The War To End All Wars

What was life like for the soldiers in the 40th battery of the Royal Field Artillery during November 1914? I decided to share the November journal excerpts, however, I'll post them in stages.

October 31^st – November 6^th

We marched through the beautiful old town of Ypres, which contains some very fine buildings, notably the Cloth Hall and Cathedral. We took up a position of readiness outside the fortification of the town. We dropped into action in various places but did little firing.

The enemy commenced bombarding the town on November 2^nd with 17” Howitzers. The noise of the shells passing over our heads was almost indescribable.

On November 5^th a few of us got together in the morning and made one of our famous “Bully Stews”. We were about to commence the feast when we heard some of the monster shells coming. They fell in the fields on our right and rear so we had to move. As we were moving we heard more coming; they dropped almost in the same place. One shell burst near a cow and threw it bodily about 30 yards. Then we heard the sound of one shell that sounded like it was coming directly for us. It sounded like an express train roaring through the air. We crouched behind one of the ammunition wagons and the shell landed about 15 yards, exactly on line with our front. The concussion from the explosion was horrific. The wagon rocked as if it were near a minimum earthquake. Afterwards we measured the gigantic hole. Later that afternoon I found out that the shells were 11.2” and not the 17” shells we thought they were. However they were three to four times as big again as the often met “Jack Johnsons.”

The battery moved by the river. Although the water was very cold I had a plunge and a wash, which was the first since the time of the retreat. It’s a very common thing to go a week or even more without having a wash.

At least now food is a little more plentiful. The weather is very wet and the whole country is a veritable sea of mud. The enemy seems to shell everywhere, haphazardly, and especially at night.

On the morning of the 6^th we were read an appeal from Sir John French urging us to hold on, despite the overwhelming masses of the enemy, until reinforcements could be brought up.

Enemy attacks were twice daily and their nightly occurrences made our losses very great. Despite the fact that our trenches were being so thinly manned and our guns so few, our line was formed and maintained.

The enemy was stopped in France and so were they in Belgium. Thanks to the splendid leadership of our little army and our chaps love for dangerous scraps. We owe this as well to our splendid infantry in the trenches who suffered infinitely more and in a greater degree than we did.

During the war there were three battles that took place around the town of Ypres so by the end of the war Ypres was totally destroyed by artillery fire. The beautiful Cloth Hall was reduced to rubble.