Intermission at a French theater, 1915. Women and a girl knit, socks perhaps, for soldiers at the front, as does a Red Cross nurse seated between two sleepy soldiers, one — from an Algerian regiment — visibly wounded. An older man reads the news. Illustrated by A. Guillaume, the postcard is captioned in the languages of the Entente Allies, French, English, and Russian.

15 minutes d'entr'act.

15 minutes intermission.

Антрактъ въ 15 минутъ.



Pinx. A. Guillaume

А. Гильомъ



Visé Paris.

2260.

I.M.L.



Reverse:

Guerre Européenne de 1914-1915

Édition Patriotique.

Imp. I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau, 75



European War 1914-1915

Patriotic Edition.

Printer I. Lapina. - Paris, Rue Denfert-Rochebeau 75

Other views: Larger

Monday, July 30, 1917

"Monday, July 30th [1917], midnight. Brandhoek.

Cars came for us at 5 p.m. and here we are. By the time you get this it will be history for better or for worse. By 6 a.m. our part will have begun and everything is organized and ready up to the brim. That we have 15 Theatre Sisters tells its own tale. We have 33 Sisters altogether, and they are all tucked into their bell-tents with hankies tied on the ropes to be the first one to be called when the first case comes in.

. . . Some Grandmothers (15-inch guns) on each side of us are splitting the air and rocking the huts, and everything except the Field Gun drumfire, which hasn't begun yet, is joining in. Fritz is sending his over too, with an ugly whang. The illumination is brighter than any lightning: dazzling and beautiful. Their new blinding gas is known as mustard-oil gas; it burns your eyes — sounds jolly, doesn't it? — and comes over in shells. I wonder how many hundreds or thousands have got only four more hours to live, and know it?"

Quotation Context

K. E. Luard, Royal Red Cross nurse and sister-in-charge at the Advanced Abdominal Station at Brandhoek, Belgium, writing the night before the opening of the Battle of Passchendaele, the Third Battle of Ypres. Brandhoek is roughly midway between Poperinge and Ypres, seven kilometers west of the latter.

Source

The Virago Book of Women and the Great War by Joyce Marlow, Editor, pp. 315–316, copyright © Joyce Marlow 1998, publisher: Virago Press, publication date: 1999

Tags

1917-07-30, 1917, July, Passchendaele, Battle of Passchendaele, Red Cross, British Red Cross