The Times Great War Letters

Notable correspondence from the First World War

James Owen, Samantha Wyndham, James Owen

• Publisher: Times Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780008318451
• eBook ISBN: 9780008318536
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Modern British History
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The Times has the most famous letters page of any newspaper. This fascinating selection from 1914-1918 shows precisely why. While many letters relate to issues around the Great War, there is room for a myriad of subjects concerning the great British public of the time which capture the mood of the nation at this key period in British history.

1915

THE SWORDS OF FALLEN OFFICERS

2 January 1915

SIR,—MANY SWORDS SENT home from the front by the regimental authorities have been so badly labelled that it has been impossible to identify them, and they lie derelict. Some also are said to have disappeared en route. The pain caused to relatives by the non-receipt of a lost one’s sword is great. Every care should be taken in the transmission of so precious a relic.

Yours,

THE FATHER OF AN OFFICER KILLED IN ACTION

“GOING WEST”

4 January 1915

SIR,—IN REFERENCE TO the question in one of your “Letters from the Front” in to-day’s issue, as to the origin of the soldiers’ expression for death—“going west”—it may be of interest to your readers to know that the idea that the souls of the departed have to journey westwards is a very ancient one. It was the belief of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians. The sun was supposed to descend through a hole in the ground and to travel all night eastwards through the realms of the dead. Souls had thus to travel west to reach the entrance to this happy underworld. The belief is still held by many pagan peoples all over the world—Brazilians, Australians, and Fijians, among others. Dr. F. B. Jevons (“Introduction to History of Religion,” here) says:—

“The funeral dirges of the Dayaks describe how the spirits of the departed have to run westwards at full speed through brake and briar over rough ground and cutting coral to keep up with the sun and slip through the crashing gates by attaching themselves to him. The ghost who could not keep up with the sun and arrive at the entrance simultaneously with him had to recommence the journey next day.”

Yours, &c.,

ETHEL M. WALLACE

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE OPPOSITION

11 January 1915

SIR,—I HAVE READ WITH the greatest surprise the following statement made by Lord Crewe in a letter in your issue of to-day:—

“My object was rather to remind the House that in the suspension of free Parliamentary attack the Opposition Party in the country might partly console themselves by the reflection that the exceptional action taken in the crisis by the Executive has in most subjects of importance been within the preliminary knowledge of one or more of their leaders, and has been taken after hearing their opinions.”

I acknowledge with thanks the courtesy of the Government in permitting Lord Lansdowne and myself to see dispatches from General French, as well as from our representatives abroad.

I have, however, received no information from the Government, which has not been given publicly, as to the steps which they have hitherto taken or the steps which they propose to take for the prosecution of the war, and I am authorized by Lord Lansdowne to state that he is in the same position.

Yours truly,

A. BONAR LAW

As Conservative Party leader, Bonar Law was the leader of the opposition. Lansdowne was the Tories’ leader in the Lords and Crewe his Liberal counterpart.

“THE GREAT WAR”

15 January 1915

SIR,—I WONDER WHETHER you or any of your readers could give me any certain information as to what is or is going to be the official name for the present war. Those of us who have to record matters are in a difficulty with regard to it. The general opinion rather seems to point to the use of the term “European War,” but this, of course, ignores a very important part of the fighting in which this country is concerned in China, South Africa, Asiatic Turkey, and elsewhere.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

A. C. FOX-DAVIES, Editor of “Burke’s Landed Gentry”

FROSTBITE IN THE TRENCHES

25 January 1915

SIR,—REFERRING TO A letter headed “Frostbite” in your issue of yesterday, it may interest your correspondent to know that we were served out with grease before going up to the trenches on Christmas Eve. I rubbed my legs and feet thoroughly with this and was careful to leave my boots and puttees loose—but I arrived home on January 1 with frostbite in both feet, and am still laid up.

As to comparing us with men who explore the Poles, I do not know much about Polar expeditions, but I imagine that the men contrive to keep their legs and feet fairly dry, and have plenty of opportunities of taking exercise and keeping the circulation going. Whereas, in my particular case, I was for 36 hours in a trench which was so badly knocked about and fallen in, and had such an ineffective parapet, that it was simply “asking for trouble” to stand in anything like an upright position. The main trench was over knee deep in liquid mud (frozen over on Christmas morning), and the consistency of the ground in my particular traverse was such that if I kept my feet in the same place for a few minutes on end it was quite an effort to pull them out. You will readily see, then, that stamping or “marking time” was quite impossible, and we were reduced to knocking our feet together or hammering them with an entrenching-tool handle. I spent most of Christmas Eve and the following morning in such cheerful pastimes, but by lunch-time my feet and ankles were quite numbed. Our cubby-hole, by the way, had fallen in, and we had no hot shower-baths, stoves, drawing-room carpets, or other luxuries which abound in these Aladdin’s-Cave-cum-Ritz-Hotel trenches I have read about in the papers.

If your correspondent will excuse me saying so—when speaking, as he does in the last sentence of his letter, about “proper precautions” and so on, he does not realize the difficulties with which the authorities have to contend, especially when the trenches are only some 80 yards away from the Germans, as ours were. And I can assure him that when I left any amount of things were being done to improve the condition, and make things more comfortable for the men. But mud and frost are difficult things to deal with at any time, and how much more so when one or two crack shots are waiting to put a bullet through the first head or arm that appears.

Yours truly,

ONE WHO’S TRIED IT

PRIVATE LETTERS AND THE CENSORSHIP

27 January 1915

SIR,—MAY I APPEAL TO you on a matter which interests a large number of persons, who, like myself, must be at a loss to know how to act?

Before Christmas I wrote a letter to my friend Mr. Compton Mackenzie, the novelist, who lives in Capri. It was delivered, after a very long delay (of which we make no complaint), but it was accompanied by a curtly-worded communication from the English censorship, desiring Mr. Mackenzie to tell his correspondent that, in future, if the latter wished his letters to be delivered he must write “shortly and clearly.” As far as “clearness” is concerned, my handwriting, whatever its demerits, is as clear as print. As far as “shortness” is concerned, my letter was not longer than one is accustomed to write to a friend abroad. I wrote exclusively about a literary matter interesting to Mr. Compton Mackenzie and myself. Political questions, even the war itself, were not mentioned or approached. Mr. Mackenzie’s reply, which was as long as my letter, and dealt with precisely the same subject, came to me without delay, and without having been opened.

As I desire nothing less than to incommode a busy public department, I wrote privately to the Censor, stating what I have mentioned above, and asking for definite instructions. I have had a civil reply, but not the least explanation or information. Can you, Sir, therefore inform me what number of words the Censor permits a friend in England to address to a friend in a neutral country?

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

EDMUND GOSSE

LEECHES

28 January 1915

SIR,—OUR COUNTRY HAS been for many months suffering from a serious shortage of leeches. As long ago as last November there were only a few dozen left in London, and they were secondhand.

Whilst General Joffre, General von Kluck, General von Hindenburg, and the Grand Duke Nicholas persist in fighting over some of the best leech-areas in Europe, possibly unwittingly, this shortage will continue, for even in Wordsworth’s time the native supply was diminishing, and since then we have for many years largely depended on importations from France and Central Europe. In November I made some efforts to alleviate the situation by applying to America and Canada, but without success. I then applied to India, and last week, owing to the kindness of Dr. Annandale, Director of the Indian Museum at Calcutta, and to the officers of the P. and O. Company and to Colonel Alcock, M.D., of the London School of Tropical Medicine, I have succeeded in landing a fine consignment of a leech which is used for blood-letting in India. It is true that the leech is not the Hirudo medicinalis of our pharmacopœias, but a different genus and species, Limnatis granulosa. Judging by its size, always a varying quantity in a leech, we may have to readjust our ideas as to a leech’s cubic capacity, yet I believe, from seeing them a day or two ago, they are willing and even anxious to do their duty. They have stood the voyage from Bombay and the changed climatic conditions very satisfactorily, and are in a state of great activity and apparent hunger at 50, Wigmore-street, London, W.

It is true that leeches are not used to anything like the extent they were 80 years ago—Paris alone, about 1830, made use of some 52 millions a year—but still they are used, though in much smaller numbers.

It may be of some consolation to my fellow-countrymen to know that our deficiency in leeches is more than compensated by the appalling shortage of sausage-skins in Middle Europe. With true German thoroughness they are trying to make artificial ones!

I am yours faithfully,

A. E. SHIPLEY

WELSH GUARDS

2 February 1915

SIR,—IN THE MAGNIFICENT response made by all the nations to the Empire’s call Wales has nobly borne its share. Even before the appeal of Mr. Lloyd George for the formation of two Welsh Army Corps it had already sent some 40,000 men to the Regular Army. The 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, the 24th South Wales Borderers, and the 41st, the Welsh Regiment, occupy a position of high honour. Between August 4 and January 9 the number of men recruited in Wales exceeded 70,000, and it was estimated that districts from which returns were at that time incomplete would bring the total over 85,000. Since then the response of Welshmen to the call to join the new Army has been prompt and steady.

This being so, by way of recognition of the magnificent behaviour of the men of Wales of age to join the colours, having regard, too, to their “excellent character” as soldiers, and to further rouse the martial spirit of their nation in support of this just war, would it not be a graceful compliment, which no Welshman would be ever likely to forget, to form a Regiment of Welsh Guards? The sister nations of England and Scotland have for a long time past had their Guards Regiments, and only a few years ago the formation of the Irish Guards afforded ample evidence of how much gratification and pride that most tactful idea of the late Queen Victoria created in the national sentiment of Ireland.

No suggestion would be more popularly acclaimed in Wales. No idea would more vividly stir the imagination of the people. A battalion could be raised in very quick time, especially, as might, perhaps, be necessary, if the standard of height usual in Guards Regiments were slightly reduced. Then, with Wales’s own young Prince as Colonel-in-Chief, there would exist a new regiment of Guards of which both Wales and the British Army would have every justification in feeling proud. A highly-emotional and always loyal people, the Welsh even now let none of the Empire’s races outvie them in valour or in loyalty, and I confidently submit it would be sound policy for Lord Kitchener to carry out the proposition set forth.

I am, Sir, yours faithfully,

J. AUBREY REES

Four days after ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Introduction
• 1914
• 1915
• 1916
• 1917
• 1918
• Index of Letter Writers
• About the Publisher