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German postcard map of the Western Front in Flanders, looking south and including Lille, Arras, Calais, and Ostend. In the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914, the Belgian Army held the territory south of the Yser Canal, visible between Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres (Ypern). Further north is Passchendaele, which British forces took at great cost in 1917. Text: Der Kanal Straße von Calais The English Channel and the Strait of Calais Reverse: Panorama des westlichen Kriegsschauplatzes 1914/15 Von Arras bis Ostende. Die Panorama-Postkartenreihe umfaßt mit ihren 9 Abschnitten Nr. 400 bis 408 den gesamten westlichen Kriegsschauplatz von der Schweizer Grenze bis zur Nordseeküste. Panorama of the western theater of operations 1914/15 from Arras to Ostend. The panoramic postcard series includes nine sections, with their No. 400-408 the entire western battlefield from the Swiss border to the North Sea coast. Nr. 408 Wenau-Postkarte Patentamtl. gesch.

German postcard map of the Western Front in Flanders, looking south and including Lille, Arras, Calais, and Ostend. In the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914, the Belgian Army held the territory south of the Yser Canal, visible between Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres (Ypern). Further north is Passchendaele, which British forces took at great cost in 1917.

Image text

Der Kanal

Straße von Calais



The English Channel and the Strait of Calais



Reverse:

Panorama des westlichen Kriegsschauplatzes 1914/15 Von Arras bis Ostende.

Die Panorama-Postkartenreihe umfaßt mit ihren 9 Abschnitten Nr. 400 bis 408 den gesamten westlichen Kriegsschauplatz von der Schweizer Grenze bis zur Nordseeküste.



Panorama of the western theater of operations 1914/15 from Arras to Ostend. The panoramic postcard series includes nine sections, with their No. 400-408 the entire western battlefield from the Swiss border to the North Sea coast.



Nr. 408

Wenau-Postkarte Patentamtl. gesch.

Other views: Larger, Larger, Back

Friday, February 8, 1918

"February 8th [1918].—Drizzle. At Estaires: the front is 5 miles away, points of defence are being dug 5 miles in rear of the town. I looked up the Ambulance Mess of August 1915 in the wine merchant's house, and my billet above the bonnet shop. Everyone not already gone is preparing for an ordered flight, and bearing up bravely. The cutting down of trees is a greater sorrow to the old woman of a little stationery shop; her look when some limbers rattle past loaded with the trunks of elms, and the tone in which she said, 'There will soon be no trees left in Le Nord,' gave an unforgettable touch of poignancy to an impression of overhanging doom."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from the entry for February 8, 1918 from the writings — diaries, letters, and memoirs — of Captain J. C. Dunn, Medical Officer of the Second Battalion His Majesty's Twenty-Third Foot, the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and fellow soldiers who served with him. With Russia negotiating a separate peace with the Central Powers in Brest-Litovsk, the Allies expect a massive German offensive on the Western Front bolstered by soldiers redeployed from the east. Estaires, France, is about 80 km southeast of Calais, 30 km south-southwest of Ypres.

Source

The War the Infantry Knew 1914-1919 by Captain J.C. Dunn, page 443, copyright © The Royal Welch Fusiliers 1987, publisher: Abacus (Little, Brown and Company, UK), publication date: 1994

Tags

1918-02-08, 1918, February, Estaires