The stray poodle in the photograph below was found in a French village by the men pictured. They fed it some bully beef and it stayed with the 50^th Battalion as a mascot.

Following Armistice, they smuggled the dog back to England inside a base drum as units had been told to leave mascots behind. When the band was asked to play to the men on their return, the Sergeant Major noticed the drummer was trying to play very quietly…

The dog was found a home in England.

This is Driver, a silky terrier who was the mascot for the 7^th Field Company, at his leisure following Armistice.

Images courtesy of the Australian War Memorial

This is a sad excerpt from the #WWI diary of Alice Ross-King, courtesy of the Australian War Memorial.

March 7, 1915

Lost a pneumonia – Such a fine lad of 24. He told me in the morning that when he left Sydney he did not know that his people were coming over here – but that they came by a quick mail boat & were here to meet him when he arrived.

He told me this so seriously & evidently believed it himself that I did not realize until today that it must have been only delirium. He died very happy believing that his mother was beside him all the time.

It is estimated that 8 million horses died during the four years of war – more than 136,000 of them were from Australia.

Horses were targeted by both sides to weaken their enemies. In particular, the German Navy fired at ships laden with horses and donkeys, which led to thousands of animals dying in the middle of the ocean.

In this photo, a horse is lowered into position to be treated for a gunshot wound in Le Valdahon, Doubs, France.

In this image, WWI soldiers are shown paying homage to their equine partners, courtesy of the Saltburn Animal Rescue Association.

‘In the mopping up after the German counterattack, it was discovered that the battalion’s twin brothers, Ina and Clement Moore of Ballarat, had both been killed.

They had been born on the same day, they enlisted on the same day, and they died on the same day.

Both men, the one an engine-driver, the other a carpenter, left wives and three children each. Such loss, for a lousy little raid that did nothing to advance the cause of either of the opposing forces.’

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Continuing with our theme of #WWI nurses this month, the shoes and veil pictured belonged to Staff Nurse Eliza Rowan. Eliza was born in Nagambie, Victoria in 1885. Both her parents were born in the early days of colonial Melbourne.

She completed her nursing training at Perth Public Hospital (now Royal Perth Hospital), and came to Melbourne to work as a private nurse through the Winfield Nurses Home at 340 Albert Street, East Melbourne.

Eliza embarked for service in WWI from Melbourne on 30 June 1917 on RMS Somali, following two of her brothers who had already enlisted.

More information about Eliza is available from the East Melbourne Historical Society.

Images courtesy of the Australian War Memorial

On this day 100 years ago, the battle of Neuve Chappelle began at 7:30am with a 35-minute artillery bombardment from the British, supported by the Indian Corps.

When the fighting ceased on 13 March, the 7,000 British and 4,200 Indian soldiers had been either killed or wounded.

Image courtesy of the Remembrance Trails

On this day 100 years ago, the German Zeppelin LZ 36 pictured had its debut voyage. It went on to complete 74 reconnaissance flights over the North Sea, and dropped a total of 5,683 kg of bombs during four raids on England.

The majority of women actively and officially serving in World War One were nurses – between 2,500 and 3,000 Australian nurses served overseas – in England, Europe, India, Egypt and at Lemnos, Greece where the wounded from Gallipoli were treated. Australian tolerance for high temperatures made Australian nurses particularly popular in Egypt and India. Women doctors, on the other hand, had to make their own way overseas as Australian Government policy did not allow them to be officially deployed on war service. Many served with distinction overseas. Some joined the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and served in war-torn Serbia and other European bases, seeing the war at the front line.

A few women worked as writers and war correspondents. Women became drivers, interpreters and munition workers. Women’s contribution to the workforce rose from 24 per cent of the total in 1914 to 37 per cent in 1918, but the increase tended to be in what were already traditional areas of women’s work — in the clothing and footwear, food and printing sectors. Unions were unwilling to let women join the workforce in greater numbers in traditional male areas as they feared that this would lower wages.

Victorian Vera Deakin White, youngest daughter of Australia’s 2^nd Prime Minister, set up the Australian Wounded and Missing Inquiry Bureau, to help relations seeking information about their loved ones. The Australian Comforts Fund was established in August 1916 to co-ordinate the activities of the state based patriotic funds, which were established earlier in World War I. Mainly run by women, they provided and distributed free comforts to the Australian ‘fit’ fighting men in all the battle zones. Socks were urgently needed, since soldiers could not wash or dry their socks in the mud and cold of the trenches, and Australian women knitted tens of thousands of socks, distributed through the ACF.  Women were also avid fundraisers, and the Anzac biscuit, which was not part of the military rations, was almost certainly made at home for fundraising purposes. That tradition lives on with the RSL.

Most women contributed through the 3 Ws:

• Working – taking on new forms of employment (not necessarily  paid) to cover work normally undertaken by men who had enlisted, working to be the mainstay of their young families or working to send support to the troops through the Red Cross. Many worked in all these ways. For those whose husbands returned home alive, but physically and mentally shattered by war, the work went on for a lifetime.
• Worrying – letters were infrequent, and soldiers rarely shared many of their real experiences with those at home. The devastating news of a death might arrive months after the event.
• Waiting – for letters and postcards, for news from other family members and most of all for their relatives to come home safely.

Convois Automobiles
SSA No. 3
Par Parc Dijon, France
Sunday night, March 7th 1915

My Dear Mother
…
Many thanks for seeing about Gum boots, I had to buy a pair of Galoshes, most of us use them, result was dry feet for 2 days & my sore throat went at last. In this constant wet it is so hard to get rid of colds.

Several have colds & throats & the men too. I doubt if my man will be fit enough for the work, he helps in kitchen now, looks thin & miserable still it is a great nuisance not having him, so hard to keep having different men & so much harder to keep car all clean & right.

I’ve spent four hours at it this aft. noon washing & cleaning stretchers, pillows with rubber pillow cases & blankets, everything gets so dirty & often stretchers & pillows covered in blood.
…
It is nearly dinner time, we dine 7 p.m. Dejeuner 11-30. I only got in here from garage at ¼ to 6, I had meant to write several letters, it is so hard, tired at night & on all day & night too at times.

Yesterday 6 cars including mine left 8 a.m. & got back here 7 p.m. last night, we must have done quite 100 miles fetching wounded from a hospital or rather from 3 different hospitals in one town to a large military hospital in another 12 miles away, the furthest town we had to go to is 22 miles from here & we had to run between the two, I carried 24 men including 6 officers & 2 of them I helped to carry into hospital.

Only 2 of the lot on stretchers, rest sitting, tho’ several with frozen feet & had to be carried on a man’s back & put sitting in Ambulance. It is a most painful thing I believe. They are all so patient & take it all without any complaint.
…
Best love
A

This is an excerpt from a letter written by Arthur Joseph Dease. Arthur served in WWI as a volunteer ambulance driver for the French Red Cross. An extensive collection of his WWI letters has been published online.

‘For at least 90 minutes, he and his mates lay in a ditch filled with icy water on the way back to their own lines, while the Germans raked no-man’s-land with machine-gun fire.

Hit in the thigh, the ‘Melbourne Boy’ relied on a mate’s strength to drag him along, as his right foot was useless.

Later, a strongly built sergeant picked him up and carried him home with German bullets whipping around them. “Australians will do for me” the boy wrote, “after the things I saw them do that night.”’

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