In the hospital as usual. Busy all day preparing tin stores. Truman and I put into the town stores and waited.
Category Archives: 1916
4 September 1916; Monday
Commenced to work in the hospital after dinner. Pretty busy all day. Didn’t finish until 7.30.
3 September 1916; Sunday
Came off guard at 9 o’clock. Had walk to the Y.M. in the morning. On fatigue in the afternoon. Service at night at 6 o’clock in the Y.M. After the service Harvey, Holman and Stanton and I had a bit music. I played and enjoyed it.
2 September 1916; Saturday
On guard at 9 o’clock. My turn in the middle. Had a few short walks and called in Y.M.
[The foregoing words are superimposed on “Father’s birthday” and “Dorothy 7th”, written faintly in longhand.] 12
On from 1 o’clock in the morning until 5 o’clock. Gas alert put on and gave me some trouble. Pinched some petrol and washed tunic next morning3.
ALL’s father’s birthday was the 4th of September, not the 2nd. ALL noted his father’s 59th birthday on 4th September 1914, so he would have celebrated his 61st birthday two days after this diary entry. ↩
“Dorothy” refers to Dorothy Wiseman, ALL’s niece and daughter of his elder sister, Marmie, and her husband, Joe Wiseman. “7th” refers to the date of Dorothy’s birthday, 7th September, and not to her age. The 7th of September 1916 would have been her 4th birthday. See also: Family. ↩
“Washed tunic”: possibly to remove discolouration of buttons caused by gas? (q.v. gas test on 3rd June). ↩
1 September 1916; Friday
Up at 6.30. Busy with the dinners all day until 5.15 when I did some water-washing and scrubbing. Up at Y.M. at night.
31 August 1916; Thursday
Went to Baileul 1 at 8.30 to have tooth done. Got there about 9 o’clock. Walked round town. Had dinner at the C.C.S. Left Bailleul about 3 o’clock. Called in at the house in the village we found the other night and had coffee. Munton, Taylor and Moss. Worked an hour extra at night. Wrote letter to Dorothy and commenced one to Father in reply to one <I> had received from him today.
Baileul: ALL always omits one ‘l’ from ‘Bailleul’ in his longhand; the transcription follows this, but where he writes it in shorthand, ie phonetically, it is transcribed with the correct spelling. ↩
30 August 1916; Wednesday
Up at 6.30. Fatigue cleaning walls and scrubbing floors. Stormy wet day. Wrote to Ranald MacDonald. Heard that Roumania12 has joined Allies.
Roumania joined the Allies (not least because Bulgaria was with the Central Powers) with singularly bad timing. Falkenhayn was removed from the Western Front due to his perceived failures (and replaced by Hindenburg, who was President of Germany in 1933 when Hitler became Chancellor), but when transferred to Transylvania (still part of Austria-Hungary at this time) proved much too good for the Roumanians, who were routed in Wallachia (the southern portion of the country, where Bucharest is situated, between the Carpathians and the Danube) and were driven back to their original capital Iași (pronounced Yash; formerly spelt Jassy) at the Northern end of Moldova. ↩
In 1916, Romania was still usually spelled “Roumania” or “Rumania” in English, from the French “Roumanie”. The modern English spelling, “Romania”, was adopted some time after WWII. ↩
29 August 1916; Tuesday
On fatigue in the morning washing out a room. In the afternoon I did wash in another room. Wet day. Out at Y.M. at night. Rumour that Roumania * has joined Allies.
28 August 1916; Monday
Up at 5 o’clock. Marched off at 9†.30. Heavy road and very muddy. Arrived about 11 o’clock. Call new village Meteren1. Germans here a few days and driven out by British. Going to run a D.R.S. 2 and we are the advance party to clean up. Unloaded† waggons in the afternoon. Went round village at night and found Y.M. Played piano a bit. Dug latrines and dug up some refuse with a fearful smell.
27 August 1916; Sunday
On duty as usual. Received orders to move tomorrow. Took down our bivouac. Last thing received orders to pack our waggons and worked until nearly midnight. Slept in the hospital on stretcher.