Category Archives: 1916

All diary entries written in 1916.

6 August 1916; Sunday

August 1916, ,

Up at 7 o’clock. Field service at 11 o’clock and preaching good. Went up by the new little church in the afternoon and commenced reading “List, Ye Landsmen!” by Clark Russell1. Beautiful day and beautiful scenery. Had short walk at night with Duggins. Wrote up diary. Turned in about 9 o’clock. Orders to be up at 4 o’clock in the morning.

  1. William Clark Russell (1844-1911); writer of sea and horror stories. List, Ye Landsmen! (subtitled “A Romance of Incident”) is a seafaring adventure set in the year 1815. See also List, Ye Landsmen! and Arthur Linfoot’s Library. ↩

List, Ye Landsmen!

Cover ImageList, Ye Landsmen! is a novel by William Clarke Russell, written in 1894.

William Fielding, first officer of the ‘Royal Brunswicker’, is returning to his ship after visiting his uncle in the Channel port town of Deal. Fate intervenes and Fielding never reaches his post, instead becoming entangled in a series of adventures aboard the ‘Black Watch’. These take him far across the oceans and test him both as a man and a sailor.

Arthur Linfoot wrote that he had started to read List, Ye Landsmen! on 6 August 1916.

5 August 1916; Saturday

August 1916, , ,

Up at 7 o’clock. Did nothing all day. Had boots repaired in the afternoon. Wrote some letters. Went to a little town called Flixecourt1 with Corporal Stanton and Duggins. Beautiful night. Had a feed of chips and eggs. Enjoyed walk back. Thought of home in the pleasant melancholy of the evening. Wonderful scenery and the woods and corn fields were lovely in the setting sun.

  1. Flixecourt (A): 5km SE of Vauchelles-lès-Domart (B), on the D1001 between Abbeville and Amiens. ↩

3 August 1916; Thursday

August 1916, , ,

Up at 5.30. Breakfast at 6 o’clock. I was told off for a waggon. Put my kit up a motor ambulance and went with it to take some Worcesters† to Méricourt Station. Made our lot up and was told to follow them. Went back to Laviéville, got a pack and hurried to Mericourt Stn1 with the others. Entrained then in cattle truck at 10 o’clock. Passed through Amiens. Arrived Longpré about 1.30. Set off to march in the wrong direction. Marched for about 3 hours in the sun and was very much fagged out. Washed feet and legs. Terribly dusty and had a bruise under my right heel. Billeted in a field in a bivouac along with Duggins. Walked round village (Vauchelle2) at night. Had two eggs at one house and a feed at another.

  1. Méricourt-l’Abbé (A) has a railway station where ALL could have boarded a train to pass through Amiens as he describes and travel on to Longpré-les-Corps-Saints (B). ↩

  2. Assuming that Longpré is Longpré-les-Corps-Saints (where ALL had been on 8 June, a week or so after arriving in France), and taking the 3 hours’ march on 3 August into account, “Vauchelle” would seem to be Vauchelles-lès-Domart, 7km NE of Longpré (C); there is also a Vauchelles-lès-Quesnoy (D), on the outskirts of Abbeville (and a Vauchelles-lès-Authie, between Doullens and Albert, as well as a plain Vauchelles near Noyon.)  ↩

2 August 1916; Wednesday

August 1916

Slept pretty well. Orders to put up pack ready for inspection by C.O. Orders cancelled and ordered to clean waggons and pack up. Did some fatigue and the waggons went off. Had inspection at night and the C.O. read a letter from General Rowlandson1 saying that he appreciated the 19 Division’s work while with the 4th Army and he regretted to leave them. He referred to them as captors of La Boiselle and a great help in the village of Mametz and Bazentin.

  1. The General’s name was Rawlinson; communication with the troops was evidently not perfect. ↩

31 July 1916, Monday

July 1916, , ,

Up at 7 o’clock. Very hot all day. Remainder came down from trenches in the afternoon. We marched off to Laviéville1 at night. Went to old billets. Slept on top again.

  1. Fricourt, presumably the starting point for this march, (A) on map, and Laviéville  (B). ↩

30 July 1916; Sunday

July 1916, , , ,

Up at 7 o’clock. Had breakfast. Marched down to the horse lines. Made big shelter with the big waggon sheet and the waggons. Hot day. Very tired. Finished writing little story. Germans shelled heavily to the right and left of us with big stuff. After tea a few squads went up in reserve to the 59th and the remainder of us came back to the château near Fricourt12. Told to be ready to fall in and go up the line any time. Slept with only Lavere again.

Gas alarm at night.

  1. Fricourt: This is the first time ALL mentions Fricourt by name although this château was very probably the same one mentioned on 7th July and again on several occasions since. Fricourt is between Albert and Mametz, about 2km from latter; map sq. I 7/8 in Michelin. The map accompanying this post shows the approximate location of the château. ↩

  2. Fricourt had been a salient in the German front line prior to July 1916 and was taken by the British on 1-2 July. It was presumably during this fighting that the château was ruined. ↩

29 July 1916; Saturday

July 1916, ,

Slept well. Up shortly after 5 o’clock. Marched up but stayed at the big Canadian dugouts. Went to A.D. station at 8 o’clock. Stayed all night. Built bivouac in the big open dugout. With the stretcher cases and a few walking cases from artillery. Didn’t get down until about 4 o’clock and then slept badly from noise of guns and German shelling. Felt a bit “windy”. Bascombe with me.