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At 1.30pm on 12 December, the Belgian Commander accompanied me across the brick paths through the sand dunes to the King’s villa. My coat was taken off by two footmen in black, and I was shown into the sitting-room, where I found a tall fair man studying a map, and leaning over a low mantelpiece. He turned round and shook hands, and we sat down and began to talk. I thought to myself: “You are extraordinarily like your King,” but I have often observed that Court people take on the look of their Kings and Queens, imitation being the sincerest form of flattery.
It was not till he congratulated me on having a remarkable husband, and alluded in touching terms to Henry’s speech on him and the sorrows of Belgium, that I suspected who he was. I instantly got up and curtsied to the ground, at which he smiled rather sadly, and, the Queen interrupting us, we all went into the dining-room.
We had an excellent lunch of soup, roast beef, potatoes, and a sweet flavoured with coffee. I found the King easy and delightful; both wise, uncomplaining, and real.
He has no swagger, and is keen and interested in many things. I told him I had bought several photographs of him to sign for me to take back to England, but they all had dark hair. He said it was clever of the photographer to give him any hair at all, as he was getting balder daily, and felt that everything about him was both dark and bald.
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 momentsShow all 149 1 /149In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Final moments: The Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo minutes before his shooting
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Arresting Princip’s fellow conspirator Nedeljko Cabrinovic after a failed attempt to kill the Archduke on the same day
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in central London cheer Britain’s declaration of war on Germany
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The innocents: New recruits, with bicycles, training with the British Army in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 1914: A lone soldier with a bicycle stands amid the remains of a German motor convoy which lines a country lane after an attack by French field guns in the battle of the Aisne in France
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Troubled waters: The Cambridge eight included John Andrew Ritson (fourth from cox)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War John Andrew Ritson (left)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dennis Ivor Day
Musuem of London; Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantry advance through Belgium in August 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Civilians near the Austrian lines in Serbia are strung up – probably as a reprisal for guerrilla resistance to the invaders
Miroslav Honzík/Hana Honzíková
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captured soldiers of the Russian 2nd Army after their defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wounded and exhausted British and Belgian soldiers retreating after the Battle of Mons
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds gather outside a recruitment office
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French General Joseph Joffre (second right), Commander- in-Chief of the French Armies, and General Michel Joseph Maunoury (right) on the front during the First Battle of the Marne. Six hundred scarlet taxis were requisitioned, at a cost of Fr70,102, to ferry reservist troops to the Battle of the Marne in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French firing squad escorts a deserter to his execution in November 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the trenches from which deserters tried to escape
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German soldiers in Wirballen, a border town between the German Reich and Russia
Mary Evans Picture Library
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carl Hans Lody, who spied in Britain
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Up to 12 million letters a week were sent to the front line via the wooden sorting office hastily set up in Regent’s Park in 1914
Royal Mail
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors from SMS ‘Gneisenau’ in the sea off the Falkland Islands, with HMS ‘Inflexible’ in the background, 8 December 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The ruins of the cloth hall and cathedral in Ypres during WWI
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Margot Asquith, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and the wife of Britain’s wartime leader
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A wounded American in a London hospital reads a magazine with a red cross nurse by his bedside.
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A mass execution by firing squad following the unsuccessful Singapore mutiny of 1915
rebelsindia.com
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Indian soldiers serving in France were known for their fighting spirit
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Russian artillery positions outside Przemysl, during the six-month siege of the heavily fortified Austro-Hungarian city, part of present-day Poland
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Residents assess the damage after Suffolk was rocked by bomb attacks mounted by German Zeppelin
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantrymen attack through a cloud of poison gas. By the end of the war, both sides had employed various kinds of gas
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Children of Armenian refugees in a camp
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Armenian civilians being led away by Ottoman soldiers
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A public hanging in Istanbul
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A pile of skulls from the Armenian village of Sheyxalan
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops at Anzac Cove (Gaba Tepe) during the Gallipoli campaign
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops unloading heavy guns in the Dardanelles
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Volunteer nurse Florence Farmborough was part of the Russian retreat from Gorlice
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Cunard liner RMS Lusitania, after secret Whitehall misgivings about the official account of one of the most controversial and tragic episodes of the First World War were revealed in newly-released government documents. Almost 70 years after the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland, some officials expressed concern that the truth was still being covered up
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The RMS Lusitania sailed from New York on 1 May 1915 on her last voyage; the liner was sunk off southern Ireland on 7 May
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Welsh Liberal politician and future Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863 - 1945) enjoys a quiet read of a newspaper in his garden with his faithful dog for company
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French troops line up for inspection on a trench on the Western Front
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German military prisoners, at Southend-on-Sea, on their way to Knockaloe
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The railway line running the length of the access road into Knockaloe, the biggest camp in the British Isles
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors of the sinking in Cobh, Co Cork
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Robert Graves (1895-1985), who served on the Western Front from 1915 to 1917
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 2nd Lieutenant John Kipling is thought to have been killed in The Chalk Pit, in Loos, France, on 27 September 1915
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Laid to rest: Edith Cavell circa 1905
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Her funeral cortege in London in May 1919
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War George Samson is celebrated on a cigarette card of the time
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Flora Sandes, who rose from private to sergeant-major in the Serbian army, playing chess with her Serbian comrades. After the war ended, she was promoted to lieutenant
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Italian light infantry of the 1st Alpini Regiment on Monte Nero, during the Isonzo campaigns
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War As Italian as mozzarella cheese: Giuseppe Ungaretti
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French troops under shellfire during the Battle of Verdun
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French soldier is shot during a counter attack
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Devastation near Fort Souville, Verdun
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscripts, among the first men ever to be compelled to join the British Army, undergo a medical
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Chandeliers and bed rest
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Pavilion was meant as a seaside home for the Prince Regent
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Fun and games were vital
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Patients get some sea air
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The medical staff
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Britain saw the Easter Rising as a stab in the back and the rebels, pictured here being led to captivity, as traitors. Subsequent executions made them into national heroes
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A steamer hit by a torpedo during the First World War
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Ottoman army besieged the British forces for 147 days until they surrendered on 29 April 1916
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War General Sir Charles Townshend
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The tear-stained letter
Imperial War Museum
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon as a second lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His bravery won him the Military Cross in July 1916, but he later turned against the war
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The sinking of the ‘Queen Mary’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German destroyers off the English coast
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sharif Hussain, religious leader of Mecca
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sir Henry McMahon, British minister in Cairo
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Emilio Lussu, who fought in the battle with the Italian Army, on the side of the allies, against the Austrians, who sided with Germany
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, whose face appeared on the recruitment poster ‘Your Country Needs You’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscientious objectors at a protest on Dartmoor in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Objectors were forced to cultivate the soil although many were said to have spent much of their time "strolling on the moors, reading, smoking and talking"
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British conscientious objectors leaving Dartmoor Prison under a gateway inscribed with the words "Parcere subjectis" ("Spare the conquered")
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Going over the top during the Battle of the Somme in 1916
PA
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The British Machine Gun Corps during the battle
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Canadian troops prepare for the charge
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of the German airship shot down over Cuffley
Popperfoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captain William Leefe Robinson received the VC for his courage
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British Mark 1 tank on the Western Front
Topical Press/Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British soldier covers a dead German on the firestep of a trench near the Somme
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carnage on the road to Romania’s Turnu Rosu Pass. A German NCO stands beside an Italian-made cannon and the body of what may have been a gun crew member
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward Thomas, a Second-Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, at home on leave in early 1917
Edward Thomas Fellowship
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward’s wife Helen with two of their three children, Merfyn and Bronwen
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War May Bradford writing a letter for an injured soldier in a French hospital
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Composer and poet Ivor Gurney (left) and the artist Paul Nash
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Filling shells at the Vickers munitions factory, Barrow-in-Furness. Strikers’ grievances included the use of female labour
BAE Systems Submarines
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The moment that ushered in the American century: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to ratify a declaration of war against Imperial Germany
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporters greet Lenin on his arrival at Finland Station, Petrograd, on 16 April 1917, after a week-long journey by sealed train from Switzerland
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War War effort: Women war workers at Cross Farm, Shackleton, Surrey, in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French ‘poilus’ at Chemin des Dames, where the bloody Nivelle Offensive of 1917 pushed many into mutiny
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War An early colour photograph of the crater left by the biggest of the blasts beneath German positions near Messines on 14 June 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British sappers laying the mines
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The remains of a German trench
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Ernst Jünger’s German platoon overcame the enemy forces with his ‘mastery of the situation and iron command’
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart Hospital to be treated for ‘shell shock’ following his protest
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), whose 1929 novel, ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’, was based on his wartime experiences. Here he is seen with Carl Laemmle of Universal Pictures (left)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The conscription of reserve soldiers in Greece to fight on the Salonika front in 1916. The Greek city was ravaged by a fire the following year, which devastated the area and left thousands homeless
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops marching down the Boulevard de la Victoire in Salonika in 1916, the year before the great fire which devastated the Greek city
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Women leaving a munitions factory on Eiswerder Island in Spandau, near Berlin, at the end of their shift, in around 1917. They are crossing the bridge over the river Havel
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Female workers of the Spandau factory getting their dinner during the midday break
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wet weather plagued the Third Battle of Ypres, which included the battles of Langemarck and Passchendaele. Perhaps 70,000 Allied soldiers died between 31 July and 10 November
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British stretcher party
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German prisoners on a duckboard track at Yser Canal, Belgium, on the opening day of the battle
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 3rd September 1917: Veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War US Ambassador Page greeting veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 22nd December 1917: Christmas preparations at the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Albin Köbis, who was shot as one of the ringleaders of the German naval mutiny in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Stokers of the SMS Prinzregent Luitpold in 1913
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops in what is now Zambia, in vain pursuit of the forces of the elusive German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Genius in the art of bush warfare: German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German women and children queue for food rations
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds at Petrograd’s Winter Palace during the October Revolution. (Russia still used the Julian calendar, in which the West’s 7 November equated to 25 October)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Mayor of Jerusalem (with walking-stick) had tried to surrender the city to them
Imperial War Museum
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allenby walks into Jerusalem: Sergeants James Sedgwick and Frederick Hurcomb of 2/19th Battalion, London Regiment, outside the city two days earlier
AP
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Artist John Nash not only painted the ordeals of Britain’s front line troops: he experienced them first-hand
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British housewife with her grocery items after the introduction of rationing. The government feared hunger might lead to revolution
Rex
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edmund Morel as an MP after his release
Topham Picturepoint
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A suffragist rally in Hyde Park
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A newly enfranchised woman votes for the first time in 1918
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Masked doctors and nurses treat flu patients lying on cots and in outdoor tents at a hospital camp during the influenza epidemic of 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense long-range naval gun which was used to bombard Paris from behind the German lines in Picardy
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense naval gun was manned by 80 German sailors. It launched its shells from behind the German lines
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Walter Tull, left, Britain’s first black Army officer, in a photograph handed down to his great-nephew Edward Finlayson
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tull was singled out for his "gallantry and coolness" following a daring raid across the frozen river Piave in January 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The German air ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Baron Manfred von Richthofen's 'flying circus'
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dogs at the British War Dog School in Essex
Mary Evans Picture Library
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tweed, far left, with his handler Private Reid
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A dog courier runs through barbed wire and mines to deliver a message
Corbis
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Piete Kuhr, pictured in 1915
Memoria Hürth
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Vera Brittain became a nurse during the war
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The aftermath of the explosion at the munitions plant in Chilwell
Nottingham City Council
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of a soldier on the Western Front, where millions were killed or wounded, or went missing
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War From left, Marshal Joffre, President Henri Poincaré, King George V, General Foch, and Field-Marshal Haig
Time life pictures/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captured German officers receiving orders from a French officer
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American troops advance on a German position on the Saint Mihiel salient, north-eastern France, in 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American soldiers of the 18th Infantry Machine Gun Battalion advance through the ruins of St Baussant on their way to the St. Mihiel Front
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A group of captured Germans being marched through St Mihiel Salient
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wilfred Owen in uniform as a 2nd Lieutenant. The poet was teaching in France when the war began
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, circa 1920. The poet describes to his wife the rising tide of popular unrest in Munich
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The interior of the railway carriage in which the Armistice ending the First World War was signed
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Allied delegation was led by France’s Marshal Ferdinand Foch (front row, second right)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Royal Family appear on the balcony
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War People celebrate in the streets in 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities on 11 November 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities in 1918
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He told me, among other things, that the Germans had trained off to Germany all his wife’s clothes and under-clothes, and all his own wine, adding: “As I drink nothing, this is no loss to me, but it is strange for any soldier to steal a woman’s clothes.”
After lunch M Davreux, Major Gordon and I motored to the Belgian trenches and on to Pervyse Station. We passed a dead horse lying in a pool of blood and heard the first big guns I have ever heard in my life; the sound of which excited and moved me to the heart. Aeroplanes hovered like birds overhead in a pale and streaky sky.
We passed a convoy of men with straggling winter trees upon their bent backs going to hide the artillery. For miles round the country was inundated with sea-water; and the roads, where they were not pavé, were swamps of deep and clinging mud. The fields were full of holes, and looked like solitaire boards. The houses had been smashed and gutted and were without inhabitants; only a few soldiers could be seen smoking or cooking in the deserted doorways. Every church was littered with bits of bombs, and débris of stained glass, twisted ribbons of molten lead, and broken arms of the outstretched Christ.
Major Gordon had brought a wooden cross with him to put on the grave of the Duke of Richmond’s son, and I had taken one out at the request of Lord and Lady Lansdowne to put on their boy’s grave at Ypres, where we ultimately arrived.
The Ypres cemetery will haunt me for ever. No hospital of wounded or dying men could have given me a greater insight into the waste of war than that dripping, gaunt and crowded churchyard. There were broken bits of wood stuck in the grass at the head of hundreds of huddled graves, with English names scrawled upon them in pencil. Where the names had been washed off, forage-caps were hanging, and they were all placed one against the other as closely as possible.
I saw a Tommy digging, and said: “Who is that grave for?” He answered without stopping or looking at me: “For the next...”
Two English officers, holding their caps in their hands, were standing talking by the side of an open grave, and single soldiers were dotted about all over the cemetery.
Major Gordon, who had borrowed a spade, asked me if I would help him by holding the cross upright, which I was only too glad to do till we had finished.
All the time I was standing in the high wet grass I thought of the Lansdownes and my heart went out to them.
Suddenly a fusillade of guns burst upon our ears. It seemed as if some of the shells might hit us at any moment, they were so near and loud.
Margot Asquith, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and the wife of Britain’s wartime leader (Getty Images) Aeroplanes circled over our heads, and every soldier in the cemetery put on his cap and rushed away.
An excited Belgian officer, with a few other men, ran up to me and, pointing to a high mound, said would I not like to see the German guns, as one could only die once.
As Major Gordon had left me to go to a further cemetery, I was glad enough to accompany them. Frightfully excited and almost deafened by the Crack! Crack!! Crack!!! Boom!! Boom!!! I tore up to the top of the hill with the officer holding my elbow.
Had it not been for a faint haze over the landscape I could have seen everything distinctly. Thin white lines of smoke, like poplars in a row, stood out against the horizon, and I saw the flash of every German gun.
My companion said that if the shells had been coming our way they would have gone over our heads; the German troops, he explained, must have come on unknown to them in the night, and he added he did not think that either the Belgians, the British, or the French knew at all what they were up to.
A French officer, looking furious, arrived panting up the hill and coming up to me said I was to go down and remain under the shelter of the Hospital walls immediately. Two Belgian soldiers who had joined us asked me if I was not afraid to stand in the open, so close to the German guns. I said not more than they were, at which we all smiled and shrugged our shoulders; and the French officer took me down the hill to the Hospital quadrangle, where I waited for Major Gordon.
The clatter of the guns was making every pane in every window shiver and rattle till I thought they must all break, and sitting in our motor, writing my diary, I felt how much I should have hated fighting.
A French sentry after eyeing me for some time came up and presented me with his stomach-belt of blue cashmere. I thanked him warmly and gave him six boxes of Woodbine cigarettes, of which I had brought an enormous quantity. A Belgian Tommy, on seeing this, took off his white belt and presented it to me with a salute which moved me very much.
I began to think Major Gordon must be killed, as he had been away for over an hour. The sun was high and when he returned his face was bathed in perspiration. He told me he had put the Duke of Richmond’s cross on his son’s grave in a cemetery so close to the German lines he thought every moment would have been his last, and after munching a few biscuits we started off on our journey south.
On our way to Merville we stopped at Major Gordon’s brother-in-law’s house, a cottage at the side of the road. It was pitch dark and we had tea with him in the kitchen, lit by one dim oil lamp.
We had not been at the table more than a few minutes when a loud sound, like the hissing of an engine, made the whole cottage rock and sway.
I felt genuinely frightened and wondered what the children were doing at home.
An aide-de-camp dashed out of the room and came back scarlet in the face. “If you please, sir,” he said, saluting: “four Jack Johnsons have dropped 30 yards from the door.”
General Nicholson jumped up white as a sheet and said to his brother-in-law: “Great God, what will the Prime Minister say? I’ve let you in, my dear Gordon! ... but I assure you, Mrs Asquith, we’ve not had a shell or a shot here for weeks past....”
From ‘The Autobiography of Margot Asquith’ (1920-22; reprinted with an introduction by M Bonham Carter, 1962)
© The Trustees of the Asquith/Bonham Carter papers
Tomorrow: Yorkshire under attack
‘Moments’ that have already been published can be seen at: independent.co.uk/greatwar
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