'dug-outs', 'snipers', 'Huns', from the war-adept

In the mornings heard, and at evetides perused;

To day-dreamt men in millions, when they mused—

To nightmare-men in millions when they slept.

                                       IV

Waking to wish existence timeless, null,

Sirius they watched above where armies fell;

He seemed to check his flapping when, in the lull

Of night a boom came thencewise, like the dull

Plunge of a stone dropped into some deep well.

                                       V

So, when old hopes that earth was bettering slowly

Were dead and damned, there sounded 'War is done!'

One morrow. Said the bereft, and meek, and lowly,

'Will men some day be given to grace? yea, wholly,

And in good sooth, as our dreams used to run?'

                                       VI

Breathless they paused. Out there men raised their glance

To where had stood those poplars lank and lopped,

As they had raised it through the four years’ dance

Of Death in the now familiar flats of France;

And murmured, 'Strange, this! How? All firing stopped?'

                                       VII

Aye; all was hushed. The about-to-fire fired not,

The aimed-at moved away in trance-lipped song.

One checkless regiment slung a clinching shot

And turned. The Spirit of Irony smirked out, 'What?

Spoil peradventures woven of Rage and Wrong?'

                                       VIII

Thenceforth no flying fires inflamed the gray,

No hurtlings shook the dewdrop from the thorn,

No moan perplexed the mute bird on the spray;

Worn horses mused: 'We are not whipped to-day;'

No weft-winged engines blurred the moon’s thin horn.

                                       IX

Calm fell. From Heaven distilled a clemency;

There was peace on earth, and silence in the sky;

Some could, some could not, shake off misery:

The Sinister Spirit sneered: 'It had to be!'

And again the Spirit of Pity whispered, 'Why?'

Armistice 100

Wigan Parish Church 2018
©J Barton

It's been a real privilege to bring this WW1 Remembered feature to Jaffareadstoo. 

Huge thanks to all those who have taken the time to read and especially to those who have contributed to this feature.

Gill Paul, Georgia Hill, Juliet Greenwood, Glen Craney, Ros Rendle, Susan Lannigan, Linda Gillard,Terri Nixon, John R McKay, Michael Wills, Jane Cable, Claire Dyer, Karen Maitland, Elisabeth Gifford, David Ebsworth, Kirsty Ferry, Rachel Sargent and John Barton.

I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all the WW1 war poets whose eloquence brought tears to my eyes and whose words, with both poignant simplicity and graphic imagery, conjure the war in so many different ways.

Huge thanks to the Imperial War Museum for their magnificent WW1 archive and valuable shareable resources.

And remember, in the quiet corners of Commonwealth War Graves, there are those soldiers who lie, often forgotten, in our villages, towns and city cemeteries. We owe these quiet sentinels of our peace a huge debt, so do, please visit them and take a quiet moment to remember their extraordinary sacrifice.

Wigan Parish Church 2018
©Digital Images

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In our family we remember 

Pte. John Hopkins

Loyal North Lancashire Regiment

Died 24th January 1919

©Digital Images

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Pte. Sam Whalley

Royal Fusiliers/17th Lancers

©Digital Images

©Digital Images

Sam and his five brothers all survived the war

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Driver Frederick Arkwright

T/14695668

Royal Army Service Corps

©J Barton

Died 1 February 1945

Buried Schoonselhof Cemetery 
Antwerp, Belgium

Wigan Cenotaph
©Digital Images

Wigan Cenotaph
©Digital Images

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A generation of young men and women, gone too soon in a war that robbed them of their future so that we could have ours

At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them

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©Digital Images

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WW1 Remembered...

The Battle of Amiens, also known as the Third Battle of Picardy, was the opening phase of the Allied offensive which began on 8 August 1918, later known as the Hundred Days Offensive, that ultimately led to the end of the First World War. (Wikipedia)

This week saw the commemoration of the centenary of the Battle of Amiens with a service of remembrance held in the cathedral at Amiens and attended by representatives from the allied countries and also relatives of those who had been caught up in this offensive. The story of the battle told through contemporary letters, diaries and poems was a poignant reminder of how deeply significant this battle was in the final push towards the end of the war.

Battle of Amiens. Cavalry passing through Beaucourt en-Santerre to attack Le Quesnel, 9 August 1918. Stereoscopic.

© IWM (Q 8198)

Battle of Amiens. British horse-Wagon convoy passing under the German Ortskommandantur (Town Major's Office) notice swinging across the road at Cayeux-en-Santerre, 9 August 1918, the day after its capture. Stereoscopic.

© IWM (Q 8232)

This poignant photograph was taken exactly 100 years ago today

Battle of Amiens. Prisoners taken by the French near Roye 

12 August 1918. Stereoscopic.

© IWM (Q 8230)

Around 1200 prisoners were captured

All these photographs are from the Ministry of Information First World War Official Collection by kind permission of the Imperial War Museum.

Listen to IWM Podcast 45 (26:27)

Voices of the First World War

The Beginning of the End

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Sunday WW1 Remembered..

The Centenary of The Battle of Cantigny, May 28th 1918 

This was the first major American offensive of the American Expeditionary Force during WW1 when over 4000 American troops liberated the small town of of Cantigny, near the Somme river in Northern France. Situated on high ground, the town was surrounded by woods, making it an ideal observation post for German artillery. With French artillery help, the Americans advanced, and in just 30 minutes, the town, although destroyed, was liberated.

The successful result boosted morale and demonstrated the ability of the American troops in further deployments.

In 1923, the Americans erected a monument in the village:

Erected by The United States of America To Commemorate the first attack by an American Division in the World War. On the side of the memorial appears the inscription: The First Division United States Army  operating under the X French Corps captured the town Cantigny on May 28 1918 and held it against numerous counterattacks.

Over this weekend there are centenary commemorations taking place in the area round Cantigny.

More information can be found here

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Sunday WW1 Remembered...

Ordinary Lives of the First World War

This week I braved the inclement weather and headed to Salford to visit the IWM North.

©Digital Images 2018 

I had seen on breakfast television the details of the There But Not There project to commemorate the centenary ending of WW1 and hoped to be able to see for myself the 6 foot aluminum Tommy that was pictured outside the IWM. Sadly when I arrived at the museum, the Tommy was no longer on display but that didn't matter as a trip around the museum is always well worth a visit.

The Logo and commemorative Tommy are inspired by a photograph taken in WWI by official war photographer Horace Nicholls (1867-1941). 

In addition to the life-size silhouettes which will be installed across the country for November 2018, there is also a limited-edition table-top Tommy figure, which is based on the logo and which represents the 888,246 British and Commonwealth Fallen of the First World War.

There But Not There

There But Not There  will help to commemorate the end of the 1914-1918 war, and the ghostly perspex  figures will be installed around the country to remember those who didn't come home.

They should always be remembered for the sacrifices they made for all of us during this momentous time in our history.

You can donate to the There But Not There project here

You can buy your Tommy here 

The profits from the sale of the Tommies will enable Remembered to support the following charities: 

The Royal Foundation :Heads Together, Walking With The Wounded

Combat Stress

Help for Heroes

The Commonwealth War Graves Foundation

Project Equinox: Housing Veterans.

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Sunday WW1 Remembered..

The Battle of Passchendaele

The Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, was a campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire.

31 Jul 1917 – 10 Nov 1917

On the 30th and 31st July 2017, the UK Government in partnership with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the city of Ypres, the Municipality of Zonnebeke and the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 will mark the centenary of Passchendaele, the Third Battle of Ypres.

Irish Guards going up a communication trench. Elverdinghe, 30 July 1917.

© IWM (Q 5706)

Memorial Tablet (Great War)

Siegfried Sassoon

Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,

(Under Lord Derby’s Scheme). I died in hell—

(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,

And I was hobbling back; and then a shell

Burst slick upon the duck-boards: so I fell

Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.

At sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,

He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare:

For, though low down upon the list, I’m there;

‘In proud and glorious memory’ ... that’s my due.

Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire:

I suffered anguish that he’s never guessed.

Once I came home on leave: and then went west...

What greater glory could a man desire?

Men of the East Yorkshire Regiment crossing newly won ground at Frezenburg during the Third Battle of Ypres, 5 September 1917.

© IWM (Q 3014)

Listening to the individual accounts and seeing the photographs of what happened during this campaign, I think that what comes across is the overwhelming tenacity and bravery of those who quite simply followed orders. Unbelievably tired, they crawled and fought their way through viscous, filthy mud, where amongst scenes of hell and horror they lived, and died, in constant fear of their lives amidst permanent gun fire.

Passchendaele Ridge was captured by the Canadians on 10 November and the campaign finally drew to a close on the 20th. Although there were occasional successes, the overall campaign is seen as a strategic failure, not just because of the huge cost of life, around 500,000 on both sides died, but also because the soldiers had to fight in some of the worst conditions ever experienced during wartime.

You can discover more about the Passchendaele centenary by clicking here 

Follow on Twitter #Passchendaele100

Listen to the Imperial War Museum : Passchendaele Podcast 31 Voices of the First World War 

Thanks to IWM for the photographs used in this blog post.

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Sunday WW1 Remembered...

I am a frequent visitor to the History of the Great War website and I am always fascinated in the timeline of events which are so clearly marked out for each month of the war.

The Battle of Arras took place in the spring of 1917 and was one of the principal assaults undertaken by the British Army on the Western Front. Under Allied control, but situated just a few kilometres from German lines, the town of Arras formed a significant vantage point and was a regular target for German weapons.

Due to the increased hostilities in the area, by early 1916, Arras had very little civilian population remaining. Much of the town had been destroyed and it was, to all intents and purposes, a British town, which managed its business in both French and English.

A view of devastated ground near Arras, 1917

© IWM (Q 87756)

On the 23rd April 1917 and following days of poor weather and freezing conditions, The Second battle of the Scarpe began at 04:45.Casualties were expected to be high and a field hospital had been stationed near to a quarry, an area known colloquially as 'Thompson's Cave' after Colonel A.G Thompson, the architect who designed it. It was expected to deal with hundreds of  wounded soldiers and indeed, the Battle of Arras collectively saw the worse bloodshed of the war with thousands wounded or killed.The hospital was fully functioning and was fitted out with waiting areas for the wounded, an operating theatre, and a mortuary. 

German and British wounded going to the dressing station, together. April, 1917

© IWM (Q 7801)

Despite German counter-attacks ,by the morning of 24 April, the British held the areas around Guémappe, Gavrelle and the high ground overlooking Fontaine-lez-Croisilles and Cherisy.

Battle of the Scarpe. 

British cavalry resting alongside the Arras-Cambrai road, April 1917.

© IWM (Q 2031)

Voices of the Great War

Listen to an IWM Podcast 27: Arras and Vimy Ridge

As always, I am indebted to the Imperial War Museum for the chance to read the personal accounts of the soldiers who were at Arras and Vimy Ridge and for the opportunity to share these pertinent photographs taken at the time by war photographers.

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Sunday WW1 Remembered

I am a frequent visitor to the History of the Great War website and I am always fascinated in the timeline of events which are so clearly marked out for each month of the war.

April 9th -12th, 1917

The Battle of Vimy Ridge

Today, April 9th, marks the centenary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge which was fought primarily as part of the offensive known as the Battle of Arras in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of northern France. The armies involved were four divisions of the Canadian Corps against three divisions of the German Sixth Army. The objective was to take control of the high ridge along an escarpment at the northern end of the Arras Offensive.The battle took place between the 9-12th April, 1917 and was particularly fierce resulting in much injury and loss of life.

The offensive was due to begin on Easter Sunday but was postponed at the request of the French who wouldn't contemplate beginning such a battle during a Christian festival, so the battle began on the 9th April, which was Easter Monday. The weather was cold with sleet and snow which in a way worked to the allies advantage as the snow was blown in the direction of the German troops higher along the ridge.

At exactly 05:30, the battle for Vimy Ridge began with every piece of Canadian artillery being charged along with the detonation of land mines under no man's land and under the German trench line.  Over 15,000 Canadian troops stormed the Ridge capturing most of the German positions by the end of the first day.

The battle concluded on the 12th April with the Canadians firmly in control of Vimy Ridge but it had been a painful and ferocious fight which resulted in 10,602 casualties: 3,598 killed and 7,004 wounded.The German Sixth Army suffered an unknown number of casualties with approximately 4,000 men becoming prisoners of war.

Four members of the Canadian Corps received Victoria Crosses - this was the the highest military decoration awarded to British and Commonwealth forces for bravery during the battle:

Private William Johnstone Milne of the 16th (Canadain Scottish) Barttalion 

Lance-Sergeant Ellis Wellwood Sifton of the 18th (Western Ontario) Battalion.

Private John George Pattison of the 50th (Calgary) Battalion

Captain Thain Wendell McDowell of the 39th (Ottawa) Battalion

To commemorate the  Battle of Vimy Ridge there will be a service of Remembrance held at the Vimy Ridge Memorial today and attended by representatives from Canada, United Kingdom and France.

Sunday WW1 Remembered

During the recent commemoration of the Battle of the Somme, I was reminded, by one of the television presenters, that over 350,000 people visit the Thiepval Memorial every year and possibly, that number, due to the public interest in the Somme centenary, is set to rise during 2016.

It is only right and proper that visitors continue to make, what is in effect, a pilgrimage to this most poignant of war graves, in order to pay their respects to the war dead. However, battle field tourism is not a new concept and soon after the Great War ended, tourists were already visiting the war sites as early as 1919. Most of the visitors wanted to see the places where their loved ones fought and died, whilst others, were simply curious to see the battlefields of Northern France for themselves.

I began to consider how the soldiers who survived the war felt about war tourists tramping over the blood and bones of the battlefields, and in my research, I found this poem, written, with poignant foresight, in 1918, by Philip Johnstone.

High Wood

Ladies and gentlemen, this is High Wood,

Called by the French, Bois des Fourneaux,

The famous spot which in Nineteen-Sixteen,

July, August and September was the scene

Of long and bitterly contested strife,

By reason of its High commanding site.

Observe the effect of shell-fire in the trees

Standing and fallen; here is wire; this trench

For months inhabited, twelve times changes hands;

(They soon fall in), used later as a grave.

It has been said on good authority

That in the fighting for this patch of wood

Were killed somewhere above eight thousand men,

Of whom the greater part were buried here,

This mound on which you stand being ...

Madame, please,

You are requested kindly not to touch

Or take away the Company's property

As souvenirs; you'll find we have on sale

A large variety, all guaranteed.

As I was saying, all is as it was,

This is an unknown British officer,

The tunic having lately rotten off.

Please follow me - this way ...

The path, sir, please,

The ground which was secured at great expense

The Company keeps absolutely untouched,

And in that dug-out (genuine) we provide

Refreshments at a reasonable rate.

You are requested not to leave about

Paper, or ginger-beer bottles, or orange-peel,

There are waste-paper baskets at the gate.

Philip Johnstone, 1918

This poem is attributed to British lieutenant, John Stanley Purvis, who wrote under the pseudonym of Philip Johnstone, and who was invalided out of the army after been wounded during the Battle of the Somme. Following the war he returned to Cranleigh School in Surrey where he had previously taught. He then took holy orders and at the age of 50 he settled in York. Here he gained an international reputation as the translator of the York Mystery Plays and was awarded the OBE for work on the York Minster archives. He died in 1968.

High Wood, in the Somme area, is still frequently visited by tourists. It is, by all accounts, an eerie place that still contains, by conservative estimate, the remains of some 8,000 German and British soldiers who were killed in action there.

I've visited the war graves of Northern France and seen for myself how lovingly these areas are tended by the CWGC. The cemeteries are emotionally charged areas, places of peace and quiet reflection. They are the everlasting reminders of what we lost on the battlefields of Europe, and beyond, and no-one who visits these lasting memorials cannot fail but be visibly affected by what they see and experience there.



The Commonwealth War Grave Commission commemorate 1,700,000 men and women of the Commonwealth forces who fought and died in two world wars.

WW1 Remembered ~ The Battle of the Somme 1916

Some time ago I visited the Lancashire Infantry Museum in Preston,Lancashire and whilst looking for family history information I came across this poignant document. 

This Special Order of the Day was written and signed on the 30th June, 1916 and would have been read out to the troops on the eve of the Battle of the Somme

Lancashire Infantry Museum

"...Let  each put forth  his maximum endeavour and let us advance to victory imbued with determination to win and strengthened by the righteousness of our cause..."

Sunday WW1 Remembered...

The Battle of Jutland was a naval battle fought in the North Sea between the 

British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet.

The battle was fought between the 31 May and 1 June  1916

Fourteen British and eleven German ships were sunk with tremendous loss of life. 

Over 6000 British and 2500 German lives were lost and this marked one of the

Royal Navy's darkest times.

It was the only major battle fought at sea and marked a turning point in WW1.

The Verdict

by 

Rudyard Kipling

Jutland , 1916

Not in the thick of the fight,

Not in the press of the odds,

Do the heroes come to their height,

Or we know the demi-gods.

That stands over till peace.

We can only perceive

Men returned from the seas,

Very grateful for leave.

They grant us sudden days

Snatched from their business of war;

But we are too close to appraise

What manner of men they are.

And, whether their names go down

With age-kept victories,

Or whether they battle and drown

Unreckoned, is hid from our eyes.

They are too near to be great,

But our children shall understand

When and how our fate

Was changed, and by whose hand.

Our children shall measure their worth.

We are content to be blind . . .

But we know that we walk on a new-born earth

With the saviours of mankind.

More information about the centenary commemorations can me found

Jutland 100 

The Royal British Legion

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Sunday WW1 Remembered ....

On the 21st February 1916 the Battle of Verdun began

The Battle of Verdun, was fought from 21 February – 18 December 1916, it was one of the largest battles of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies.

The battle raged for ten terrible months and resulted in over 250,000 deaths making it one of the bloodiest and longest battles of the war.

Thousands were injured,and so horrific was the fighting that others, quite simply, disappeared without trace.

Today the forest of Verdun is littered with the scars of its painful past. The ground is still littered with unexploded shells, strewn with barbed wire and poisoned with arsenic.

The forest is considered a no-go zone area and nothing grows there.

MEN OF VERDUN

THERE are five men in the moonlight

That by their shadows stand;

Three hobble humped on crutches,

And two lack each a hand.

Frogs somewhere near the roadside

Chorus their chant absorbed:

But a hush breathes out of the dream-light

That far in heaven is orbed.

It is gentle as sleep falling

And wide as thought can span,

The ancient peace and wonder

That brims the heart of man.

Beyond the hills it shines now

On no peace but the dead,

On reek of trenches thunder-shocked,

Tense fury of wills in wrestle locked,

A chaos crumbled red!

The five men in the moonlight

Chat, joke, or gaze apart.

They talk of days and comrades,

But each one hides his heart.

They wear clean cap and tunic,

As when they went to war;

A gleam comes where the medal's pinned:

But they will fight no more.

The shadows, maimed and antic,

Gesture and shape distort,

Like mockery of a demon dumb,

Out of the hell-din whence they come,

That dogs them for his sport:

But as if dead men were risen

And stood before me there

With a terrible fame about them blown

In beams of spectral air,

I see them, men transfigured

As in a dream, dilate

Fabulous with the Titan-throb

Of battling Europe's fate;

For history's hushed before them,

And legend flames afresh,—

Verdun, the name of thunder,

Is written on their flesh.

Laurence Binyon

1869-1943

Sunday WW1 Remembered...Guest Author, Gill Paul

As part of my ongoing tribute during this centenary of WW1, I am delighted to feature the work of some excellent authors who have written about The Great War.

 Please welcome

Gill Paul

Ivy Press
2014

World War One Love Stories

War might seem the antithesis of love, yet it’s a time when love often flourishes, as people who’ve been through horrific experiences seek comfort and perhaps some kind of affirmation that life is worth living. Couples who are already an item at the war’s beginning face huge challenges in the long separations and lack of news then, if reunited, they are often hugely traumatised and changed by what they’ve been through. Wars also bring together people who might not otherwise have met – people of different nationalities and cultures – and that’s always fascinating for an author.

When I was asked to write a book of true World War One love stories, finding the couples was the hardest bit. In order to get any kind of real insight, I needed couples whose correspondence survives, or who wrote a journal or memoir about their wartime experiences, and because it’s an illustrated book I also needed photographs. I wanted the majority of my stories to be about non-famous people so it was important to get permission from living relatives, and the Internet was my first tool for tracking them down. University libraries were valuable resources, because some couples had donated their correspondence to their alma mater, and I found others through war museums, local history museums, and sometimes websites set up by their descendants.

Out of all the relatives I contacted, I only found one man in his eighties who had living memories of the couple I was writing about – his parents, in that case. A hundred years is just too long. How many of us know much about our grandparents’ love lives, never mind our great-grandparents’?

But I had a huge surprise when I came across the letters of a Glaswegian chap called Hugh Mann to his girlfriend Jessie Reid. I liked Hugh immediately for his sense of humour. He could find a joke in virtually anything, writing, for example, that France during wartime was “an entirely unhealthy residential area”. Even when he was given sick leave in 1916 because of a case of recurring boils he wrote to Jessie that it “Was the ideal malady for a person of my sunny disposition because they don’t give me the least pain.”

Hugh and Jessie
By courtesy of the author

Hugh was training to be a minister in the very strict Free Church of Scotland but, scandalously, Jessie fell pregnant during the summer of 1914. His career would have been destroyed if word got out so they had to get married post-haste and she was banished to Sheffield to stay with her married sister until after the birth. It was, wrote Hugh, “something of a debacle”.

As I read their letters to each other, there were many locations and names that rang a bell, and when I got in touch with Hugh’s great-niece it suddenly dawned on me that we are distantly related through my paternal grandmother. That made it personal. I am not going to tell you here what happened to Hugh and Jessie but let’s just say it can still make me cry if I talk about it.

I’ve written three books of wartime love stories, covering the First and Second World Wars and the American Civil War, and I also have a novel, No Place for a Lady, set during the Crimean War, which is about the love stories of two sisters who travelled out there. Each of the four wars was quite different in terms of the locations, the technology and therefore the type of fighting. The love letters were very different as well, with the 19^th-century ones being passionate, flowery and rather formal, while the 20^th-century ones are more chatty in tone, with the affection saved for a few lines at the end. In letters from the trenches in the First World War, British men adopted the characteristic stiff upper lip, and their letters are like postcards home from some rather grim holiday camp, where the food and the weather are particularly dire.

When war was declared in August 1914, everyone thought it would be over by Christmas. The long attrition of trench warfare was completely unexpected and unprepared for. No one had any idea that four years later these men would still be hunkered down in muddy, rat-infested trenches, waiting for a command to go over the top. It was all so new and so terrible. Perhaps that’s what makes their love stories the most poignant of all.

World War I Love Stories is available here: 

Gill’s novel No Place for a Lady is here:

 And her website is here:

If you live in the Cheltenham area, you can hear Gill talking about World War I Love Stories

 at the library next Saturday 6^th February 2016, 4.30–6pm.

 Huge thanks to Gill for sharing her World War I Love stories with Jaffareadstoo. 

It's been a real delight to have you as our guest today.

True love stories have such a poignancy which are made all the more special by the realisation that so many young men didn't return home to their wives and sweethearts.

We will remember them.

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