Letter of April 27: The Playfair Letters Project

Original Letter

France

27^th April 1918

My Dearest Maidie:-

When I wrote you yesterday I was feeling like I needed a friend but thanks to the ministrations (new name for quinine tablets ) of our M.O. I’m all better to-day. Last night I took a few tablets when I was going to bed and this morning I’m better than ever. The quinine gave me a bad night. One awful night more particularly but it did the trick. We go out tonight and I am as glad to go as anything for I think another week in a dugout would fix me. I know that my lungs would be plugged up and if I wanted breath I’d have to use a hypodermic. At that a dugout isn’t the unhealthiest place in these parts and its safer than a church.

Two good letters last night, Sweetheart – I want to kiss you a hundred times for each one. The S.M. brought them to me after I had gone to bed and I had a perfectly good read before I went to sleep. And then I falled to sleep and what did I dream but that you got up to get the b.f. and I wakened before you got back! I’ve been weeping wailing crying and sobbing in turn ever since. And in spite of all that I feel all better today so it must have been mighty potent quinine.

I’m awfully glad that you have missed the grippe so far and hope that you miss it altogether. Its a curse. Its too bad that Ruthie is feeling seedy please tell her that my nightly S.O.S. to heaven includes an appeal for her speedy recovery.

Sweetheart take me in your arms for a few minutes while I tell you that I love you today with a huge big love and that I am just as lonesome as a pig. Listen closely for I might tell you something else. Angel, je t’adore.

ton mari

Ross

Ruthie

About Ruth Grassal: Ruth Grassal, along with her sister Netta Head, co-owner of Carentonne Cottage in Bernay, where Mary stayed in France. It seems likely that Ross and Mary met Ruth Grassal at a pension in Paris and were then invited to Carentonne Cottage.

(See also note on Bernay with letter of Aug. 31, 1917 and others.)

See the photo of Netta and Ruth — taken much later: in Nice in the 1940s.
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(Close this note)

dugout

Note

A dugout is a shelter constructed, as the name suggests, by digging a hole—either into a hillside (as pictured in the first image below), into the side of an existing trench, or simply in the ground. From Ross’s letters one gets the impression that battalion headquarters was often in a dugout—and, consistent with this, the Spartacus Educational web page (“Dugouts,” see link below) maintains that large dugouts in the side of communication trenches often served both as battalion headquarters and officers’ sleeping quarters.

To understand the conditions in which Ross was working and fighting, it is necessary to understand the basics of trench warfare, which The New Encyclopaedia Britannica describes as:

...warfare in which opposing armed forces attack, counterattack, and defend from relatively permanent systems of trenches dug into the ground. The opposing systems of trenches are usually close to one another. Trench warfare is resorted to when the superior firepower of the defense compels the opposing forces to “dig in” so extensively as to sacrifice their mobility in order to gain protection.

... In making a trench, soil from the excavation is used to create raised parapets running both in front of and behind the trench. Within the trench are firing positions along a raised forward step called a fire step, and duckboards are placed on the often muddy bottom of the trench to provide secure footing.

...

Trench warfare reached its highest development on the Western Front during World War I (1914–18), when armies of millions of men faced each other in a line of trenches extending from the Belgian coast through northeastern France to Switzerland. These trenches arose within the first few months of the war’s outbreak, after the great offensives launched by Germany and France had shattered against the deadly, withering fire of the machine gun and the rapid-firing artillery piece. The sheer quantity of bullets and shells flying through the air in the battle conditions of that war compelled soldiers to burrow into the soil to obtain shelter and survive.

The typical trench system in World War I consisted of a series of two, three, four, or more trench lines running parallel to each other and being at least 1 mile (1.6 km) in depth [sic]. Each trench was dug in a type of zigzag so that no enemy, standing at one end, could fire for more than a few yards down its length. Each of the main lines of trenches was connected to each other and to the rear by a series of communications trenches that were dug roughly perpendicular to them. Food, ammunition, fresh troops, mail, and orders were delivered through these trenches. The intricate network of trenches contained command posts, forward supply dumps, first-aid stations, kitchens, and latrines. Most importantly, it had machine -gun emplacements to defend against an assault, and it had dugouts deep enough to shelter large number of defending troops during an enemy bombardment.

In practice trench warfare was problematic. Not only did “digging in” mean a key tactical sacrifice of mobility, but conditions in the trenches, particularly for the Allies who were forced to occupy lower ground, were appalling. The constant wet meant constant discomfort at best and at worst led to serious conditions such as trench foot, a form of frostbite caused by chronic exposure to cold, which if left untreated progressed to gangrene, sometimes necessitating amputation (Encyclopedia Americana). Sanitation was also a problem, and garbage and human waste building up in and near the trenches contributed to the spread of disease and to generally foul and unpleasant conditions. (See note on “rats” with the letter of October 1, 1917.)

See photos (below - click on photos to enlarge):
1. Military dugout behind the lines, France; 1917; watercolour: brown, black and blue wash over pencil; artist: William Redver Stark, 1885–1953; source: W.R. Stark/Library and Archives Canada.
2. Communication Trench. 22nd Infantry Battalion (French Canadian). July, 1916; source: Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada/PA-000395.
3. On sentry duty in a front-line trench, Sept. 1916, France; source: W.I. Castle/Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada/PA-000568.
4. An aerial reconnaissance photograph of the opposing trenches and no-man's land between Loos and Hulluch in Artois, France, taken at 7.15 pm, 22 July 1917. German trenches are at the right and bottom, British trenches are at the top left. The vertical line to the left of centre indicates the course of a pre-war road or track; source: Imperial War Museum, catalogue number Q 45786
5. A trench on the Canadian front showing "funk holes," 1917, France; source: W.I. Castle/Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada/PA-001326.
6. A British trench near the Albert-Bapaume road at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The men are from A Company, 11th Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment; photographer: Lt. J.W. Brooke; source: Imperial War Museum catalogue number Q 3990. Used by permission PD-BritishGov.
7. Bombing down a trench (8th Infantry Battalion). June, 1916; source: Canada. Dept. of National Defence/Library and Archives Canada/PA-000136
8. First World War Soldier with Trench Foot (No Doubt a Canadian), France, 1917. This photo shows an extreme case of trench foot; source: Library and Archives Canada/PA-149311.
9. Report by Colonel G.L. Foster, Surgeon General, Regarding Soldiers Suffering from Trench Foot, November 11, 1915. This report about the occurrence of trench foot among the ranks and the prevention of this problem shows how significant this medical condition was in the eyes of military authorities; source: Library and Archives Canada/RG9 III-B-2, vol. 3615, file 25/7/1-25/7/6.
10. Document by Surgeon General Regarding Vincent's Angina, ca. 1917. This document describes the problem of Vincent's Angina and its chief causes, namely, the failure to disinfect eating and drinking utensils and the sharing of pipes or cigarettes. Life in the trenches made soldiers especially susceptible to this type of problem since it was impossible, under such conditions, to wash dishes or obtain other tobacco products; source: Library and Archives Canada/RG9 III-B-2, vol. 3615, file 25/4/2-25/6/2.

Sources: “The Trench System,” Spartacus Educational website, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWtrenchsystem.htm, accessed 11 February 2009; “Trench Warfare,” The New Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. II, Micropedia Ready Reference, 15th ed. (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 2005); “Trench Foot” and “Trench Warfare,” The Encyclopedia Americana, International Edition, vol. 27 (Danbury, CT: Grolier, Inc., 2001); “Dugouts,” Spartacus Educational, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWdugouts.htm, accessed 7 October 2008; “Trench Warfare,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_warfare, accessed 7 October 2008.

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