 |  The Western Experience, 8/e Mortimer Chambers,
University of California - Los Angeles
Barbara Hanawalt,
Ohio State University
Theodore Rabb,
Princeton University
Isser Woloch,
Columbia University
Raymond Grew,
University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
World War I and the War it Created
Guide To Documents- The Terms of the Triple Alliance
- Meet the "Khaki Girls"
- Wilfred Owen Describes Trench Warfare
Wilfred Owen's moving poems about World War I were published after he was killed in action in 1918, and they continue to be widely read. His first tour of duty had ended when he was sent home suffering from "shell shock." Some months later, he was back in France; and on January 4, 1917, he wrote his mother that "on all the officers' faces there is a harassed look that I have never seen before," adding, "I censored hundreds of letters yesterday, and the hope of peace was in every one of them." He was back in the fighting a few days later, when he wrote her this letter.
Tuesday, 16 January 1917
[2nd Manchester Regt, B.E.F.]
"My own sweet Mother,
" . . . I can see no excuse for deceiving you about these last 4 days. I have suffered seventh hell.
"I have not been at the front.
"I have been in front of it.
"I held an advanced post, that is, a 'dug-out' in the middle of No Man's Land.
"We had a march of 3 miles over shelled road then nearly 3 along a flooded trench. After that we came to where the trenches had been blown flat out and had to go over the top. It was of course dark, too dark, and the ground was not mud, not sloppy mud; but an octopus of sucking clay, 3, 4, and 5 feet deep, relieved only by craters full of water. Men have been known to drown in them. Many stuck in the mud & only got on by leaving their waders, equipment, and in some cases their clothes.
"High explosives were dropping all around us, and machine-guns spluttered every few minutes. But it was so dark that even the German flares did not reveal us.
"Three quarters dead, I mean each of us 3Ú4 dead, we reached the dug-out, and relieved the wretches therein. I then had to go forth and find another dug-out for a still more advanced post where I left 18 bombers. I was responsible for other posts on the left but there was a junior officer in charge.
"My dug-out held 25 men tight packed. Water filled it to a depth of 1 or 2 feet, leaving say 4 feet of air.
"One entrance had been blown in & blocked.
"So far, the other remained.
"The Germans knew we were staying there and decided we shouldn't.
"Those fifty hours were the agony of my happy life.
"Every ten minutes on Sunday afternoon seemed an hour.
"I nearly broke down and let myself drown in the water that was now slowly rising over my knees.
"Towards 6 o'clock, when, I suppose, you would be going to church, the shelling grew less intense and less accurate: so that I was mercifully helped to do my duty and crawl, wade, climb and flounder over No Man's Land to visit my other post. It took me half an hour to move about 150 yards.
"I was chiefly annoyed by our own machine-guns from behind. The seeng-seeng-seeng of the bullets reminded me of Mary's canary. On the whole I can support the canary better.
"In the Platoon on my left the sentries over the dug-out were blown to nothing. One of these poor fellows was my first servant whom I rejected. If I had kept him he would have lived, for servants don't do Sentry Duty."
From Harold Owen and John Bell, (eds.), Wilfred Owen: The Collected Letters, Oxford University Press, 1967. - German Inflation
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