Allied Soldiers at rest (british or Dominion)

[gporta]

Another image from yet another yellowing old magazine. I hope it can be of interest to someone

This time the caption reads (roughly translated): "The Allied Offensive in South-West Flanders. Soldiers resting after the advance"

I'm not an expert enough in the subject, so I can't tell you whether these fellows are British or Dominion soldiers. I am also posting a detail in which a shoulder title and a badge can be seen (though not in detail).

The magazine's publishing date is September 8th 1917.

Gloria

[spike10764]

The soldiers look absolutely "all done in" on this picture Gloria. Thank you for sharing it with us and I hope someone can fill in more detail for you.

[Joe Sweeney]

They are all wearing P14 Infantry equipment.

This is almost certainly British troops.

This type of equipment was rarely worn by dominion troops.

I don't think the Australians ever adopted it and for the Canadians, the Canadian MGC adopted it but no others. If it was seen worn by Canadian Infantry it usually was a single set amongst a lot of web. I can only recall one photo like this.

Joe Sweeney

[gporta]

Joe, Spike,

I had similarly suspected the 1914 leather equipment, but I wasn't altogether sure about it being used or not by dominion soldiers, so thanks for the information.

As far as the picture is related to the fighting in Flanders, I noticed that the soldiers are not as muddy as one would have been lead to expect... maybe the rains were not too heavy at this time of the year yet...

Even though the town -or village- seems the tipical undistinguishable amount of rubble many front-line settlements were turned into, maybe the wall, and the street number, might be recognized somehow.

Gloria

[marc glorieux]

Gloria,

The great painted house number “25” lets me think that the house has served for billeting German soldiers. This was very usual in the time of the German occupation. (a great number made it the soldiers easier to find the right lodging house…)

But the village (south west flanders) and street? . What villages were liberated by this British unit on 8 September ’17 or the days before?

The billetings were on a "save" distance from the front . And the allied offensive was not so spectacular (in distance) in 1917

Marc

[gporta]

But the village (south west flanders) and street? . What villages were liberated by this British unit on 8 September ’17 or the days before?

The billetings were on a "save"  distance from the front . And the allied offensive was not so spectacular (in distance) in 1917

Marc

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the info, Marc.

Bear in mind that the date is that of publication, so the photo could be from weeks before. I thought that the number was a plain street number, so your mention of it as an indicator of German billets is enlightening.

Maybe the placing of the image is inaccurate, and the photo was taken further south, in the Somme area (where the germans had retreated to a more fortified line, leaving everything between the new Hindenburg line and the Allied lines destroyed. Just my guess, of course.

Gloria

[Joe Sweeney]

Gloria,

The photo may pre date Sept 17 by quite a bit.

I cannot make out any SBR's, which were universal by Sep 17.

Some of the cross straps look to be PH bag (width), but can't make-out a bag.

Not sure where to place the photo. Might have been taken early spring 17 in an area not near the front lines but recently evacuated by the Germans during the winter?

Joe Sweeney

[Borden Battery]

If the date of the photograph is correct, then it is very unlikely we are looking at Canadian Corps troops.

"Of a total of sixty British and Dominion divisions on the Western Front at the end of October, all but nine were sooner or later engaged in the Flanders offensive. The first intimation that Canadian troops would be employed there came on 2 October 1917, when Field-Marshal Haig ordered the First Army to withdraw two Canadian divisions into G.H.Q. reserve; and next day General Currie noted in his diary that two divisions which had just come out of the line "might go north". By 5 October the C.-in-C. had reached a decision to employ the full Canadian Corps of four divisions; on the 9th he issued orders for its transfer from the First to the Second Army."

P 286

"The front line which the Canadians took over from the 2nd Anzac Corps on 18 October [1917] ran along the valley of the Stroombeek between Gravenstafel Ridge and the heights about Passchendaele. It was virtually the same front as that which they had held in April 1915 before the gas attack. The right hand boundary was the Ypres-Roulers railway, from which the line slanted north-westward for 3000 yards, crossing the main Ypres-Zonnebeke-Passchendaele road about a mile south west of Passchendaele. This road, and the parallel one to the north passing through Gravenstafel, were the only landmarks by which the relieving Canadians who had fought at Ypres in 1915 could orient themselves. Hardly a trace remained of the villages of St. Jean, Wieltje and Fortuin; and the disappearance of remembered woods and farm-houses had reduced the countryside to an unrecognizable waste of ridge and hollow."

P 286

Source: Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War

- Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914-1919, Colonel G. W. L. Nicholson, C.D., Army Historical Section

[Robert Dunlop]

As far as the picture is related to the fighting in Flanders, I noticed that the soldiers are not as muddy as one would have been lead to expect... maybe the rains were not too heavy at this time of the year yet...

Gloria, you have raised an interesting point. Most accounts of Third Ypres focus on the horrendous conditions. Particularly the personal memoirs. It is notable, however, that many photographs illustrate how parts of the battlefield were quite dry. Mostly, these were areas of high ground, but there were also some very dry spells throughout the long campaign in the Ypres salient.

Others have pointed to this photo having been taken much earlier. Assuming it was taken either during the Battle of Messines or sometime before September 1917, the relatively clean appearance of the soldiers could still be consistent with this area.

Robert