A French husband and father sends his love with his original watercolor souvenir of Alsace, July 18, 1915.
Souvenir D'Alsace1915 18 Juilletapporte à mes deux chéris bien amiesMes plus tendres baiserset mon coeurSouvenir of AlsaceJuly 18 1915brings to my two most cherished friends my most tender kissesand my heart.Reverse:Chere petite fleurs d'alsace apporte à mes deux chéris bien amies mes baisers les plus tendre et les plus sacréConna . . . pere qui vous aimeDear little flowers of Alsace bring to my two most cherished friends my most tender and most sacred kissesConna. . . father who loves you
"The troops were bombed all day, and although there were officers and men in this maze of trenches they were completely disorganized, and mixed, mainly owing to the heavy loss in officers and senior non-commissioned officers. It was beyond the power of human endeavor to collect and sort out the men for an organized attack. However, all through the 2nd, in the most gallant way our men, Northumberland Fusiliers and Welsh delivered individual bayonet and bomb attacks in their efforts to dislodge the Germans and to comply with orders."
'Extract from the Loos Battle, 25th September, 1915' Taken from The History of the Cheshire Regiment in the Great War by Arthur Crookenden, Colonel of the Regiment', quoted in Phillip Warner's The Battle of Loos. With some artillery support and their first use of poison gas, the attacking British made some advances on the first day of the Battle, suffering heavy casualties. They continued the attack in the following days with little artillery support, no element of surprise, against a strengthening foe. 'The 2nd' is October 2.
The Battle of Loos by Philip Warner, page 154, copyright © Philip Warner 1976, publisher: Wordsworth Editions Limited, publication date: 2000 (originally 1976)
1915-10-02, 1915, October, Battle of Loos
