Uniforms of the British Army, 1914, from a series of postcards of uniforms of the combatants in the 1914 European War.
Guerre Européenne 1914Armée AnglaiseDragon guardsScots greysHussardGendarme de campagneLancierOfficier du génieGénéralLife guardsVolontaireVolontaire AustralienVolontaireGrenadier guardsScots guardsColdstream guardsColstream guards (pet. tenue)Kings Royal RiflesRifles brigradeScottish RiflesCameron highlandersHighlanders (officier)Royal Scots fusiliersCorps ExpéditionnaireInfanterie anglaiseTroupes de l'IndeRégiment de Cippayes West India (officier)Déposé J.C 8-9European War 1914 British Army Dragoon guardsScots GreysHussarMounted PolicemanLancerEngineering OfficerGeneralLife GuardsVolunteerAustralian VolunteerVolunteerGrenadier GuardScots GuardColdstream GuardColstream Guards (service dress)Kings Royal RiflesRifle BrigadeScottish RiflesCameron HighlanderHighlanders (Officer)Royal Scots FusiliersExpeditionary CorpsEnglish InfantryIndian troopSepoy Regiment West India (Officer)Filed J.C 8-9Reverse:J'espere bien que cette carte plâira à sa petite majesté, elle a été achetée à son intention . . .I hope that this card will appeal to his little majesty, it was purchased for him. . .
"A Highland sergeant-major stood magnificently before us, with the brass brutality called a Hales rifle-grenade in his hand. He explained the piece, fingering the wind-vane with easy assurance; then stooping to the fixed rifle, he prepared to shoot the grenade by way of demonstration. According to my unsoldierlike habit, I had let the other students press near the instructor, and was listlessly standing on the skirts of the meeting, thinking of something else, when the sergeant-major having just said 'I've been down here since 1914, and never had an accident,' there was a strange hideous clang. Several voices cried out; I found myself stretched on the floor, looking upwards in the delusion that the grenade had been fired straight above and was about to fall among us. It had indeed been fired, but by some error had burst at the muzzle of the rifle: the instructor was lying with mangled head, dead, and others lay near him, also blood-masked, dead and alive. So ended that morning's work on the Bull-Ring."
Excerpt from Edmund Blunden's account of a session at the training ground, the Bull Ring, in Etaples, Blunden's first base in France after the crossing from England.
Undertones of War by Edmund Blunden, page 18, copyright © the Estate of Edmund Blunden, 1928, publisher: Penguin Books, publication date: November 1928
1916-05-07, 1916, May, grenade, accident
