Voices of Silence (56 page)

A.D.S.
Advanced Dressing Station

A.E.F.
American Expeditionary Force; some said that it stood for ‘After England Failed’

A.I.F.
Australian Imperial Force

A.P.C.
Army Pay Corps

après la guerre
after the war, in army parlance meaning never

Archie
anti-aircraft gun, said to be derived from the music-hall song ‘Archibald, certainly not’, because of the ineffectiveness of the early anti-aircraft gunnery efforts

A.S.C.
Army Service Corps, otherwise know as Ally Sloper’s Cavalry after a children’s comic character

Batt. H.Q.
Battalion Headquarters

B.E.F.
British Expeditionary Force, particularly the first Seven Divisions sent to France in August 1914, known as the ‘Contemptible little army’

Blighty
slang for England or home; also a wound that was serious enough for the injured soldier to be sent back to England

Bosch
,
Bosche
or
Boche
French name for Germans, adopted by the British

bully
tinned bullied beef

C.A.V.C.
Canadian Army Veterinary Corps

C.B.
Commander of the Bank

C.C.S.
Casualty Clearing Station

chats
lice

C.H.Q.
Company Headquarters

C.O.
Commanding Officer, also known as OC

crump
any heavy shell, named from the sound it made when it burst on impact

C.T.
communication trench

D.A.A.
Director of Army Accounts

D.A.A.G.
Deputy Assistant Adjutant General

Der Tag
‘The Day’, a pre-war German naval toast that looked forward to the destruction of the British Fleet; it was frequently cited by the British during the war as an example of German arrogance

Div.
Division

D.O.R.A.
Defence of the Realm Act

D.R.O.
Divisional Routine Order

D.S.O.
Distinguished Service Order

duckboard
wooden slats laid along the bottom of the trenches

E.L.C.
Egyptian Labour Corps

firestep
the step built on the rear of the front wall of the trench, from which the men could see across no man’s land

F.O.O.
Forward Observation Officer

F.P.
Field Punishment

G.H.Q.
General Headquarters

G.O.C.
General Officer Commanding

G.R.C.
Graves Registration Commission

H.A.C.
Honourable Artillery Company

H.E.
high explosive

H.L.I.
Highland Light Infantry

H.M.
His Majesty the King

Hun
German

Jack Johnson
heavy German shells that gave off a dense black smoke on exploding; named after the celebrated black American boxer

K.C.B.
Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath

M.A.
Master of Arts

Maxims
a type of machine gun

M.C.
Military Cross

Mills
the Mills bomb was a type of grenade

O.C.
Officer Commanding

O.O.
Orderly Officer, or Operational Order

O.T.C.
Officer Training Corps

pavé
shiny, ankle-turning roads of Belgium and northern France made of stone blocks, much disliked by the marching soldiers

P.B.I.
poor bloody infantry

poilu
meaning hairy, it was the universal name for the French soldier

P.O.W.
prisoner of war

Q. or Q.M.G.
Quartermaster General

Q.M.A.A.C.
Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps

Q.M.S.
Quartermaster Sergeant

R.E.
Royal Engineers

R.F.A.
Royal Field Artillery

R.F.C.
Royal Flying Corps

R.M.L.I.
Royal Marine Light Infantry

R.N.V.R.
Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve

R.S.M.
Regimental Sergeant Major

R.T.O.
Railway Transport Officer

S.A.A.
small arms ammunition

sapper
Royal Engineer private

S.R.D.
Service Rum Diluted; initials stamped on rum jars; the soldiers also called these Soon Run Dry and Seldom Reaches Destination

sub.
subaltern; junior officer below the rank of Captain

T.M.B.
trench mortar battery

T.N.T.
tri-nitro toluene – explosive

Tommy
British private soldier, from Tommy Atkins, the hypothetical name of the soldier required to sign the Soldier’s Account Book first issued in 1815

V.A.D.
Voluntary Aid Detachment

V.C.
Victoria Cross

Very light
lights fired from special pistols that illuminated no man’s land and the enemy positions

Vickers
a type of machine gun

whizz-bang
a type of German field gun shell, named from the sounds it made as it approached and as it burst

Wilhelm
The Kaiser

Wipers
Ypres

Y.M.C.A. (Y.M.)
Young Men’s Christian Association, which organised rest rooms for soldiers behind the lines

Zepp.
Zeppelin airship, named after its inventor, Count Zeppelin

Many of the poems, particularly those written by private soldiers for ephemeral publications, were published anonymously.

Albert, E.

In a Tramcar

Alchin, Gordon
(?1895–1947)

Worked under the pseudonym ‘Observer, RFC’. Commissioned into the Royal Field Artillery, 1914; transferred to the Royal Flying Corps, 1915; awarded the Air Force Cross; achieved rank of Captain. After the war, became a barrister and County Court Judge
.

A Song of the Air

Reconnaissance

Two Pictures

Alington, C.A.
(1872–1955)

Head Master of Eton, and later Dean of Durham
.

The School at War – 1914

Amory, Harold

2nd Lieutenant 101st Machine Gun Bttn, AEF
.

Passed as Censored

Anderson, Jessie Annie
(b. 1861)

Before the outbreak of war she published ten volumes of poetry; her final volume was published in 1928.

For a Horse Flag Day

Armstrong, Martin
(1882–1974)

Poet, novelist and short-story writer, whose first volume of poems was published in 1912. Volunteered in the Artists’ Rifles, 1914; commissioned into the 8th Bttn, Middlesex Regt, 1915
.

Going up the Line

Asquith, Herbert
(1881–1947)

Son of the British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. Before the war, was a lawyer. Commissioned into the Royal Marine Artillery, 1914; transferred to the Royal Field Artillery; served in France but was invalided home with nervous strain, 1915; returned to the front before he was fully well and suffered the effects long after. After the war he did not return to the law but became a writer and publisher’s reader.

A Flemish Village

Ball, Clelland J.

Private in the Quartermaster Corps, AEF
.

The American Advance

Beazley, Mary

The Sound of Flanders Guns

Bendall, Frederick William Duffield
(1882–1953)

A schoolmaster before the war, he was in charge of his school OTC and a Captain in the TA. At the outbreak of war he was promoted temporary Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of the 3rd (Reserve) Bttn, City of London (Royal Fusiliers). He served in the Sudan, where he was OC British Troops, Gallipoli and France; he was wounded during the 3rd Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele), 1917; twice mentioned in dispatches; awarded CMG, 1918; promoted full Colonel, 1920
.

R.A.F.

September 25th, 1916

The Blizzard

Bewsher, Paul
(1894–1966)

Commissioned into the Royal Naval Air Service, 1915, transferring to the RAF in 1918; awarded the DSC.

Searchlights

Bigelow, Frank G.

CQM, USS Hinton
.

You Never Can Tell

Bing, Harold F.

A conscientious objector who, in mid-1917, was serving his third sentence of imprisonment with hard labour
.

A Call from Prison

Boden, A.L.

The Cenotaph: Armistice Day

Borden, Mary
(d. 1968)

Worked from 1914 to 1918 in military hospitals attached to the French Army; she stated that the events she described were experienced as part of her war service and that none was invented. In 1918 she married the soldier and military historian Edward (later Sir Edward) Spears
.

The Song of the Mud

Bottomley, Gordon
(1874–1948)

Georgian poet and playwright. A friend of Isaac Rosenberg, whose poems he edited for publication in

1922
.

All Souls, 1914

Bourke, J.

In 1918 he held the rank of Lieutenant; he appears to have survived the war
.

Ex Umbra

Bower, John Graham
(1886–1985)

Worked under the pseudonym Klaxon. Served in the Royal Navy in the Somali War (1902–4), and throughout the First World War; he rose to the rank of commander; he was awarded the DSO in 1918, and mentioned in dispatches
.

Low Visibility

To Fritz

Wet Ships

Bowman, Archibald Allan
(1883–1936)

Before the war he was Professor of Logic at Princeton University; commissioned into the 13th Highland Light Infantry, September 1915; was captured during the Battle of Lys in April 1918, and was imprisoned at first at Rastatt then at Hesepe prison camps. In 1926 he became Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University
.

Rastatt

Thoughts of Home

[What of our comrades in the forward post?]

Box, William
(1903–87)

Too young to serve in the war, while still very young he volunteered after the war to help clear the battlefields, an experience that had a profound effect on him
.

Valete

Brasher, Paul

Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Naval Air Service; awarded the DSC. He appears to have survived the war.

The Dawn Patrol

Bretherton, Cyril H.
(1878–1939)

Wrote for Punch under pseudonym ‘Algol’
.

Oxford Revisited

Brown, John Lewis Crommelin
(1888–1953)

Commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery (Special Reserve), December 1915; to France, February 1916; the following month was invalided home suffering from neurasthenia. Between May 1917 and July 1918 was an instructor in the Cadet School at Trowbridge; promoted Lieutenant, July 1917; sent to Salonika, August 1918. He played cricket for Derbyshire
.

Submarines

The German Dug-out

The Lusitania

Bryden, Walter M.

In 1916 held the rank of Sergeant
.
He appears to have survived the war.

The Catechism of the Kit

Burnet, W. Hodgson
(b. 1873)

The author of a number of humorous books
.

Requisitional

Bynner, Witter
(1881–1968)

American poet and man of letters.

The True Pacifist

Cannan, May Wedderburn
(1893–1973)

Enrolled in the VAD, 1911; served briefly at Rouen; returned to Oxford as part of the government’s War Propaganda Bureau; joined MI5 in Paris, 1918; was engaged to Bevil Quiller-Couch, son of ‘Q’, who survived the war but died in 1919 from influenza while serving with the Army of Occupation in Germany
.

English Leave

For a Girl

Perfect Epilogue

The Armistice

Cappe, Lucas

A Song

Carpenter, Edward
(1844–1929)

A writer associated with the arts and crafts movement and social reform. A friend of Siegfried Sassoon, he was part of the pacifist group that gathered round Lady Ottoline Morrell. His book
The Intermediate Sex
(1908) was a ground-breaking study of homosexuality
.

Lieutenant Tattoon, M.C.

Carstairs, Carroll
(1888–1948)

An American, he claimed to be Canadian and served in the Royal Artillery and Grenadier Guards; Lieutenant; severely wounded in November 1918. The author of
A Generation Missing
(1930)
.

Life and Death

Chadwick, J.C.

The Wood

Chance, Wade

A Father at the Grave of his Son

Chapman, John Jay
(1862–1933)

American-born lawyer and author
.

To a Dog

Choyce, A.N.

In December 1918 he was a Lieutenant and being treated for wounds in Heywood Auxiliary Hospital
.

My Pal and I

Churchill, John Strange Spencer, known as Jack
(1880–1947)

Younger brother of Winston Churchill. As a Major TA Reserve (later Oxfordshire Yeomenry) he served in the South African War 1899–1900. In the First World War he served in Gallipoli and France; mentioned in dispatches
.

Y Beach

Clarke, E.F.

Contributor to
Punch.

The Infantryman

Clayton, T.

Poet who contributed to the
Accrington Observer and Times.

Leave your Change

[There are tear-dimmed eyes in the town today]

Where are the Russians?

Clifford, C.

In Memory of Kaiser Bill (The Butcher)

Cobb, Walter H.

After the war he became an illustrator of children’s books.

The Armoured(illo) Train

The German Herr

The Newt-ral

The Sentrypede

The Skunk

The Sloth