My Year of the War: Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the First Time in its Complete FormPalmer, Frederick
History
My Year of the War: Including an Account of Experiences with the Troops in France and the Record of a Visit to the Grand Fleet Which is Here Given for the First Time in its Complete Form
Palmer, Frederick
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
"We ought to be well grounded in the principles," said the architect
thoughtfully, "and they say that in a week or two of actual experience
you will have mastered the details that could not be taught in
England. Then, too, having shells burst around you will be strange at
first. But I think our battalion will give a good account of itself, sir.
All the Bucks men have!" There crept in the pride of regiment, of
locality, which is so characteristically Anglo-Saxon.
They change life at the front, these new army men. If a carpenter, a
lawyer, a sign-painter, an accountant, is wanted, you have only to
speak to a new army battalion commander and one is forthcoming--a
millionaire, too, for that matter, who gets his shilling a day for serving
his country. Their intelligence permitted the architect and the
schoolmaster to have no illusions about the character of the war they
had to face. The pity was that such a fine force as the new army,
which had not become trench stale, could not have a free space in
which to make a great turning movement, instead of having to go
against that solid battle front from Switzerland to the North Sea.
We have heard enough--quite enough for most of us?--about the
German Crown Prince. But there is also a prince with the British army
in France. No lieutenant looks younger for his years than this one in
the Grenadier Guards, and he seems of the same type as the others
when you see him marching with his regiment or off for a walk
smoking a brier-wood pipe. There are some officers who would rather
not accompany him on his walks, for he can go fast and far. He
makes regular reports of his observations, and he has opportunities
for learning which other subalterns lack, for he may have both the
staff and the army as personal instructors. Otherwise, his life is that of
any other subaltern; for there is an instrument called the British
Constitution which regulates many things. A little shy, very desirous to
learn, is Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne of Great
Britain and Ireland and the Empire of India. He might be called the
willing prince.
This was one of the shells that hit--one of the hundred that hit. The
time was summer; the place, the La Bassée region. Probably the
fighting was all the harder here because it is so largely blind. When
you cannot see what an enemy is doing you keep on pumping shells
into the area which he occupies; you take no risks with him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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