103 Years Ago

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4617559.ece

Wife’s emotion in identity case

On this day: Nov 19 1915

At Manchester Assizes yesterday George Parkin Hall, alias Herbert Dandy, a soldier, was found guilty of an offence against Mrs Dandy, of West Gorton, and was sentenced to three years’ penal servitude. It was alleged that he personated the woman’s husband, Sergeant Dandy, a soldier serving at the front, and having succeeded in convincing her that he was really Dandy, stayed with her for several days. Hall, aged 37, was dressed in civilian clothes, and pleaded “Not Guilty”. 

Mr F Brocklehurst, prosecuting, pointed out that the facts of the case were peculiar. Hall bore a resemblance to Sergeant Dandy, who went out to Egypt with the 8th Manchesters last year. He presented himself to Mrs Dandy at her shop in July last, and represented that he was her husband. She doubted him at first, but after he had explained that his looks had been altered by his lying on a battlefield unattended for 72 hours, and that he could not remember domestic details as he had lost his memory, and after her relatives had assured her that he was her husband, she believed him and cohabited with him for several days. Then she again doubted him, and ceased to acknowledge him as her husband. Later it became known that the accused was named Hall, that he had a wife in Manchester, and that he only enlisted this year. 

Mrs Dandy in evidence told how the prisoner called at her shop in July and said he was her husband. Owing to his changed appearance she exclaimed “Never,” but he explained that the cause of the change was what he had gone through whilst serving abroad. Sergeant Dandy had an abscess mark on his neck, but Hall said it had been filled in. Dandy also had tattoo marks on his arm, and the prisoner explained their absence by saying they had been burnt out. 

Upon being cross-examined, Mrs Dandy burst into tears and sobbed convulsively. She exclaimed, “I have had nine children in ten years. I have never known wrong in my life, and never thought of a man apart from my husband, and all after my poor husband is laid below.” 

After the verdict Hall pleaded for leniency on the ground that he has six children and had been in gaol 13 weeks. The Judge, however, declared that he had committed a most impudent and deliberate crime.

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The Battle of Cajamarca (16 November 1532)

https://ospreypublishing.com/thisweekhistory/

Though small in number, the Spaniards clearly had the technological advantage; their iron swords, guns, horses and armour resulted in the deaths of over 7000 Indians (compared with zero fatalities on the Spaniards’ side). The Inca’s harrowing encounter with the Spaniards is described in the following extract from Warrior 40:The Conquistador 1492-1550

The Battle of Cajamarca

Since the days of Columbus, horses had played a fundamental role in all Conquistador expeditions. Indian people generally regarded them as mythical in nature often comparing them to giant deer until they learned their weaknesses. The Aztecs eventually learned to use pikes against them but only very late when the war had already been lost. Learning of Atahualpa’s arrival at Cajamarca, Pizarro set a trap for the Inca emperor. First a friar read the requerimiento, a ‘required’ document that outlined the Spaniards’ divine right of conquest. Dismissing it, Atahualpa pointed to the sun and remarked that his own god lived in the heavens, where he looked down upon his own children. In that instant, matchlocks blasted from the doorways where the Spaniards had concealed themselves and with shouts of ‘Santiago! Y a ellos!’ (‘Saint James and at them!’): the cavalry, led by Hernando de Soto, charged directly at Atahualpa’s bodyguard with devastating effect. Hooves rang across the courtyard and then thudded against the bare flesh of bodies too tightly packed to flee. Swords rended limbs and lances cut straight through two men at a time. The Inca army was totally surprised and overwhelmed by their first encounter with the horse in warfare. Pizarro himself then charged on foot, cutting his way with sword and dagger to Atahualpa to seize the emperor as his hostage.

 

Further Reading

Men-at-Arms 101: The ConquistadorsDocuments the uniforms, equipment, history and organization of the Conquistadors themselves, and their formidable enemies in the New World—the Aztecs, Incas and Maya.

New Vanguard 96: Spanish Galleon 1530-1690Focuses on the development and construction of the Spanish galleon, including the ordnance and crewing needed to produce and maintain these stately vessels.

Essential Histories 60: The Spanish Invasion of Mexico 1519-1521Explores the background of the Aztec Empire and of the Spanish presence in Mexico, portraying the Spanish conquest of Mexico from political, strategic, tactical, cultural and individual perspectives.

Warrior 40: The Conquistador 1492-1550
Provides insights into the lives of the Spanish Conquistadors, detailing their motivation, training, tactics, weaponry and experiences in the New World.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/prisoners-terrible-plight-qxw3wkf6t

NOVEMBER 16, 1918

Prisoners’ terrible plight

I understand that, according to programme, the British Army is remaining stationary within its lines till the expiration of the six days from the signing of the armistice, which will expire at 11 o’clock on Sunday. The forward movement will then begin. Today German officers arrived at Mons for the purpose of putting railway and other facilities at our disposal for our advance.

The released British prisoners, who, having been merely turned loose from camps or left to their own devices, are pouring in on foot, mostly in a deplorable condition. They are generally dressed in a sort of prison uniform of black cloth, and wear German caps, having often little or no underclothing, though the cold is severe. They are terribly wasted and in an unwashed and unshaven condition, with untrimmed hair, and are sometimes a pitiable sight. They are being treated with the utmost kindness by civilians of the villages along the road in the area evacuated by the Germans, and, of course, as soon as they reach our lines they are helped to divisional rest camps or other havens by being given lifts in lorries. Nonetheless, many are said to be finding the journey on foot too much for them, even though they have less than a 10-mile walk, and I understand some have actually died on the road at the very moment of deliverance.

All alike tell the same tales of rough usage, hard work, generally in some war industry, with insufficient food, to which their condition bears ample witness. Some have aged and others shrunk to youths of half their real age, with thin, wasted limbs and fleshless bodies. It is a pity the whole civilized world cannot see these men side by side with German prisoners in our hands.

Some of those now liberated have been prisoners a long time. Many others were captured at Cambrai a year ago, and others taken in the La Bassée area last April, but even the seven months of treatment they have received has been enough to reduce the last to a state of utter emaciation and feebleness. There is every evidence that the German food shortage has, especially of late, been even worse than we have dared believe, but that, even so, British prisoners have been famished far beyond any other class of the population there can be no doubt.

Max Levitas obituary

Max Levitas at a demonstration in 2015

Deep-dyed British communist who was a comrade of Jeremy Corbyn and one of the last survivors of the Battle of Cable Street

On September 7, 1934 The Times ran a report about a 19-year-old who had been arrested in Trafalgar Square, London, at 4am and fined £5 for daubing “All out against fascism” (and variations thereof) on three sides of the plinth of Nelson’s Column. The graffiti artist was called Max Levitas and he was a member of the Young Communist League. He was only caught because he and his friend went back to admire their handiwork after they had had a cup of tea. His plea of innocence was undermined somewhat by the item he had sticking out of his overcoat pocket: a still-wet paintbrush.

There was more daubing to come, two years later on October 4, 1936, in what became known as the Battle of Cable Street. This time it was “No Pasaran” (“they shall not pass”) that Levitas chalked on the walls, a slogan borrowed from Republicans fighting in the recently begun Spanish Civil War. A number of British “reds”, including Max Levitas’s brother Morry, would go and fight with the International Brigades in Spain over the next three years, but for now the fight was closer to home.

103 Years Ago

Contextualising a certain short film

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/archive/first-world-war/article4538855.ece 

Fall of Osowiec reported The German main headquarters state that, aIthough no definite figures of the booty taken at the fall of Kovno are yet to hand, the number of prisoners is more than 20,000. More than 600 cannon were captured, many of which are modern heavy ones
Another Russian fortress is reported to have fallen into the hands of the Germans. The announcement is made from Berlin that Osowiec, has been occupied by the troops under General von Eichhorn after it had been evacuated by the Russians. There is as yet no confirmation of the event from Petrograd. Osowiec, though it ranked only as a minor fortress has, on three occasions at least, played a distinguished part in checking previous German invasions of Poland. Situated on the Bobr, with Augustowo to the north and Bielsk to the south, it defended the only good passage across the swampy valley of marshes through which the river flows.

THE GERMAN CLAIM.
Berlin, Aug 23. German official report: Marshal von Hindenburg’s Army. The troops under General von Eichhorn are further advancing east and south of Kovno. On the Bobr we occupied the fortress of Osowiec, which was evacuated by the Russians. North and south of Tykocin successful fighting took place. We captured Tykecin, taking 1,200 prisoners, among them 11 officers. Seven machine-guns also fell into our hands.
[The Wireless Press version of the communique gives the number of machine-guns captured as 77. It adds that “desperate Russian counter-attacks east of Bielsk failed, with very considerable losses to the enemy. We advanced south of this town.”]
ARMY GROUP OF MARSHAL VON MACKENSEN. The enemy put up a tenacious resistance between Razna and the Bug. An attack across the Bug above the Pulwa sector is progressing. Before Brest Litowsk the situation is unchanged. On both sides of the Lakes of Switjas and near Piszcza, east of Wlodawa, the enemy was defeated yesterday and driven north-eastwards. Reuter.
The Wireless Press reports the following from Berlin in addition to the above: The Army of Prince Leopold of Bavaria. Accompanied by stubborn fighting this Army group has crossed the Kleszczele-Razna line and is engaged in further favourable attacks. Three thousand and fifty prisoners were taken and 16 machine guns captured.
[Yesterday’s German official report stated that Prince Leopold’s Army group crossed the Kleszczele-Wysoko Litowsk railway on Saturday and captured over 3,000 prisoners and a number of machine guns.]

74 Years Ago

76 Years Ago

Wilfred Owen obituary

News of the poet’s death reached his family as the bells rang out in celebration of the armistice and received only a passing mention in the long lists of casualties. The Times now publishes his obituary

Second Lieutenant Wilfred Owen in 1916, the year he was commissioned into the Manchester Regiment

His subject was war, and the pity of war. Wilfred Owen’s preface to his poetry was found among his papers in an unfinished condition; he had hoped to publish his work in 1919. “All the poet can do today is to warn,” he added. “That is why the true poets must be truthful.”

Owen had experienced at first hand the pain inflicted by war and knew of what he wrote. “Red lips are not so red/As the stained stones kissed by the English dead,” are the opening lines to Greater Love, in which he describes in graphic, violent detail the “piteous mouths that coughed” and “hearts made great with shot”.

Much of Owen’s poetry was written in a creative burst while he was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, where the cries of traumatised patients echoed in the corridors. It was there that he met other men who would become known as poets of the Great War: Siegfried Sassoon, who introduced him to the idea of the “protest poem”, and Robert Graves, whom Owen described as “a big, rather plain fellow”. Like Milton, Owen was keen that his poetry should not merely be a passive witness to events, but rather an active response to the suffering he had seen and endured.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/stand-by-unfix-bayonets-l0m8tjhhx

NOVEMBER 12, 1918

Stand by. Unfix bayonets

The British Army began its first battle of the war at Mons on August 22, 1914, and, by the grace of God, our troops stood in this same spot when the order came to cease fire. That the enemy had made up his mind that the end had come, our troops yesterday had ample evidence. On most of the front they marched and rode almost as they pleased. The news of the armistice was got forward to our far-flung patrols and batteries with great promptitude, and a great silence fell upon the land after 11 o’clock. There can be no harm now in saying that the message had been expected, and there had been ample time to signal the news beyond the points where telegraph and telephone cease. Our scattered troops were told to unfix bayonets and unload magazines and to stand to for further orders. No attempt was to be made to fraternize with the enemy. I believe there was some demonstrativeness on the German side, and I hear of German troops seen trying to break their rifles or throw them away. But, on the whole, the great tidings appear to have been taken pretty quietly. Amongst the troops in rest there was more jubilation. At headquarters close to the line parades had been arranged of all available troops as soon as the news was received, and at 11 o’clock the bugles sounded the “Cease fire” and the bands played the “Marseillaise” and “God Save the King”. Many then broke out into “Tipperary”, which the peasantry seem to imagine is our National Anthem, to judge by the respect with which they hearkened to the strains.

Shortly after 11 o’clock the roads presented an extraordinary scene. Refugees began to stream back in swarms. The Germans are manifestly anxious to show their good faith, for very shortly after the armistice dispatch riders were bringing into Corps Headquarters full details of the positions of all mines, booby traps, and leads, which had been sent over under the white flag by enemy commands.

The day is grey and drizzling, which does not conduce to outdoor demonstrations on the part of people who have suffered much, and many of whom cannot yet tell how many of their dear ones have fallen in the terrible struggle. Silent thankfulness is the prevailing sentiment today in the war area of Northern France.

The Times History of the War - The Armistice

The Armistice

This chapter examines the military collapse of Germany, the Turkish Armistice, Austria-Hungary follow, Germany's isolation, Prince Max of Baden makes overtures for peace, President Wilson's reply, Allied military conference in Paris, German armistice delegates arrive at Rethondes, the Armistice signed, its terms, reception in Germany and England

Read the full story

The Downfall November 10, 1918

Germany is utterly alone, beaten in the field by the foes she despised, with her sailors and with thousands of her soldiers in mutiny, her people in insurrection under the red flag, her destinies in untried hands

Read the full story

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/these-fateful-hours-ktz75t9tk

NOVEMBER 9, 1918

These fateful hours

Marshal Foch has lost no time in answering Germany’s petition for an armistice. Yesterday morning the delegates presented themselves at the Allied Headquarters, and he handed them the conditions on which their request will be conceded. At the same time he informed them that these terms must be accepted or refused within three days. He also told them that the cool suggestion of their Government for an immediate suspension of hostilities pending this decision could not be entertained. It was put forward, Prince Max and his colleagues affirmed, “in conformity with humanity”; but the advantages it would have conferred are so patent that it suggests either sheer impertinence or the necessity to convince the German people that every possible loophole of escape has been explored. Every hour of immunity from the converging attacks which threaten to cut off the enemy’s retreat would be invaluable to them. No respite can be thought of until they have agreed, formally and irrevocably, to the terms. Stringent as these must be, it hourly becomes clearer that the German Government must submit to them or incur a terrible responsibility. The delegates have dispatched a courier to convey them to the Chancellor and the German High Command at Spa, and an urgent request that he shall be sent back as quickly as possible with the latest instructions.

The signs increase that peace on any conditions grows more and more vital to the enemy. The Chancellor, Prince Max, has just declared in an address to Germans abroad that in the fifth year of the contest, and “abandoned by their allies” — a not very generous complaint — the German people “could no longer wage war against increasingly superior forces”, and he confesses that “the victory for which many had hoped has not been granted to us”.

The signs of internal commotion in Germany are growing more serious. The chief naval ports are in the hands of mutinous sailors and soldiers and revolutionary civilians, while the movement is spreading inland. Want and the collapse of all expectations of victory and plunder excited by the “militarists” have excited dangerous passions among the masses. Anger against the Emperor is fierce. His abdication is being called for upon all sides.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/rumour-and-suspense-q9hh0g5zf

NOVEMBER 8, 1918

Rumour and suspense

All the world awaits with eager desire news that Germany has taken the next step towards peace. Every hour that she delays increases her losses and her danger. The rumours which filled London yesterday that she had signed the armistice were manifestly premature, for they were circulated before the delegates could have reached their destination. A wireless message states that they left Berlin on Wednesday evening. The only official information as to the course of their journey is contained in Marshal Foch’s communication to the German Headquarters. It states that if they wish to meet him to ask for an armistice they are to advance to the French outposts by the Chimay-Fourmies-La Capelle-Guise road, where they are to be received and conducted to the place fixed for the interview. There they will be met by the Allied Generalissimo and by Admiral Wemyss, the First Sea Lord, who has been appointed to act with Marshal Foch as his naval associate. The terms are irrevocably fixed and are to take or to leave within a definite period, which we may assume from precedent to be three days from yesterday afternoon.

The capture of the western part of Sedan by the First American Army is a dramatic incident in the great advance of the Allies which has been sweeping forward since the close of last week. It looks as though the Germans had delayed their retreat from the Laon salient too long, and the rapid advance of the Americans disconcerted their plans. They may still extricate themselves, but their situation is obviously full of danger.

German newspapers publish accounts of ominous disturbances at Kiel, Hamburg, and Cuxhaven. A “Soldiers’ Council” has been formed at Kiel, the red flag hoisted on at least one battleship, the sailors have mutinied, troops sent to suppress them have joined them, the men are complete masters of the ships and the officers powerless. Some ebullition was inevitable once the rigour of “militarist” control had been mitigated, but there is nothing as yet to suggest that the movement is general. Public order has been preserved, though two or three officers have been murdered. At the same time it is clear the excitement among the working classes may become dangerous if their hopes of an immediate armistice and early peace are disappointed.

The Times History of the War - The Collapse of Germany

The collapse of Germany

This week's chapter examines the effects of the blockade, Ukrainian food supplies, war loans and national credit, submarine failures, socialism in the army, moral weakening of the people, Lichnowsky memoir, Herr von Kuhlmann and the peace offensive, fall of von Kuhlmann, Admiral von Hintze Foreign Minister, a ministry of failure, effect of the Battle of Amiens, Prince Max Chancellor, socialistic participation, effect of Cambrai, Main Headquarters demands peace, the Fourteen Points, socialist impatience, abdication of the Kaiser, the Armistice

The Socialists of Bavaria passed a resolution that Germany should be reconstituted into a people's State, and the Munich papers called on the Kaiser to give a shining exampIe to his people by sacrificing himself

Read the full story

Abdication of the Kaiser November 11, 1918

I hear that the Kaiser with a suite of 10 gentlemen, in two court carriages, passed the Dutch frontier near Maastricht and close to Eysden this morning. Secrecy is observed concerning his movements

Read the full story The following news was transmitted on Saturday through the wireless stations of the German Government:

The German Imperial Chancellor, Prince Max of Baden, has issued the following decree: The Kaiser and King has decided to renounce the Throne. The Imperial Chancellor will remain in office until the questions connected with the abdication of the Kaiser, the renouncing by the Crown Prince of the Throne of the German Empire and of Prussia, and the setting up of a Regency have been settled. For the Regency he intends to appoint Deputy Ebert as Imperial Chancellor [our Hague Correspondent gives the foregoing sentence as, “He contemplates proposing to the Regent the appointment of Deputy Ebert as Chancellor”], and he proposes that a Bill should be brought in for the establishment of a law providing for the immediate promulgation of general suffrage, and for a constitutional German National Assembly which will settle finally the future form of Government of the German nation and of those peoples which might be desirous of coming within the Empire.

Berlin, November 9, 1918.

The 100 greatest novels of all time

Our critics choose the best novels ever written, from Tolkien to Proust

100 The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (1954-55)

Hairy-toed hobbit Frodo leaves home to defend the world from dark forces by destroying a cursed ring, in Tolkien's epic trilogy. WH Auden thought this tale of fantastic creatures looking for lost jewellery was a “masterpiece”.

99 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

This child’s-eye view of racial prejudice and freaky neighbours in Thirties Alabama was the only novel Lee published in her lifetime – until an early draft of it was released as a "new" book in 2015.

98 The Home and the World by Rabindranath Tagore (1916)

A rich Bengali noble lives happily until a radical revolutionary appears, in this Bengali tale of clashing cultures from the Nobel Prize-winning poet and novelist.

97 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (1979)

Extra-terrestrial travel meets very English humour, as Earth is demolished to make way for a Hyperspatial Express Route. Don’t panic!

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams, c.1988 CREDIT: REX

96 One Thousand and One Nights (anonymous)

A Persian king’s new bride tells tales to stall post-coital execution, in a tangled collection of Middle Eastern folk stories first translated into English in 1706.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/germans-and-belgians-mdgxx9x8d

NOVEMBER 5, 1918

Germans and Belgians

We are vigorously following up our success at Valenciennes by attacking the sectors on the south. We are reported to be making good progress everywhere, and taking considerable numbers of prisoners. At many places the German retreat is reported to be most disorderly, and the Belgians have been following them up with the greatest eagerness.

An interesting document has fallen into Belgian hands in the shape of a General Order to the 5th Bavarian Division, dated October 5, showing how at that date German troops realized the change in their situation. The Order says: “However regrettable the condition of the civil population of Belgium may be, the consideration of revictualling the German Army must come first.” It therefore orders all horses, vehicles, &c, to be requisitioned and used for Army purposes, and continues: “Officers and men must understand that their relationship to the civilian population has changed since the alteration in the general situation. Civilians must now be regarded as an enemy people with whom we are in a state of war, and it is strictly forbidden to give them any assistance whatever. Military requirements alone must be taken into consideration, and all products of the country must be utilized solely in our own interest and not in that of the people.”

This order, of course, gives the German soldiery carte blanche to loot and pillage as they please, and they appear to have been taking advantage of it in a way which neither the Belgian Army nor the Belgian people will ever forget.

I mentioned some time ago a story, which I declined to vouch for, of Germans leaving one of their own dead as a booby trap so placed that when the body was lifted for burial it would explode a mine. The possibility that this was true is increased by the fact that our Engineers have in two places found an apparent grave with a cross marked “unknown Englishman”. The position of the graves was suspicious, and on careful examination they were found to contain, not a dead British soldier, but a German mine.

Another example of German cunning is in furnishing machine-gun crews left to cover rearguards with civilian suits of peasant clothes, enabling them to make their escape as harmless farming folk.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/another-step-towards-victory-g23xlwf6m

NOVEMBER 3, 1918

Another step towards victory

Germany now stands alone. The last and greatest of her confederates has fallen away from her. The Austro-Hungarian Commander has signed an armistice with General Diaz, and it will come into force this afternoon. The actual terms will not be made public until tomorrow, but it is easy enough to surmise their general tenor. Clearly they must be of such a kind as to ensure the complete and effective isolation of Germany. The Power whose ambitions Germany used to prepare and provoke the world-war, and who has been throughout her ready tool and accomplice in the nefarious policy of aggression, abandons her and leaves her either to oppose single-handed the foes whom she could not defeat when at the head of a great coalition, or to submit to the terms which they may dictate to her. It is still far from clear which course she will take. Until, therefore, her surrender becomes a fact, the first duty of the Allies and of America is to redouble their efforts, both military and diplomatic, to enforce her acceptance of the victorious peace they are resolved to secure.

There is no doubt, of course, that the armistice with Austria entirely changes the military situation to the great advantage of the Allies. It opens the way for the execution of plans which are doubtless already prepared and can now be put into immediate execution. Nor is it only in the military sphere that this great event imposes fresh duties upon us. It demands new efforts in the field of diplomacy. As the time approaches when Germany must sue for an armistice or be crushed, the Allies and the United States must exert themselves more than ever to attain perfect clearness and unity, both as to the terms which they would be prepared to grant and on the subject of the peace preliminaries themselves. We presume that the present meetings at Versailles, where the leading soldiers and sailors of the Alliance have been in conference, have at least resulted in agreement upon the essential measures, naval and military, which are required to enforce the only kind of peace that the democracies will sign. That is the first, and for now, most important, business. The peace preliminaries follow, but here too there is no time to be lost in correlating our main ideas if there is to be no subsequent misunderstanding.

100 Years Ago

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/the-battle-in-flanders-t6bsnkwj0

NOVEMBER 2, 1918

The battle in Flanders

On the front of the Allied attack in the north which began yesterday we continue to push the enemy back upon the line of the Scheldt, while in the Valenciennes area we have forced our way so closely up to the southern edge of the city that you may hear tonight that Valenciennes is in our hands. The position of the Germans there must now be nearly intolerable. A characteristic item of the booty taken in the southern area was a party of four German ambulances which, having a legitimate load of wounded on the beds below, were laden above with booty plundered from the villages.

Pushing up behind our troops, our guns have been industriously shelling enemy troops and transport on the roads. On our immediate left the French troops had some trouble with strong positions in Anseghem Chateau. The place was full of machine-guns, and the Germans fought stubbornly, and it was not until after hand-to-hand fighting that they finally got possession. On the left of the French, American troops seem to have had the hardest fighting. The woods were strongly held, and protected with wire and machine-guns, but, working like old soldiers, the Americans made their way round, and those of the garrison who were not killed or escaped were made prisoners.

All this country is thickly settled, and the Germans last night had set a number of farms on fire, which kept the hours of darkness brilliant and made the advance of the French and Americans in the early morning very easy. In other farms and hamlets are large numbers of civilians, and the Germans, falling back, fought from and among the buildings in Boer fashion. We hesitated to use the guns because of the innocent inhabitants, and the infantry therefore had to go forward without artillery, and the work was done by individual fighting with rifle and bayonet.

The Germans, as they fall back, shell with gas the farms and villages where civilians are. Our men do all they can to protect civilians by giving them gas masks, which they strip from German prisoners, and are trying to make them get out of the area; but it is difficult to persuade civilians not to cling to shelters in cellars and so forth, which have so far proved their salvation, but where it is impossible for them to live always in their masks.

Lest we forget: Private Harry Patch, the last man to have gone over the top – obituary

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/0/lest-forget-private-harry-patchthe-last-man-have-gone-top/

This obituary has been republished as part of The Telegraph's commemoration of the end of the First World War. As well as the generals who planned missions and the poets who immortalised them, many ordinary British men and women helped bring about the Armistice on November 11 1918. Here, we remember them

Private Harry Patch, who died on July 25 2009 aged 111, was believed to be the last surviving British soldier to have gone into action on the Western Front, an experience about which he retained bitter memories.

As the last Tommy, the last British trench fighter of the Great War, the last man to have gone over the top, and latterly and briefly - after the death a week ago of Henry Allingham - Britain’s oldest man, Patch bore his celebrity with bemused dignity. “Why I’m still here,” he remarked at the age of 108, “I can’t fathom.”

When the television documentary makers started to interview the small corps of centenarian veterans at the turn of the 20th century they found that several retained vivid memories of the trenches. But Patch was the one who burned with the strongest indignation - at the constant danger, the noise, the rats, the lice and the biscuits that were too hard to eat at Passchendaele.