European War 1914-1919, the War Reserve Collection (WRA -WRE) from Cambridge University Library
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Adam Matthew Publications is an imprint of Adam Matthew Digital Ltd, Pelham House, London Road, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2AG, ENGLAND Telephone: +44 (1672) 511921 Fax: +44 (1672) 511663 Email: [email protected] The First World War: A Documentary Record Series One: European War 1914-1919, the War Reserve Collection (WRA -WRE) from Cambridge University Library Part 2: Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences PUBLISHER'S NOTE The First World War: A Documentary Record is a major microfilm series which is making available for the first time the riches of the Cambridge War Reserve Collection. This collection is acknowledged to be one of the finest sources of documentation concerning the First World War in the world, with much unique, rare and ephemeral material. Dr J M Winter, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, is the Consultant Editor for the microfilm edition. The emphasis is on the inclusion of materials unlikely to be held in most libraries. Part 1 made available the complete card catalogue and manuscript listing of the War Reserve Collection, which highlights the great range of the material held at Cambridge, and provides an invaluable bibliographical source for all aspects of the war. Part 2 commences coverage of the collection itself and focuses on Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences. These sources provide an immediate and personal perspective on the war. They bring home the realities of trench warfare and describe the experiences of infantrymen, officers, airmen, the medical corps, those at training camps, the tank corps, sappers, captured troops, soldiers on their way home and soldiers new to the front. There is much gallows humour and many eye-witness reports of major events. The material comes from the complete spectrum of participants. British, Australian, new Zealand and Canadian troops are most heavily represented - as one would expect - but there are also significant German, French, American, Spanish, Swedish and Polish sources and additional materials from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Singapore, South Africa and Switzerland. 118 Trench Journals are included. These were often cyclostyled publications created at the front, Some bear evidence of having been read in the trenches before being mailed to Cambridge to form a part of this Collection. The titles of the journals conjure up images by themselves. Examples are: The Gasper; The Iodine Chronicle (journal of No 1 Canadian Field Ambulance); Chronicles of the NZEF; La Baïonette; Le Claque à Fond; Pulham Patrol; Anzac Bulletin; Breath o' the Heather; The Mudhook, incorporating the Dardenelles Dug-out Gossip; The Dead Horse Corner Gazette (Canadian BEF); Aussie; The Eaglet (US Forces Magazine) ; The Codford Wheeze; The Fag-End (NZEF); Poison Gas; The Wormlet; and The Whizz-bang. Many of these titles include poetry written at the front, observations on the merits of officers, cartoons, and special features, as well as some operational details and reviews of past events. Some - such as the The Anzac Book: written and illustrated in Gallipoli are lavishly illustrated with drawings and photographs. Internment camps produced their own magazines including Deutsche Internierten-Zeitung Journal des Internés Français and Lager-Echo. Journals dealing with specialist forces include The Tenedos Times: Journal of the Mediterranean destroyer flotilla; Doings in German East Africa; Canadian Sapper; Barrack: The Camel Corps Review; The Whippet (a tank corps journal); and The WRAF on the Rhine. Sixty-eight Personal Narratives and Reminiscences are included. We have concentrated on titles published before 1925, and on titles that were privately printed and thus received only limited circulation. All manner of experiences are recorded in those as some sample titles will suggest: Australia in Palestine, 1919; N-Fraser-Tyler, With Lancashire Lads and Field Guns, 1922; J Krafft, Das Kriegstagbuch; J'accuse!Feuillets du Journal d'un soldat-homme de lettres, 1915; W Bellows, A Carnet de route, 1917; F M Gum, With Rifleman, Scouts and Snipers, 1921; Sven Hedin, Bagdad, Baylon, Ninive, 1917; Mme E Colombel, Journal d'une Infirmière d'Arras, 1916; A E Casales, A Young Soldier in France, 1916; E Moraht, Unser gemeinsamer krieg, 1915; and Danske soldaterbreve, 1918. The collection is rounded off with two gatherings of manuscript letters from the front and miscellaneous items such as dictionaries of trench slang. Our coverage by no means exhausts the resources of the War Reserve Collection in this area and a future part will make available a further selection with a particular emphasis on journals incorporating sketches and photographs, Scholars working on personal reminiscences should scan the relevant sections on the card catalogue and manuscript listings for further details, What is provided is a rich and probably unparalleled collection of these sources, which will provoke much new research and teaching. William Pidduck May 1992 The First World War: A Documentary Record Series One: European War 1914-1919, the War Reserve Collection (WRA -WRE) from Cambridge University Library Part 2: Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION BY DR J M WINTER Any selection of primary materials on the First World War must take account of the extraordinary phenomenon of trench journalism. This was the creation of 'house journals' of platoons, companies, regiments and occasionally even larger serving branches of the armed forces. The smaller they were, the closer they were to the minds of the men in the trenches. They are an indispensable source for any study of the military and social history of the Great War. The sheer range of these papers is astonishing. The selection is primarily British, but includes Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, American, German and French material as well. They vary enormously in format and content. Many of the British and French trench journals are cyclostyled, and represent a high degree of ingenuity in finding (stealing?) the equipment necessary to produce a four- or eight- page collection of comments, drawings, doggerel and news of local affairs. German trench journals have a less spontaneous character and fewer jokes, veiled or unveiled, at the expense of the high command. Swagger and defiance are more to the liking of the Australian trench journalist, though savage comments are not unknown in other products of this extraordinary part of the soldier's cultural life. You can imagine the way they were produced, and feel the intense camaraderie they proudly display. Some is amateur journalism of the schoolboy variety, but much of it is poignant and highly revealing of the ambivalence serving soldiers felt about the war and those not in the line. They all wanted to win; the will to victory was a sine qua non. But they had no time at all for armchair strategists or dainty diplomats. There is some anger at what soldiers took to be female ignorance of the hardships of trench life, but much longing for home as well. In short, these journals describe a world apart, but one still tied to the civilian landscape to which the authors (and readers) longed to return. Reminiscences are entirely different. As one might expect, it is the contrast between the two forms of literature which is most revealing about what soldiers remember and what they forget. The memoirs reproduced from the Cambridge War Collection have all the features of the genre: selective memory alongside telling detail; oddity and regularity jostling for attention. In the passage of time, anger and indignation over the stupidity of military life and the 'eye-wash' of civilian journalism fades. What we see here are people who realize they have been through an earthquake of monumental proportions, and have lived to tell the tale. Cambridge is among the few libraries rich in such material. The Bibliothèque du Documentation Internationale Contemporaine (BDIC), Paris and the Library of Contemporary History in Stuttgart are two others. The preservation of such sources in microfilm permits any library to join them in offering readers a resource to help them begin to make sense of a unique moment in history. J M Winter Pembroke College, Cambridge The First World War: A Documentary Record Series One: European War 1914-1919, the War Reserve Collection (WRA -WRE) from Cambridge University Library Part 2: Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences THE NATURE AND SCOPE OF THE MICROFILM PROJECT The availability of the complete card catalogue and manuscript listings will clearly be of great benefit to scholars wishing to understand the full range of materials contained in one of the largest assemblages of material for the study of the First World War. However, to reproduce all of the items within the entire Cambridge War Reserve Collection WRA-WRE would not be desirable, as it does include some material which would be common to many collections - for instance: Parliamentary Papers and prominent monographs. Our selection policy under the guidance of our Consultant Editor, Dr J M Winter, Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, has been to approach the collection on a subject basis concentrating on ephemeral materials, manuscript and rare printed items not likely to be held by most other libraries. We have identified specific subject themes for each part of the microfilm project. ie: Part 1: The Card Catalogue Index and Manuscript Listings Part 2: Personal Narratives and Reminiscences Part 3: Allied propaganda of the First World War Part 4: German Propaganda of the First World War Part 5: The Royal Army Medical Corps, Red Cross and other Auxiliary Services Part 6: Military Operations 1914 Other subject themes to be covered by future parts include: military operations 1915-1918, naval and aerial operations, Russia, the Bolsheviks and the Eastern Front, Economics, Socialism, Reconstruction 1917-1919, Peace, the Versailles Settlement and the creation of the League of Nations 1918-1919, Pictures, Posters and Illustrations, memorial Volumes and Regimental Records 1914-1918. "The First World War was the world-changing event of 'the twentieth century'.