In a letter to his family, a soldier from one of the Scottish territorial regiments gives an account of his experiences fighting in Belgium.
He was in the thick of the fighting that came as a result of the Kaiser’s desperate attempt to take Ypres, yet he indulges in no heroics. He writes as though reporting a cricket game or a boat race.
A Briton Writes From Ypres (Harper’s Weekly, 1915) Read More »
A ghastly story from a 1914 front is told in this letter written by British trooper S. Cargill as he recalled a skirmish between German Lancers and British cavalry.
Tales of the Mounted German Corpse (New York Times, 1915) Read More »
A colored scan of the widely distributed seventy-word letter that Britain’s King George V wrote to all members of the American military who had stepped on British soil. The letter is dated April, 1918 and was made to appear as though it was from the King’s private stationery; the Windsor Castle letterhead is engraved in scarlet while the cursive body of the letter (in dark gray ink) is beautifully printed below in the conventional manner. It would seem that the California Doughboy who received this particular letter was not impressed; he simply turned it over and addressed a letter to his parents.
Britain’s King Welcomes the Doughboys (April, 1918) Read More »
This is a letter from an American infantry Major, James E. White, who wrote home to explain that there was still much to do six days after the armistice.
The major’s letter relayed his experiences as being one of the first Allied officers to enter the formerly occupied city of Metz, in order to evacuate wounded American prisoners:
The following Tuesday the grand entry of the French troops took place, but no welcome was more spontaneous than than that given to the group of American officers who on that Sunday peacefully invaded the fortress of Metz.
A Post-War Visit to Metz (Literary Digest, 1919) Read More »
This World War I letter makes for a wonderful read and it gives such a vivid picture of what the war must have been like once both sides had resigned themselves to trench warfare. The letter was dated October 8, 1914 and the British officer who composed it makes clear his sense that no war had ever been fought in this queer manner before.
A Letter from the Freshly Dug Trenches (New York Times, 1915) Read More »
An interesting letter written during the opening weeks of the war by a Canadian officer stationed with a British Guard regiment. The letter is filled with earnest enthusiasm:
We are all one in aim, in spirit and in that indefinable quality of loyal co-operation which holds together the British Army fighting against enormous odds in France, as it binds together the British Empire by bonds not less strong because they are invisible.
A Letter from the Trenches (New York Times, 1915) Read More »
By the time this letter was written in 1917, Seigfreid Sassoon and Wilfred Owen would have found very little common ground with it’s author. However the letter is remarkable for it’s eloquence and passion in support of the war.
Letter from a Canadian Artillerist (Carry On, 1917) Read More »
