THE FIRST WORLD WAR: A DOCUMENTARY RECORD
Series One: European War 1914-1919, the War Reserve Collection from Cambridge University Library

Part 2: Trench Journals, Personal Narratives & Reminiscences

The War Reserve Collection at Cambridge University Library is one of the finest collections in the world of materials documenting the First World War.  

Part 2 commences coverage of the Collection itself and focuses on Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences.  These sources provide a personal and immediate perspective on the war.  They bring home the realities, of trench warfare, and describe the experiences of infantrymen, officers, airmen, those at training camps, the tank corps, sappers, captured troops, soldiers on troopships heading for hopme and those new to the Front.

Included are 118 Trench Journals such as: The Gasper; The Iodine Chronicle (journal of No 1 Canadian Field Ambulance); Chronicles of the NZEF; La Baïonette; Le Claque á Fond; Pulham Patrol; Anzac Bulletin; Breath o’ the Heather; The Mudhook, incorporating the Dardenelles Dug-out Gossip; The Dead House Corner Gazette (Canadian BEF); Aussie; The Eaglet (US Forces Magazine); The Codford Wheeze; The Fag-End (NZEF); Poison Gas; The Wormlet; and The Whizz-bang.

There are also English, French band German internment camp magazines; two gatherings of manuscript letters from the front; and some 68 personal narratives (mostly privately printed) such as Das Kriegstagbuch and Three Days in France.