Page 23 - Sylvia Malt - Side by Side

1918 - Operation Michael began on 21st March in the North-east France between Lens
and Le Fere. The allies made significant early gains, but eventually over 72,000 British
troops were taken prisoner. (William Martin/William Darrington)

Although the British Army was the most mechanised of all the armies in the Great War, it
still relied largely on horse power for the transportation of supplies, guns, ammunition and
men, particularly in the extremely muddy conditions. A driver in WW1 rode on team horses
which pulled wagons, guns, ambulances and equipment. Each driver was responsible for
his horses and he teamed up with two other drivers in order to pull the wagons. (Edward
Brigden)

The First World War was extremely labour intensive - hundreds of miles of new trenches
were continually being built, old ones repaired or maintained. As the horrendous conflict
continued, there was an acute shortage of manpower to do this hard and exhausting
work. Sir Douglas Haig requested an increase in the force of an additional 21,000 men and
this demand was filled by importing men from China, India, South Africa, Egypt and other
places within the British Empire were also called upon to supply manpower. By the war’s
end a total of about 300,000 such workers had been engaged. It was thought that as many
as 50,000 Chinese workers were working in France, rising to 96,000 by August 1918.
(FrederickCorke)

By late September 1918, Marshal Foch had finalised his plans to deliver a succession of
hammer blows on the Western Front and on 26th September he launched an attack in the
Argonne region of eastern France involving some 600,000 allied troops, 5,000 guns and
around 500 tanks and 500 aircraft. (Captain North)

War in the Air. The Royal Flying Corps was the air-arm of the British Army during the
First World War until it officially merged with the Royal Naval Air Service on 1st April 1918
to form the Royal Air Force. During the early part of the war, the RFC supported the British
Army by artillery co-operation and photographic reconnaissance. The men were known as
observers. This work gradually led RFC pilots into aerial battles with German pilots, and
later in the war, including the strafing of enemy infantry and emplacements, the bombing of
German military airfields and later the strategic bombing of German industrial and
transportation facilities. (Thomas Humphrey)

The Russian Revolution. Following the dramatic Bolshevist Revolution in 1917,
Winston Churchill (Minister for Munitions in Lloyd George’s Government) decided to send
several British battalions to Russia to support the “white” Russians (who were opposing
the “red” Communist Russians) in the bitter battle for the soul of the huge Russian
Continent. On the 18th July 1918, the 25th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment, left the relative
security and comfort of their Hong Kong barracks to embark on the ship “Ping Suie” and
immediately set sail for Russia. Some 16 days later, on 3rd August, after a largely trouble
free voyage, they landed at the port of Vladivostok. They were to remain in Russia for
almost a year and travelled thousands of miles on the notorious Trans-Siberian Railway.
(Henry Wells)

Although the war officially ended on 11th November 1918, thousands of soldiers died after
this date. Men were scattered across the Globe and it would take many, many months for
the authorities to stand-down and repatriate the vast numbers into civilian life. By a cruel
twist of fate, a pandemic flu outbreak occurred in 1918, when vast numbers of civilians and
servicemen, whose resistance had been substantially lowered over the four long and hard
years of warfare, succumbed to the deadly virus. (George Mepham)

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