Sunday WW1 Remembered...

The Battle of Messines

 7-14 June 1917

The Allies plan was to attack around the Ypres Salient in order to drive the Germans out of Belgium. The plans were long in the making and the attack made use of strategic tunnels which had been burrowed underground during the previous eighteen months of planning.

I'd like to quote this observation from Voices and Images of the Great War by Lyn Macdonald

Pastor Van Walleghem : - 7 June 1917  ...What a hellish sound, what an abominable spectacle, thousands of gun-flashes and bangs per minute, beneath a rain of fire and resounding shell and shrapnel explosion, if this were not human carnage one would all it 'wonderful'. For us onlookers this is nothing, but what must it be like for the 100,000 men in that pool of fire...

Ruins of Martens Farm, near Wytschaete, 10 June 1917.

© IWM (Q 5479)

Shells bursting in a valley near Messines, 7 June 1917.

© IWM (Q 5462)

Artillery officers mess, in front of Kemmel, 10 June 1917.

© IWM (Q 5476)

The fine June weather was a bonus and the Battle of Messines was a victory. By removing the Germans from the ridge it ensured that the high ground around the salient was under Allied control.

As always, I am indebted to IWM for the opportunity to feature these photographs from the area around the battle site.

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Sunday WW1 Remembered...

War Artists of WW1

Forty years years ago I paid my first visit to the Imperial War Museum in London and I was stunned by the stark images of WW1 which were so graphically portrayed by the war artists. These images have stayed with me forever. I can remember standing before this painting and just looking, looking, looking....

The Menin Road

Paul Nash

1919

Imperial War Museum, London
Source :Wikipedia

Paul Nash born in London in 1889 was a surrealist painter who produced some of the most iconic images of the First World War. He enlisted in 1914 as a private for the Home Service in the Artists Rifles. He was sent to the Western Front in February 1917 as a second lieutenant in the Hampshire Regiment. Based at St Eloi on the Ypres Salient, Nash endured the war until an accident in May 1917 invalided him back to London. During his recuperation, Nash produced a series of drawings in ink, chalk and watercolour which depicted his personal images of the war. He exhibited these pictures to great acclaim, which resulted in his approaching Charles Masterman who was head of the government's War Propaganda Bureau. In November 1917, Nah returned to the Ypres Salient as an official war artist.

Spring in the Trenches, Ridge Wood , 1917

Paul Nash

Imperial War Museum London
Source :Wikipedia

The official war artists were a group of artists employed to produce specific works at the behest of the government which could be used as information, propaganda or simply to record, for prosperity, what was happening  on the Western Front.

Muirhead Bone was appointed the first official war artist in May 1916. Bone was born in Glasgow in 1876 and was an etcher, dry point and water colour artist who was known for his architectural and industrial art. Bone was later replaced as official war artist by his brother-in-law, Francis Dodd.

Francis Dodd  was born in Holyhead in 1874. He was a portrait painter, landscape artist and print maker. He produced over 30 portraits of senior official military figures.

In 1917, other artists were sent out to France, these included Eric Kennington, William Orpen, Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson, William Rothstein.

An Infantryman Resting

Eric Kennington

Sourse:Wikipedia

None of the artists could fail to be moved emotionally by what they saw and witnessed

Paul Nash said......"I am no longer an artist interested and curious, I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on for ever. Feeble, inarticulate, will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth, and may it burn their lousy souls...."

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