Glossary

Albert chain

An Albert chain is a chain used to anchor a Victorian or Edwardian gentleman’s timepiece on to his waistcoat. It was named in memory of Queen Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert, who was fond of wearing watch chains with his morning coat and waistcoat. Watch chains worn by women during the period were known as ‘Albertina chains’. Both Albert chains and Albertina chains were made of gold or silver. If the watch had a protective cover for the face it was known as a ‘hunter’.

Wristwatches did not become widely popular until after the Great War. Prior to that, wristwatches, often sold as bracelets, were designed for women. However, cavalry officers, especially during the Boer War, began to use ‘armlet’ pocket watches because of the obvious practical advantages. The Great War dramatically changed attitudes towards the man’s wristwatch, and opened up a mass market in the post-war era. Service watches produced during the war were specially designed for the rigours of trench warfare, with luminous dials and unbreakable glass. Wristwatches were also found to be needed in the air as much as on the ground, military pilots finding them much more convenient than pocket watches. The British War Office began issuing wristwatches to combatants from 1917 onwards.

Audacious, HMS

HMS Audacious was a King George V-class dreadnought battleship of the Royal Navy. The vessel did not see any combat in the Great War, being sunk by a German naval mine off the northern coast of Donegal, Ireland, on 27 October 1914. It took almost twelve hours to sink and there was no loss of life. Most of the crew were taken off by the White Star liner Olympic, the sister ship of Titanic. The Admiralty and the British Cabinet agreed that the loss be kept secret and so, for the rest of the war, Audacious’s name remained on all public lists of ship movements and activities. However, many Americans on board Olympic were beyond British jurisdiction and openly discussed the sinking (many photographs, and even a short reel of film, had been taken). On 14 November 1918, shortly after the war ended, the war’s worst kept secret was acknowledged by an official announcement in The Times: ‘HMS Audacious. A Delayed Announcement. The Secretary of State of the Admiralty makes the following announcement: HMS Audacious sank off the North Irish Coast on October 27th 1914. This was kept secret at the urgent request of the Commander-in-Chief, Grand Fleet and the Press loyally refrained from giving it any publicity.’

Band of Hope

Following the death in June 1847 of a young man whose life was cut short by alcohol, the Band of Hope was first proposed by Reverend Jabez Tunnicliff, a Baptist Minister in Leeds. With the help of other temperance workers, the Band of Hope was founded in the autumn of 1847. Its objective was to teach children the importance and principles of sobriety and teetotalism. In 1855, a national organization was formed and meetings were held in churches throughout the UK. The Band of Hope and other temperance organizations fought to counteract the influence of pubs and brewers, with the specific intention of rescuing ‘unfortunates’ whose lives had been blighted by drink. ‘Signing the pledge’ was one of the innovative features of the Band of Hope, and millions of people signed up.

Bar and clasp

In the rubric of military decorations, a ‘bar’ to an award for gallantry is given if the recipient receives the same award more than once. They do not receive a second medal, but a bar to be attached to the ribbon of their original medal. The bar can be decorated with a crown (as in a Military Cross), or a laurel wreath (as in a Victoria Cross). A clasp is awarded as an addition to a campaign medal and marks the recipient’s participation in a specified battle within a campaign. The name of the battle is inscribed on the clasp, which is attached to the ribbon of the medal. Confusingly, ‘clasps’ are often also called ‘bars’, but the important difference between the two is that bars only have a design, whereas clasps have the name of the battle inscribed.

British Army School of Musketry

The Army School of Musketry was founded in 1853 at Hythe, Kent. In September 1855, a corps of instructors was added to the establishment, consisting of 100 first-class and 100 second-class instructors who, as soon as they were sufficiently experienced, were distributed to battalions and regiments as required. The use of the term ‘musketry’ was a misnomer as, by then, muskets (smooth-bore weapons) were being withdrawn from service to be replaced by weapons with rifled bores (rifles).

British Expeditionary Force

Britain’s army in 1914 was a volunteer, professional army of great tradition. Although there had been significant nineteenth-century reforms, it was still based on centuries-old practices and prejudices. Most officers needed a private income of at least £250 per year, or £400 for cavalry regiments (which required a man to keep a charger, two hunters and three polo ponies). Some men of the ranks came from long-standing military families, but most enlisted as unskilled labourers. They were largely from poor urban slums, uneducated and often undernourished.

The army medical standard was 5ft 3ins in height, with 33ins chest and 33lbs in weight. Despite these minimal requirements, many applicants failed. Although hardly luxurious, soldiers got regular pay, clean living conditions, adequate food and a rudimentary education. Camaraderie was generally good and professionalism high, especially in basic combat skills and musketry. There was mutual respect between officers and men and non-commissioned officers were drawn from highly disciplined veterans and were of the highest calibre.

In May 1914, British military prowess rested on its immense Royal Navy, the envy of the world. The regular army was small compared to its European counterparts and was 11,000 short of its establishment of 260,000. The number of men under arms on UK soil was 137,000, including recruits undergoing training. The rest were in numerous garrisons throughout the Empire. The BEF sent to France in August 1914 was designated at 48 infantry battalions and 16 cavalry regiments, plus heavy and light artillery and support services. This was many more than the army could muster, so over 70,000 reservists were called to the colours. Although these men had been regular soldiers, most had grown accustomed to civilian life, lacked training and had lost their battle-hardened readiness. Many battalions had to include several hundred reservists to bring them up to strength of around 1,000 men.

Approximately 100,000 strong, the BEF’s mandate was challenging: help throw back a German force 1 million strong in cooperation with a French Army equally huge. Its commander, Sir John French, was required to support the French generals, but not take orders from them. However, he had to rely on their goodwill for railway transportation, accommodation and lines of supply. John French was a better fighting soldier than a strategic general. He was liked by his subordinates and had a good reputation within the army, but he was short-tempered and argumentative and suffered from violent mood swings, which veered from overt optimism to deep pessimism. His subordinates – Sir Douglas Haig, who commanded the I Corps, and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, who commanded II Corps – were also highly respected, experienced soldiers, but neither had a good relationship with French, especially Smith-Dorrien, who was appointed against his wishes. Haig was extremely efficient and hard-working, much liked by all around him, but was intensely shy and awkward. Smith-Dorrien was brave and aggressive, but prone to extreme outbursts of temper.

The BEF was to take up position to the east of Cambrai, between Maubeuge and Hirson, on the left flank of General Lanrezac’s 5th French Army of 250,000 men. Here it would meet the thrust of the German advance through southern Belgium, led by General Alexander von Kluck’s 1st Army, 300,000 strong.

Bulldog-toed shoes

Bulldog-toe button boots (or American boots) and shoes were very fashionable for both men and women from about 1908 to 1920. With their distinctive rounded bulbous toes, they were first popular in North America and then in Europe. The distinctive shape of the toe was considered to be healthy because the toes could move inside the boot, thereby increasing circulation to the foot. Previously, the fashion was for highly restrictive ‘toothpick’ pointed shoes.

Burnley Lads’ Club

The Burnley Lads’ Club was formed in 1899 to cater for boys from disadvantaged backgrounds. Many of the original members of the club fell in the Great War, serving with the famous D Company, ‘Accrington Pals’, along with the club’s first leader, Captain Henry Davison Riley. It still flourishes. In 1968 the Lads’ Club merged with the Police Youth Club, to create Burnley Boys’ Club. The merger enabled the two groups to pool their resources and membership, which included girls, and the club is now called Burnley Boys’ and Girls’ Club. It is a youth and community centre for young people between the ages of six and twenty-one, irrespective of gender, race and ability. Young people with disabilities are welcome up to the age of twenty-five.

Camouflage

In 1914, British scientist John Graham Kerr persuaded First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill to adopt a form of disruptive camouflage for shipping, which he called ‘parti-colouring’ or ‘dazzle’ camouflage A general order to the British fleet issued on 10 November 1914 advocated the use of Kerr’s method, which used masses of strongly contrasted colour, consequently making it difficult for a submarine to decide on the exact course of the vessel to be attacked. Artists, known as ‘camoufleurs’ were employed to design the camouflage of individual ships, some of which were so eye-catching that people would come and gawp at them in dock. It was applied in various ways to British warships such as HMS Implacable, where officers noted that the pattern ‘increased difficulty of accurate range finding’. However, following Churchill’s departure from the Admiralty, the Royal Navy reverted to plain grey paint schemes.

Central Powers/Allied Powers

The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in the Great War, composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire and Bulgaria, also known as the Quadruple Alliance. This alignment originated in the alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and fought against the Allied Powers that had formed around the Triple Entente. The members of the Triple Entente were the French Republic, the British Empire and the Russian Empire. Italy ended its alliance with the Central Powers and entered the war on the side of the Entente in 1915. Japan, Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro, Romania and the Czechoslovak legions (a volunteer army) were secondary members of the Entente.

Cherry Bums

This was a term used by Lord Cardigan for his regiment, the 11th Prince Albert’s Own Hussars, which he notoriously led in the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854, during the Crimean War. The men wore bright-red cavalry trousers in honour of the livery of Prince Albert’s House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The term came to be used by infantrymen in sections of the army as a derogatory expression for the cavalrymen in general.

Clogs

There are two explanations of the development of the English-style clog. They may have evolved from foot pattens (soles) which were slats of wood held in place by thongs or similar strapping. They were usually worn under leather or fabric shoes to raise the wearer’s foot above the mud of the unmade road (not to mention commonly dumped human effluent and animal dung). Those too poor to afford shoes wore wood directly against the skin or hosiery, and thus the clog was developed, made of part leather and part wood. Alternatively, they have been described as far back as Roman times, and possibly earlier. The wearing of clogs in Britain became more visible with the Industrial Revolution, when industrial workers needed strong, cheap footwear. The heyday of the clog in Britain was between the 1840s and 1920s and, although traditionally associated with Lancashire, they were worn all over the country (for example, in the London docklands and fruit markets, and in the mines of Kent).

Cockney rhyming and other London slang

Barney Moke – poke (sexual intercourse).

Birch and broom – room.

Butcher’s (hook) – look.

Cocoa / I should cocoa – I should say so.

Feather-plucker – fucker.

Goose and duck – fuck.

Granny Grunt – cunt.

His Majesty’s pleasure – treasure.

Fourpenny one (fourpenny bit) – hit. (A fourpenny bit was an old British silver coin, also called a ‘groat’, worth four old pennies; it ceased to be minted in 1856.)

Iron hoof – poof / homosexual.

Little Red Riding Hoods – goods.

Mazawattee (potty) – crazy. (Mazawattee was one of the most popular brands of tea from mid-Victorian times onwards. Owned by the Densham family, using tea from the newly established tea plantations of Ceylon, its name is Sinhalese in origin and means ‘pleasure garden’. Its growth was helped by the Temperance Movement and the company’s clever slogan: ‘The cup that cheers but does not inebriate.’ The brand was distributed from its warehouse on Tower Hill in London and became a Cockney favourite. The brand declined after the Great War and its Tower Hill warehouse was destroyed during the Blitz in the Second World War. By the 1960s, Mazawattee Tea had disappeared.)

Miss Fitch – bitch.

Pig’s ear – beer.

Pony (and trap) – crap (useless/poor quality).

Safe and sound – ground.

Tiddly (wink) – drink.

Tommy Rollocks – bollocks / testicles.

Two and eight – state (as in a state of agitation).

Desoutter Brothers

Marcel Desoutter was one of six children of Louis Albert Desoutter, an immigrant French watchmaker, and Philomène Duret. Learning to fly with the Blériot Company at their Hendon works, he passed the flying tests at the age of seventeen. At the London Aviation Meeting, held at Hendon Aerodrome at Easter 1913, the control stick slipped from his hand while flying his 50hp Blériot Gnome, and the craft dived into the ground at the edge of the aerodrome. Desoutter’s leg was badly broken and later had to be amputated above the knee.

He was fitted with the standard wooden leg, but his younger brother Charles used his knowledge of aircraft materials to design a new jointed duralumin alloy leg of half the weight, with which he was able to return to flying. In 1914 the pair formed Desoutter Brothers Limited to manufacture artificial limbs. The firm expanded during and after the Great War, and moved to The Hyde, Hendon, in 1924.

‘Die Wacht am Rhein’

This is a German patriotic anthem (‘The Watch/Guard on the Rhine’). The song’s origins are rooted in the historical French–German enmity, and it was particularly popular in Germany during the Franco-Prussian War and the Great War.

Distinguished Conduct Medal

The Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM) was, until 1993, a very high award for bravery (second only to a Victoria Cross). The medal was instituted in 1854, during the Crimean War, to recognize gallantry within the ranks, for which it was the equivalent of the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) awarded for bravery to commissioned officers. In the aftermath of the 1993 review of the honours system, as part of the drive to remove distinctions of rank in awards for bravery, the DCM was discontinued (along with the award of the DSO and of the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal). These three decorations were replaced by the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, which now serves as the second-level award for gallantry for all ranks across the whole armed forces.

Doolally tap

Deolali, India, was the site of a British Army transit camp notorious for its unpleasant environment, and the boredom and psychological problems of soldiers who passed through it. Its name is the origin of the phrase ‘gone doolally’ or ‘doolally tap’, a phrase meaning to ‘lose one’s mind’. ‘Tap’ may refer to the Urdu word for a malarial fever.

Dunnage

Dunnage is a term with a variety of related meanings but, typically, refers to inexpensive or waste material used to protect, load and secure cargo during transportation. Dunnage also refers to material used to support loads and hold tools and materials up off the ground (such as jacks, pipes) and supports for air conditioning and other equipment above the roof of a building.

East Lancashire, Pennine dialect

Agate – say/said (‘be agate’ – to say).

Alreet – all right (‘reet’ – right).

Barm cake – ‘barm’ is the foam, or scum, formed on the top of the liquor when beverages such as beer or wine (or feedstock for hard liquor) ferment. It was used to leaven bread, or set up fermentation in a new batch of liquor. In parts of the north-west of England, and throughout Yorkshire, a ‘barm’ or ‘barm cake’ is a common term for a soft, floury bread roll (on menus in chip shops there is often an option of a ‘chip barm’). The term ‘barmy’ may derive from a sense of frothy excitement.

Best slack – ‘slack’ is very small pieces of coal, almost coal dust; ‘best slack’ would be less dust, more small pieces; ‘nutty slack’ would be bigger, more expensive pieces.

Brass – money.

Childer – children.

Dacent – decent.

Daft apeth – silly person (derived from ‘ha’p’orth’ – halfpennyworth).

Feight – fight.

Fettle – sort out.

Laik – play.

Lanky – Lancastrian.

Like talkin’ to a wood stoop – talking to someone who doesn’t listen or can’t hear (a stoop is a raised, flat area in front of a door, usually with one or more steps leading up to it).

Lummox – big lump.

Mebbe – maybe.

Mesen – myself (‘sen’ – self).

Moither – worry.

Neet – night.

Nowt – nothing.

Ollus – always.

Once every Preston Guild – rarely (Preston Guilds take place every twenty years).

Once every Sheffield Flood – very rarely; even more rarely than Preston Guilds. (On the night of 11 March 1864, 238 people were killed, 130 buildings destroyed and 15 bridges swept away in a devastating flood caused by the collapse of the Dale Dyke dam.)

Owt – anything.

Sken – look.

Tha’sen – yourself (‘tha’ – thou).

Th’eed – the head.

Th’sels – themselves.

T’morn – tomorrow (or tomorrow morning).

Tyke – Yorkshire person.

Yonder – over there or beyond.

Enchantress, HMS

The fourth Royal Navy ship to carry the name, the Enchantress was a twin-screw Admiralty yacht, launched at Belfast in 1903. Capable of 18 knots, her length, beam and draught were 320ft, 40ft, and 16ft. This ship was the special service vessel, or official yacht, of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.

Enfilade

Enfilade is a concept in military tactics used to describe a formation’s exposure to enemy fire. A formation, or position, is ‘in enfilade’ if weapons’ fire can be directed along its longest axis.

Executions

A total of 346 British and Commonwealth soldiers were executed during the Great War. Such executions, for crimes like desertion and cowardice, remain a source of controversy, with some believing that many of those executed were suffering from what is now called ‘shell shock’. Between 1914 and 1918, the British Army identified 80,000 men with what would now be defined as the symptoms of shell shock. However, senior commanders believed that if such behaviour was not harshly punished, others might be encouraged to do the same and the whole discipline of the British Army would collapse.

Some men faced a court martial for other offences but the majority stood trial for desertion from their post, ‘fleeing in the face of the enemy’. A court martial was usually carried out with some speed and the execution followed shortly afterwards. In his testimony to the post-war Royal Commission examining shell shock, Lord Gort said that it was a weakness and was not found in ‘good’ units. The continued pressure to avoid the medicalization of shell shock meant that it was not, in itself, an admissible defence.

Executions of soldiers in the British Army were not commonplace. While there were 240,000 courts martial and 3,080 death sentences handed down, of the 346 cases where the sentence was carried out, 266 British were executed for ‘Desertion’, 18 for ‘Cowardice’, 7 for ‘Quitting a post without authority’, 5 for ‘Disobedience to a lawful command’ and 2 for ‘Casting away arms’. In some cases (for instance, that of Private Harry Farr), men were executed who had previously suffered from shell shock and who would very likely today have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder or another psychiatric syndrome, and would not be executed.

Immediately after the Great War, there were claims that the execution of soldiers was determined by social class. During the war, fifteen officers were sentenced to death, but all received a royal pardon. In August 2006, the British Defence Secretary Des Browne announced that, with Parliament’s support, there would be a general pardon for all 306 men executed during the Great War. A new law passed on 28 November 2006, and included as part of the Armed Forces Act, pardoned men in the British and Commonwealth armies who were executed in the Great War. The law removes the stain of dishonour but it does not cancel out sentences.

Farnborough

The Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the UK Ministry of Defence, before finally losing its identity in mergers with other institutions. The first site was at Farnborough Airfield in Hampshire. In 1904–1906 the Army Balloon Factory, which was part of the Army School of Ballooning, under the command of Colonel James Templer, relocated from Aldershot to the edge of Farnborough Common in order to have enough space for experimental work. In October 1908, Samuel Cody made the first aeroplane flight in Britain at Farnborough. In 1988 it was renamed the Royal Aerospace Establishment before merging with other research entities to become part of the new Defence Research Agency in 1991.

Field punishment

Field punishment was introduced in 1881 following the abolition of flogging and was a common punishment during the Great War. A commanding officer could award field punishment for up to twenty-eight days.

Field Punishment Number One (often abbreviated to ‘F. P. No. 1’ or even just ‘No. 1’) consisted of the convicted man being placed in fetters and handcuffs or similar restraints and attached to a fixed object, such as a gun wheel, for up to two hours per day. During the early part of the war, the punishment was often applied with the arms stretched out and the legs tied together, giving rise to the nickname ‘crucifixion’. This was applied for a maximum of three days out of four, up to twenty-one days in total. It was usually applied in field punishment camps set up for this purpose a few miles behind the front line, but when the unit was on the move it would be carried out by the unit itself. It has been alleged that this punishment was sometimes applied within range of enemy fire. During the Great War, Field Punishment Number One was issued by the British Army on over 60,000 occasions. Although the 1914 Manual of Military Law specifically stated that field punishment should not be applied in such a way as to cause physical harm, abuses were commonplace (for example, the prisoner would deliberately be placed in stress positions with his feet not fully touching the ground).

In Field Punishment Number Two, the prisoner was placed in fetters and handcuffs but was not attached to a fixed object and was still able to march with his unit. This was a relatively tolerable punishment. In both forms of field punishment, the soldier was also subjected to hard labour and loss of pay. Field Punishment Number One was eventually abolished in 1923, when an amendment to the Army Act which specifically forbade attachment to a fixed object was passed by the House of Lords.

Fitzsimmons, Bob

Robert James ‘Bob’ Fitzsimmons was a British professional boxer who made boxing history as the sport’s first three-division world champion. He was successively Middleweight, Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight World Champion. Fitzsimmons is the lightest of all Heavyweight Champions, an accolade that, almost certainly, will never be taken from him. Nicknamed ‘Ruby Robert’ and the ‘Freckled Wonder’, he took pride in his lack of scars and appeared in the ring wearing heavy woollen underwear to conceal the disparity between his significant trunk and puny legs. He was known for his pure fighting skills and his dislike of training. Fitzsimmons is ranked 8th on Ring Magazine’s list of the ‘100 Greatest Punchers of all Time’.

Gewehr 98 Mauser rifle

The Gewehr 98 (abbreviated G98) was a German bolt-action Mauser rifle firing cartridges from a five-round internal clip-loaded magazine. It was the German service rifle from 1898 to 1935, when it was replaced by the Karabiner 98k. The Gewehr 98 was the main German infantry weapon of the Great War.

Green spot ammunition

Snipers rely on their skill, the quality of their rifle and its sight, but also their ammunition. The first 5,000 rounds out of a new mould are packaged with a green spot so that they can be used by snipers, before the balls of later rounds suffer from minor deteriorations in the ball moulding through wear.

Hackles

These are the long, fine feathers which are found on the backs of certain types of domestic chicken; they are often brightly coloured, especially on roosters. In military parlance, the hackle is a clipped feather plume that is attached to a military headdress. In the British Army the hackle is worn by some infantry regiments, especially those designated as fusilier regiments and those with Scottish and Northern Irish origins. The colour of the hackle varies from regiment to regiment.

Lancashire Fusiliers: primrose yellow.

Royal Fusiliers: white.

Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers: grey.

Royal Irish Fusiliers: green.

Royal Northumberland Fusiliers: red over white.

Royal Scots Fusiliers: white.

Royal Warwickshire Fusiliers: blue over gold.

Royal Welch Fusiliers: white.

Havercake

An oatcake, or type of flatbread, made from oatmeal and sometimes flour, cooked on a griddle or baked in an oven. In Lancashire and Yorkshire, oatcake was a staple of the diet up to the Great War. Oatcakes were often called ‘havercakes’ (from ‘hafr’, the Old Germanic word for oats). The word is perpetuated in the nickname ‘Havercake Lads’ for the 33rd Regiment of Foot (The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, West Riding) and also in the term ‘haversack’.

Highgate, Thomas

On 5 September 1914, the first day of the Battle of the Marne, Thomas Highgate, a nineteen-year-old British private, was found hiding in a barn dressed in civilian clothes. Highgate was tried by court martial, convicted of desertion and, in the early hours of 8 September, was executed by firing squad. His was the first of 306 executions carried out by the British Army during the Great War. The only son of a farm worker, Thomas Highgate was born in Shoreham, in Kent, in 1895. In February 1913, aged seventeen, he joined the Royal West Kent Regiment. On the first day of the Battle of the Marne, and the 35th day of the war, Private Highgate’s nerves got the better of him and he fled the battlefield. He hid in a barn in the village of Tournan, a few miles south of the river, and was discovered wearing civilian clothes by a gamekeeper who happened to be English and an ex-soldier. Highgate confessed: ‘I have had enough of it, I want to get out of it and this is how I am going to do it.’

Having been turned in, Highgate was tried by a court martial for desertion. The trial, presided over by three officers, was brief. Highgate did not speak and was not represented. He was found guilty. At 6.20 on the morning of 8 September, Highgate was informed that he would be executed. The execution was carried out fifty minutes later – at 7.07 – by firing squad. Highgate’s name is shown on the British memorial to the missing at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre on the south bank of the River Marne. The memorial features the names of over 3,000 British soldiers with no known grave.

Inflexible, HMS

HMS Inflexible was an Invincible-class battlecruiser of the Royal Navy, built in 1907. She and her sister ship Invincible sank the German armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau during the Battle of the Falkland Islands.

Jack tar

Jack tar (also Jacktar, Jack-tar or even Tar) was a common term originally used to refer to seamen of the Merchant or Royal Navy, particularly during the period of the British Empire. Members of the public, and also seafarers themselves, made use of the name in identifying those who went to sea. It was not used as an offensive term and sailors were happy to use the term to label themselves. Its etymology is not certain, but there are several plausible possibilities: before the invention of waterproof fabrics, seamen were known to ‘tar’ their clothes before departing on voyages, in order to make them waterproof; it was common among seamen to plait their long hair into a ponytail and smear it with high-grade tar to prevent it getting caught in the ship’s equipment; in the age of wooden sailing vessels, ropes and cables were soaked in tar to prevent them rotting in a damp environment.

Junkers

Members of the landed nobility in Prussia. They owned great estates that were maintained and worked by peasants with few rights. After 1871 they were the dominant force in German military, political and diplomatic leadership. The most famous Junker was Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Junker is derived from Middle High German ‘Juncherre’, meaning ‘young nobleman’, or ‘young lord’. Many Junkers took up careers as soldiers, mercenaries and officials. Being the bulwark of the ruling House of Hohenzollern, the Junkers controlled the Prussian Army and their influence was widespread in the north-eastern half of Germany: Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, West Prussia, East Prussia and Posen.

Knur and Spell

An ancient Pennine folk game, akin to the southern English games of trap-ball and probably an ancestor of golf. Often associated with gambling, it was very popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in the fields around moorland pubs. The object is to hit a ‘potty’ (knur), sometimes a small piece of heartwood or a small pottery ball, as far as possible with a long flexible club. The longest hit takes the prize. Distances of several hundred yards could be achieved. The game and its name are thought to be Norse in origin.

Lant-trough

A receptacle for collecting human urine. Fermented human urine (lant) was used for various purposes from as early as Roman times. The Romans used it as a cleaning agent for stained clothes and even as a whitener for teeth. The emperor Nero imposed a highly lucrative tax on the urine industry. In nineteenth-century Lancashire, lant was used in the tanning and woollen industries as a cleanser for the removal of natural oils in the production of leather and wool.

Le Cateau, Battle of

The Battle of Le Cateau was fought on 26 August 1914. British General Horace Smith-Dorrien took a calculated gamble during the retreat from Mons, which was against direct orders. Feeling his men were in disarray in a retreat hindered by thousands of French civilians, he decided to fight: 40,000 British troops formed a defensive line just south of the Cambrai–Le Cateau road and just west of Le Cateau itself. Britain suffered many more casualties than at Mons – 7,812 – in a ferocious and hard-fought encounter. It also lost 38 artillery pieces. German losses were much higher, perhaps as many as 20,000. However, Smith-Dorrien’s decision meant that the rest of the retreat from Mons could be undertaken with much less arduous harassment and could well have saved a greater part of the BEF from destruction.

Lee-Enfield rifle

The Lee-Enfield rifle was the main infantry weapon used by the military forces of the British Army from the early twentieth century until 1957.

Lee-Metford rifle

The Lee-Metford was a bolt-action British Army service rifle, combining James Paris Lee’s rear-locking bolt system and ten-round magazine with a seven-groove rifled barrel designed by William Ellis Metford. It replaced the Martini-Henry rifle in 1888, following nine years of development and trials, but remained in service for only a short time until replaced by the similar Lee-Enfield in 1913.

Lyddite shell

British explosive shells filled with Lyddite were the first British generation of modern ‘high explosive’ shells. Lyddite is picric acid fused at 280°F and allowed to solidify. The shells detonated and fragmented into small pieces in all directions, with no incendiary effect. For maximum destructive effect the explosion needed to be delayed until the shell had penetrated its target.

Maconochie’s and Moir Wilson British Army rations

These were just two of the many manufacturers of Great War army rations. Maconochie’s, an Irish stew produced in Fraserburgh and Stornoway in Scotland, was the most popular. Soldiers got a weekly ration of 12ozs of dried ‘bully’ beef, 1lb 4ozs of bread or flour, 4ozs of bacon, 3ozs of cheese plus sugar, tea, jam, salt, pepper and mustard when available. As in the navy, a ‘tot’ (half a gill/70mls) of rum was issued daily; double before a battle. Ten thousand copies of the Daily Mail were also sent to the Front every day.

Mad minute

This was a pre-Great War term used by British Army riflemen during training at the Hythe School of Musketry to describe scoring a minimum of 15 hits on to a 12-inch round target at 300 yards within one minute using a bolt-action rifle (usually a Lee-Enfield or Lee-Metford rifle). It was not uncommon during the Great War for riflemen to exceed this score. Many could average 30 plus shots; the record, set in 1914 by Serjeant Instructor Alfred Snoxhall, was 38 hits. During the Battle of Mons, there were numerous German accounts of coming up against what they believed was machine-gun fire when in fact it was squads of riflemen firing at this rate.

Marne, First Battle of the

The Battle of the Marne was fought between 5 and 12 September 1914. It resulted in an Allied victory against the German Army. The battle effectively ended the month-long German offensive that opened the war and had reached the outskirts of Paris. The counter-attack of six French field armies and one British army along the Marne River forced the German Imperial Army to abandon its push on Paris and retreat north-east, setting the stage for four years of trench warfare on the Western Front. The Battle of the Marne was an immense strategic victory for the Allies, wrecking Germany’s bid for a swift victory over France and forcing it into a protracted two-front war. The Allied armies were over a million strong and faced a German force of over a million and a half.

Allied casualties were over 263,000, of whom more than 81,000 died. German losses were at least 220,000 dead or missing.

Marne taxis

The use of Parisian taxis was the idea of General Gallieni, the military governor of the city. On the evening of 6 September 1914, he requisitioned 1,200 taxis to assemble in the Esplanade des Invalides at 19.00 hours; for the next seven hours they ferried men from their positions on the outskirts of Paris to the front line at Nanteuil (four in the seats, one in the luggage compartment). In all, almost an entire division of 12,000 men was transported. The French Treasury paid the fares according to the standard rate per metre travelled. In all, the bill came to 70,102 French francs (approximately £140,000 today). Taxis were used for the rest of the campaign and became part of French military folklore.

Marquess of Queensberry rules

The code of traditional rules in the sport of boxing is named after John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, who publicly endorsed the code. The Queensberry rules were the first to require the use of gloves in boxing. In popular culture the term is sometimes used to refer to a sense of sportsmanship and fair play. The rules were written by John Graham Chambers, a Welshman, and drafted in London in 1865, before being published in 1867. The Marquess of Queensberry’s third son was Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, the close friend and lover of Oscar Wilde.

Maschinengewehr 08

The MG 08 was the German Army’s standard-issue machine gun in the Great War, an adaptation of Hiram S. Maxim’s original 1884 Maxim gun. It could reach a firing rate of up to 400 rounds per minute using 250-round fabric belts of 7.92 x 57mm ammunition, although sustained firing would lead to overheating; it was water-cooled using a jacket around the barrel that held approximately one gallon of water. Using a separate attachment sight with range calculator for indirect fire, the MG 08 could be operated from cover. Additional telescopic sights were also developed and used in quantity during the war.

Maxim machine gun

The Maxim machine gun was adopted by the British Army in 1889. In 1912, the army turned to the Vickers gun (see entry below) and then, in 1915, to the lighter Lewis gun (which could be made much more quickly than the Vickers and, although too heavy for efficient portable use, became the standard support weapon for the British infantry).

Melton blue

A blue-dyed version of melton cloth, a heavy, smooth woollen fabric with a short nap, particularly used for army uniforms and overcoats. Its name comes from Melton Mowbray, in Leicestershire, the traditional centre for its production.

Mons, Battle of

The Battle of Mons began on the morning of 23 August 1914 with a heavy German artillery barrage. The men of the British Expeditionary Force, many of whom had only just arrived at the battlefield, were exhausted. They were carrying 80lb packs; many had new boots and were walking on cobbled roads. Nevertheless, they formed up along the Canal du Centre, west and north of Mons, in a defensive position nine miles long. Nine and a half British battalions (10,000 men) held four German divisions (70,000) for most of the day.

The Germans attacked in large numbers, but in close formation, suffering significant casualties from extremely accurate British infantry marksmen. However, by midday large numbers of Germans had crossed the canal and some British units began to fall back. The tactical withdrawal lasted until dusk, but the Germans did not follow in hot pursuit; they had suffered unexpectedly high casualty figures and called a ceasefire to lick their wounds.

British losses on the day were 1,642 killed, wounded and missing. They included 400 from the 4th Battalion Middlesex Regiment and 300 from the 1st Battalion Royal Irish Regiment. German losses were at least 6,000, but could have been as many as 10,000.

Old Contemptibles

Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany reportedly issued an order on 19 August 1914 to ‘exterminate … the treacherous English and walk over General French’s contemptible little army’. Thus, the regular soldiers of Britain’s standing army of 1914, who went to France as the British Expeditionary Force, became known as ‘The Old Contemptibles’. However, no concrete evidence has ever been found to suggest that such an order was issued by the Kaiser. It was likely to have been a British propaganda invention, one that has since become accepted as fact and made legend.

Petrograd

During the Great War, the Imperial government renamed St Petersburg ‘Petrograd’, meaning ‘Peter’s City’, to remove the German words Sankt and Burg. (In 1924, after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the city was renamed Leningrad; the city became St Petersburg again in 1991, following the end of communist rule.)

Pol Roger

Champagne Pol Roger, founded in 1849, is a notable producer of champagne. The brand is still owned and run by the descendants of Pol Roger. Based around the town of Épernay in the Champagne region, Pol Roger was the favourite champagne of Winston Churchill. After Churchill’s death in 1965, Pol Roger placed a black border around the labels of Brut NV shipped to the United Kingdom.

Pompadour

A hairstyle named after Madame de Pompadour (1721–1764), mistress of King Louis XV. Although there are numerous variations of the style for both women and men, the basic concept is hair swept upwards from the face and worn high over the forehead (and sometimes upswept around the sides and back as well). After its initial popularity among fashionable women in the eighteenth century, the style was revived as part of the Gibson Girl look in the 1890s and continued to be in vogue until the Great War.

Primitive Methodists

Primitive Methodism was a major movement in English Methodism from about 1810 until the Methodist Union in 1932. The Primitive Methodists were a major offshoot of the principal stream of Methodism – the Wesleyan Methodists – founded by a Methodist preacher called Hugh Bourne. ‘Primitive’ was used to clarify their belief that they were the true guardians of the original, or primitive, form of Methodism preached by John Wesley.

Puttees

A puttee (also spelled ‘puttie’, adapted from the Hindi patti) is a bandage for covering the lower part of the leg from the ankle to the knee. It consists of a long narrow piece of cloth wound tightly and spirally around the leg, and serving to provide both support and protection. It was worn by both mounted and dismounted soldiers, generally taking the place of the leather or cloth gaiter. The puttee was first adopted as part of the service uniform of foot and mounted soldiers serving in British India during the second half of the nineteenth century. In its original form, the puttee comprised long strips of cloth worn as a tribal legging in the Himalayas. Puttees were in general use by the British Army as part of the khaki service uniform worn during the Great War.

Race to the Sea

The race began in late September 1914, after the end of the Battle of the Aisne, the unsuccessful Allied counter-offensive against the German forces (halted during the preceding First Battle of the Marne). The route of the race was largely governed by the north–south railways available to each side – the French through Amiens and the Germans through Lille.

In a series of attempts to outflank one another, the race involved a number of battles, from the First Battle of the Aisne (13 to 28 September) to the end of November.

Rittmeister

Rittmeister is German for ‘riding master’ or ‘cavalry master’, the military rank of a commissioned cavalry officer in the armies of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia and some other countries. He was typically in charge of a squadron or troop, and the equivalent of a captain.

Robert Blatchford and the Clarion

Robert Blatchford, the son of an actor, was born in Maidstone in 1851. His father died when he was two, and at the age of fourteen he was apprenticed as a brushmaker. He disliked the work and ran away to join the army, reaching the rank of serjeant major before leaving the service in 1878. After trying a variety of different jobs he became a freelance journalist and worked for several newspapers before becoming leader writer for the Sunday Chronicle in Manchester. It was his journalistic experience of working-class life that turned Blatchford into a socialist.

In 1890, he founded the Manchester Fabian Society. The following year, Blatchford and four fellow members launched a socialist newspaper, the Clarion. Blatchford upset many of his socialist supporters by his nationalistic views on foreign policy; he supported the government during the Boer War and warned against what he regarded as the German menace.

Royal Army Medical Corps

The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace. Because it is not a fighting arm (non-combatant), under the Geneva Conventions members of the RAMC may only use their weapons for self-defence. For this reason, there are two traditions that the RAMC perform when on parade: officers do not draw their swords (instead, they hold their scabbard with their left hand while saluting with their right); other ranks do not fix bayonets. During the Great War, the RAMC lost 743 officers and 6,130 soldiers were killed.

Royal Navy

In 1914 the Royal Navy was by far the most powerful navy in the world. The Royal Navy’s basic responsibilities included policing colonies and trade routes, defending coastlines and imposing blockades on hostile powers. The British government took the view that the Royal Navy needed to possess a battlefleet that was larger than the world’s two next largest navies put together. By early 1914 the Royal Navy had 18 modern dreadnoughts (6 more under construction), 10 battlecruisers, 35 cruisers, 200 destroyers, 29 battleships (pre-dreadnought design) and 150 cruisers built before 1907. The total manpower of the Royal Navy in 1914 was over 250,000 men.

After the outbreak of the Great War, most of the Royal Navy’s large ships were stationed at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys or Rosyth in Scotland, in readiness to stop any large-scale breakout attempt by the Germans. Britain’s cruisers, destroyers, submarines and light forces were clustered around the British coast. The Mediterranean fleet (two battlecruisers and eight cruisers) was based in Gibraltar, Malta and Alexandria. These were used during the operations to protect Suez and the landings at Gallipoli. There were also naval forces scattered around the Empire.

The ‘dreadnought’ was the predominant type of battleship in the early twentieth century. The first of the kind, the Royal Navy’s Dreadnought made such a strong impression on people’s minds when it was launched in 1906 that similar battleships built subsequently were referred to generically as ‘dreadnoughts’, and earlier battleships became known as ‘pre-dreadnoughts’. The dreadnought design had two revolutionary features: an ‘all-big-gun’ armament scheme, with an unprecedented number of heavy-calibre guns; and steam turbine propulsion.

The ‘battlecruiser’ was a large capital ship built in the first half of the twentieth century. Similar in size and cost to a battleship, and typically carrying the same kind of heavy guns, battlecruisers generally carried less armour and were faster. The first battlecruisers were designed in Britain in the first decade of the century, as a development of the armoured cruiser, at the same time as the dreadnought succeeded the pre-dreadnought battleship.

From the middle of the nineteenth century, ‘cruiser’ came to mean a classification for ships intended for scouting, raiding or the protection of merchantmen. Cruisers came in a wide variety of sizes, from the small protected cruiser to armoured cruisers which were as large (though not as powerful) as a battleship.

The ‘destroyer’ was a fast and manoeuvrable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers.

Royal Small Arms Factory

The Royal Small Arms Factory was a government-owned rifle factory in the London Borough of Enfield, in an area generally known as the Lea Valley. The factory produced British military rifles, muskets and swords from 1816. The factory was located at Enfield Lock on a marshy island bordered by the River Lea and the River Lee Navigation. (It closed in 1988, but some of its work was transferred to other sites.)

Serjeant

‘Serjeant’ with a ‘j’ was the official spelling of ‘sergeant’ before and during the Great War and appeared in King’s Regulations and the Pay Warrant, which defined the various ranks. Even today, Serjeant-at-Arms is a title still held by members of the security staff in the Houses of Parliament. Also, in the newly amalgamated infantry regiment the Rifles (as successor to the Light Infantry, which also used it), the spelling of serjeant is held with the ‘j’ in place of the ‘g’.

Shell shock

See ‘Executions’ above.

Sobranie

The Sobranie cigarette brand is one of the oldest tobacco brands in the world. Sobranie of London was established in 1879 by the Redstone family, when cigarettes had just become fashionable in Europe. Several generations of the Redstone family blended this tobacco from a secret formula. The original cigarettes were handmade in the Russian tradition. Sobranie was the supplier to the royal courts of Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Romania and Greece.

Spike

An old English slang word for the workhouse, or a dosshouse for vagrants.

Stew an’ ’ard

A traditional dish of North-East Lancashire, especially in Burnley, Nelson, Colne and Barnoldswick (‘Barlick’). ‘Hard’ is the staple of the dish, which are oatcakes made from oatmeal, yeast, sugar, salt and water, made into a pancake batter, then cooked each side on a ‘girdle’ (griddle) pan, cooled and either used, soft, immediately, or dried to preserve them, leading them to be called ‘hard’. The ‘stew’ would usually be mutton, occasionally chicken and, rarely, beef. The stew would either be poured on to the ‘hard’ cakes, or they would be used to dunk into the stew.

Stop-tap

An archaic expression for pub closing time.

Subaltern

A primarily British military term for a junior officer. Literally meaning ‘subordinate’, subaltern is used to describe commissioned officers below the rank of captain and generally comprises the various grades of lieutenant.

Sweet Caporals

Although British soldiers in the Great War thought that Sweet Caporals were French cigarettes, they were in fact produced by the American Tobacco Company, which also produced the Pall Mall and Mecca brands. Caporals were issued to French soldiers and were made from dark tobacco and had a particularly pungent flavour and smell.

Tackler

A tackler was a Lancashire name for a supervisor in a textile factory. He was responsible for the working of a number of power looms and the weavers who operated them. The name derived from the main part of his job, which was to ‘tackle’ – repair – any mechanical problems encountered with the looms.

Telescopic sight

The first experiments designed to give shooters optical aiming aids date back to the early seventeenth century. The first documented telescopic rifle sight was invented between 1835 and 1840. The Improved American Rifle, written in 1844, documented the first telescopic sights made by Morgan James of Utica, New York, based on designs by civil engineer John R. Chapman (the Chapman-James sight). An early telescopic sight was built in 1880 by August Fiedler, forestry commissioner of Austrian Prince Heinrich Reuss. Telescopic sights with extra-long eye relief pieces then became available for handgun and scout rifle use and began to be used by the Austrian and German armies.

Tilley lamp

The tilley lamp derives from John Tilley’s invention of the hydro-pneumatic blowpipe, in 1813. In England, W. H. Tilley were manufacturing pressure lamps at their works in Stoke Newington (in 1818) and at Shoreditch (in the 1830s). The company moved to Brent Street in Hendon in 1915 during the Great War and started work with paraffin as a fuel for the lamps.

Tombac

Tombac is a brass alloy with high copper content and between 5 and 20 per cent zinc content. Tin, lead or arsenic may be added for colouration. It is a malleable alloy mainly used for medals, ornaments and decoration. The term ‘tombac’ is derived from tembaga, an Indonesian/Malay word of Javanese origin, meaning ‘copper’.

Tournaphone

The Tournaphone was a design of gramophone developed by Pathe in 1906; it played flat records at 90 rpm, starting from the inside and moving to the outside. It was easily changed to play ordinary 78 rpm records (by turning the sound box, and replacing the jewelled stylus with a needle). 78 rpm records continued in use until the 1950s. Tournaphones used a jewelled stylus, not a needle, to play music and audio. The word ‘gramophone’ was first used by Alexander Graham Bell when he developed a machine using flat records instead of cylinders. Emile Berliner, a German American, first produced flat records that vibrated the stylus from side to side (the opposite of Bell’s design).

Uhlans

Uhlans were originally Polish light cavalry armed with lances, sabres and pistols. The title was later used by lancer regiments in the Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies. In 1914, the German Army included twenty-six Uhlan regiments. Because German hussar, dragoon and cuirassier regiments also carried lances in 1914, there was a tendency among their French and British opponents to describe all German cavalry as ‘Uhlans’. After seeing mounted action during the early weeks of the Great War, the Uhlan regiments were either dismounted to serve as ‘cavalry rifles’ in the trenches of the Western Front or transferred to the Eastern Front, where more primitive conditions made it possible for horse cavalry to still play a useful role. All twenty-six German Uhlan regiments were disbanded in 1918–1919.

Under-fettler

An under-fettler is a junior ‘fettler’ or cleaner. It is a Lancashire name, used in a number of contexts and trades. The verb to ‘fettle’ variously means to fix, sort or clean; it is also used in the sense of ‘sorting someone out’.

Vickers gun

In 1912 the British Army adopted the Vickers as its standard machine gun. Produced by the Vickers Company, it was a modified version of the Maxim machine gun. The Vickers used a 250-round fabric-belt magazine and was regarded as a highly reliable weapon. It could fire over 600 rounds per minute and had a range of 4,500 yards. Being water-cooled, it could fire continuously for long periods.

Voluntary Aid Detachment

The Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) was a voluntary organization providing field nursing services, mainly in hospitals, in the United Kingdom and various other countries in the British Empire. It was founded in 1909 with the help of the Red Cross and Order of St John. By the summer of 1914 there were over 2,500 Voluntary Aid Detachments in Britain. Each individual volunteer was called simply ‘a VAD’. Of the 74,000 VADs in 1914, two-thirds were women and girls.

At the outbreak of the Great War, VADs eagerly offered their services to the war effort. The British Red Cross was reluctant to allow civilian women a role in overseas hospitals: most VADs were of the middle and upper classes and unaccustomed to hardship and traditional hospital discipline. Military authorities would not accept VADs at the front line.

Katharine Furse took two VADs to France in October 1914, restricting them to serve as canteen workers and cooks. Caught under fire in a sudden battle, the VADs were pressed into emergency hospital service and acquitted themselves well. The growing shortage of trained nurses opened the door for VADs in overseas military hospitals. Furse was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the VADs and restrictions were removed.

Female volunteers over the age of twenty-three and with more than three months’ hospital experience were accepted for overseas service. During four years of war, 38,000 VADs worked in hospitals and served as ambulance drivers and cooks. VADs served near the Western Front and in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli. VAD hospitals were also opened in most large towns in Britain. Many were decorated for distinguished service and included well-known women such as Enid Bagnold, Mary Borden, Vera Britten, Agatha Christie and Violet Jessop.

Webley revolver

The standard-issue Webley revolver at the outbreak of the Great War was the Webley Mk V, but there were many more Mk IV revolvers in service in 1914, as the initial order for 20,000 Mk V revolvers had not been completed when hostilities began.

In May 1915, the Webley Mk VI would be adopted as the standard sidearm for British and Commonwealth troops and remained so for the duration of the war, being issued to officers, airmen, naval crews, boarding parties, machine-gun teams and tank crews. The Mk VI proved to be a very reliable and hardy weapon, well suited to the mud and adverse conditions of trench warfare, and several accessories were developed for the Mk VI, including a bayonet and a stock, allowing the revolver to be converted into a carbine (short-barrelled rifle).

Welch’ (spelling)

The spelling of ‘Welsh’ as ‘Welch’ is a much-cherished historical peculiarity in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. When the regiment was given its Welsh designation in 1702, the spelling ‘Welch’ was in common use, and it became a regimental tradition. That is, until 2006, when the Royal Welch Fusiliers merged with other Welsh regiments to form the ‘Welsh Regiment’.

Welsh language

Welsh is a Celtic language that emerged in the sixth century and has been spoken continuously throughout recorded history in Wales and along the Welsh border with England. By 1911 it had become a minority language, spoken by 43.5 per cent of the population. There are wide variations in dialect between North and South Wales, as well as variations between counties. As such, there is no standard form of the Welsh language (or ‘correct’ dialect) to learn.

Bach – little / small.

Cariad – dear / darling / love.

Croeso – welcome.

Cyfarchion – greetings.

Ffrind – friend.

Hapus – happy.

Mam-gu (or nain) – grandmother.

Mawr – big / great.

Penblwydd – birthday.

Tad-cu (or taid) – grandfather.

Whizz-bang

Although the term was used widely by Allied servicemen to describe any form of German field artillery shells, the ‘whizz-bang’ was originally attributed to the noise made by shells from German 3-inch field guns. The name was derived from the fact that shells fired from light or field artillery travelled faster than the speed of sound. Thus soldiers heard the typical ‘whizz’ noise of a travelling shell before the ‘bang’ issued by the gun itself. Whizz-bangs were consequently much feared, since the net result was that defending infantrymen were given virtually no warning of incoming high-velocity artillery fire (as they were from enemy howitzers).

Wipers

The name of the Belgian town of Ypres was difficult to pronounce for the many thousands of British soldiers who were billeted there or passed through, so it very soon became universally known as ‘Wipers’.

Ypres, First Battle of

The First Battle of Ypres was fought for the strategic town of Ypres in western Belgium in October and November 1914. The German and Western Allied attempts to secure the town from enemy occupation included a series of further battles in and around the West Flanders Belgian municipality. Ypres was vital to the British need to secure the Channel ports and the army’s supply lines. It was the last major obstacle to the German advance on Boulogne and Calais. The Ypres campaign became the culmination point of the Race to the Sea.

The battle highlighted problems in command and control for both sides, with each side missing opportunities to win a significant victory early on. The Germans, in particular, overestimated the numbers and strength of the Allied defences at Ypres, and called off their last offensive too early. The battle was also significant as it witnessed the destruction of the highly experienced and trained British regular army. Having suffered enormous losses for its small size, the ‘Old Contemptibles’ effectively disappeared after Ypres, eventually to be replaced by fresh reservists who eventually became an army on a scale to match those of its allies and enemies. The recorded casualties were as follows.

French Army: 50,000–85,000 killed, wounded and missing

Belgian Army: 21,562 killed, wounded and missing

British Army: 7,960 killed in action; 29,562 wounded in action; 17,873 missing in action

Total: 126,957–161,957

German Army: 19,530 killed; 83,520 wounded; 31,265 missing

Total: 134,315

Zouaves

Zouave was the title given to certain light infantry regiments in the French Army, normally serving in French North Africa, during the nineteenth century. The chief distinguishing characteristic of such units was the Zouave uniform, which included short open-fronted jackets, baggy trousers (serouel) and often sashes and oriental headgear. The Zouaves of the French Army were first raised in Algeria in 1831, initially recruited solely from the Zouaoua, a tribe of Berbers located in the mountains of the Jurjura Range. The four Zouave regiments of the French Army in the Great War wore their traditional colourful dress during the early months of the war. The power of the machine gun, rapid fire artillery and improved small arms would oblige them to adopt a plain khaki uniform from 1915 onwards to reduce their visibility in battle.