Photos from 1914 to 1918

[whiffler]

My apologies.

Anyway, on re-viewing the whole damned lot, I was unable to locate the one in the snow. The number of photos changed from 1038 to 1039, so I suspect something in the indexing. However, I came up with this one:-

http://www.1066online.co.uk/gallery/old ... d-oct-1911

Apparently this was known as Reeves Corner :- see 1924/5 in http://www.1066online.co.uk/gallery/old ... d-oct-1911

Modern Reeves Corner in high st, old town where family relocated and changed trade, stage for bands playing during carnivals

http://uk.picclick.com/Hastings-a-photo ... id=1&pid=1

and from yet another source

http://www.gravelroots.net/history/454_1.html#here

While I think of it, as the troops were passing the York Hotel, they might have been leaving the Town Hall and had emerged from Queens Rd or Station Rd ?


In short, OP's original enquiry should be answered 'in Wellington Place, passing York Hotel from direction of Reeves Corner"



Annnnnnd ...... breaaaaathe

[Richard]

There can be no doubt that the working classes were widely regarded as being used as disposable 'cannon fodder' during WWI.
However, during that war, more than 200 generals were killed, wounded or captured. Most visited the front lines every day, in battle they were considerably closer to the action than generals are today.
(British Soldiers had even less chance of survival during the Crimean War, 1853-6).

The great majority of casualties in WW1 were from the working class (by numbers alone) but bear in mind that 2% of the British army's ordinary soldiers were killed during the war, compared with 17% of its officers. Eton alone lost more than 1,000 former pupils - 20% of those who served.
Morale was high with absentee rates due to sickness barely above peacetime levels.
All armies in the Great War turned a blind eye to 'kid soldiers'. In the beginning of the war the enthusiasm to join the battle was so great that young boys (and even girls) could manage to use trickery to enlist.
Recruiting Officers in all countries were eager to accept almost anyone who showed up to join their armies.

[Kieron_P]

Thank you all for the responses. Its strange how the changing shop fronts and redesigns can make identifying where the original photographer stood tricky!

I'll post some more of these photographs if they are of interest.

Thanks again.

Kieron

[Gerry Glyde]

Hi Kieron
Will be pleased to see all photos. My g/dad was one of the volunteers from the town, having firstly joined the army as an underage boy for the Boer War. He survived the Somme and Ypres unfortunately 10s of thousands did not

[Gerry Glyde]

Have to disagree with Richard about morale being high. After the euphoria of "it will all be over by Christmas", the possibility of excitement and adventure, the White feather, and Kitchener's "Your country needs you!" by late 1915/16 after the disaster of Gallipoli, and the battle of the Somme, attitudes began to change - but the dogged duty persisted.

The general staff was horrified at Christmas 1914 with the exchange of presents and singing across no-mans land and that the fraternisation might mean the men would not fight. The army also used the execution at dawn of soldiers who were exhausted and could not fight or walked away from the battlefield as a strong form of coercion when attitudes of the soldiers was hardening. By 1917 after the revolution in Russia, attitudes at home were changing, so much so that the government refused to give asylum to George V cousin, the Tsar in case it caused political unrest at home as formerly secret documents show, and Russian troops began to go home. Dissolution continued in the trenches, particularly after German civilians overthrew their monarchy.

In late 1917 the British Police formed a Trade Union and took strike action which led to the law that bans them from taking strike action after the government created the Police Federation. Sporadic strikes had been occurring across industry. In 1919 at what was supposed to be a Victory celebration in Luton attended by generals and other VIPs the then aggrieved ex-service men rioted that resulted in them burning down the Town Hall where the celebration dinner for the toffs was supposed to be held. During the latter part of the war there was continual concern at home in case the revolutionary movements on the continent would spread.