It is true that the dead referred
to in the first of these passages are the enemy's dead; still, there is
a wholesale quality about those seven-mile trenches filled with dead ten
deep that is not a recruiting allurement.
Nor is this letter, vivid in its realism, likely to make those not
already warlike eager to enlist. It was sent to his parents at
Ilfracombe by Private William Burgess of the Royal Field Artillery:
We left our landing place for the front on the Tuesday and got
there on Saturday night. The Germans had just reached Liege
then, and we got into action on the Sunday morning. The first
thing we did was to blow up a bridge to stop the Germans from
crossing. Then we came into action behind a lot of houses
attached to the main street. We were there about ten minutes
when the houses started to fall around us. The poor people
were buried alive. I saw poor children getting knocked down by
bursting shells.
The next move was to advance across where there was a Red
Cross hospital. They dropped shells from airships and fired on
it until the place was burned down to the ground. Then they
got a big plan on to retire and let the French get behind
them. We retired eight miles, but we had to fight until we
were forced to move again. We got as far as Le Cateau on
Tuesday night.
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