Ablain-Saint-Nazaire et Carency: la Reconquête
Un épisode de la bataille de l' Artois d' octobre 1914 à mai 1915. Ablain et Carency avant, pendant et après la Grande Guerre. Le Moulin Topart, la Brasserie et la Kommandantur de Carency, la Blanche Voie, Lorette, Vimy, la Souchez, le Cabaret Rouge.
Home Lad Home - an evocative song of a lost way of life during the First World War
The poem Homeward was written by Cecily Fox-Smith during World War I. Sarah Morgan came across an unattributed, and partly altered version and set this to a tune for the Mick Ryan opera, All in Day’s Work. This is the version that is sung regularly as Home Lads Home (Dick Henry-Wood performs it so well with a squeeze box). I have gone back to the original poem for my version but still with Sarah Morgan’s marvellous tune. My grandfather was a farrier with the Royal Field Artillery in 1916 and memories of him made this song too emotional to sing for quite a while. This recording finally got me detached enough to enjoy singing the song. Sung by Alan Rosevear in Exeter
HOMEWARD (Cecily Fox Smth witha few tweaks)
Behind a trench in Flanders the sun was dropping low,
With tramp, and creak and jingle I heard the gun-teams go;
And something seemed to 'mind me, a-dreaming as I lay,
Of my own old Hampshire village at the quiet end of day.
Chorus; Home, lad, home, all among the corn and clover!
Home, lad, home when the time for work is over!
Oh there's rest for horse and man when the longest day is done
And they go home together at setting of the sun!
Brown thatch and gardens blooming with lily and with rose,
And the cool shining river so pleasant where it flows,
White fields of oats and barley, and elderflower like foam,
And the sky gold with sunset, and the horses going home!
Chorus; Home, lad, home, all among the corn and clover!
Home, lad, home when the time for work is over!
Oh there's rest for horse and man when the longest day is done
And they go home together at setting of the sun!
Old Captain, Prince and Blossom, I see them all so plain,
With tasseled ear-caps nodding along the leafy lane,
Somewhere a bird is calling, and the swallow flying low,
And the lads sitting sideways, and singing as they go.
Chorus
Well gone is many a lad now, and many a horse gone too,
Of all those lads and horses in those old fields I knew;
There's Dick that died at Cuinchy and Prince beside the guns
On that red road of glory, a mile or two from Mons!
Dead lads and shadowy horses - I see them just the same,
I see them and I know them, and name them each by name,
Going down to shining waters when all the West's a-glow,
And the lads sitting sideways and singing as they go.
Home, lad, home . . . with the sunset on their faces!
Home, lad, home . . . to those quiet happy places!
There's rest for horse and man when the hardest fight is done,
And they go home together at setting of the sun!
Chorus
Royal Engineer tunnelling companies | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
00:01:41 1 Background
00:03:21 2 World War I formation
00:04:23 2.1 Request and proposal
00:06:18 2.2 Kitchener responds
00:10:25 2.3 First tunnelling companies
00:12:27 2.4 First action: Hill 60, Ypres Salient
00:14:37 2.5 Expansion
00:16:00 2.6 Methodology
00:16:54 2.7 Recruitment
00:18:29 2.8 Digging
00:20:19 2.9 Working conditions
00:22:11 2.10 Mine rescue
00:24:40 2.11 Underground fighting
00:25:42 3 Counter-mining
00:25:51 3.1 Listening
00:28:07 3.2 Underground tactics
00:29:25 4 British advantages
00:32:22 5 Operations
00:34:13 5.1 Hooge and Mont Sorrel
00:36:12 5.2 Battle of the Somme
00:38:57 5.3 Battle of Messines
00:44:05 5.4 Battle of Vimy Ridge
00:47:07 6 End of mining operations
00:49:12 6.1 Battle of Arras
00:52:38 6.2 Second Battle of Passchendaele
00:54:05 7 Remains and memorials
00:57:52 8 Operations since World War I
00:58:13 9 Awards
00:58:22 9.1 Victoria Cross
01:00:08 9.2 Distinguished Conduct Medal
01:00:40 10 Units
01:03:54 11 See also
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Speaking Rate: 0.904920163144387
Voice name: en-GB-Wavenet-D
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- Socrates
SUMMARY
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Royal Engineer tunnelling companies were specialist units of the Corps of Royal Engineers within the British Army, formed to dig attacking tunnels under enemy lines during the First World War.
The stalemate situation in the early part of the war led to the deployment of tunnel warfare. After the first German Empire attacks on 21 December 1914, through shallow tunnels underneath no man's land and exploding ten mines under the trenches of the Indian Sirhind Brigade, the British began forming suitable units. In February 1915, eight Tunnelling Companies were created and operational in Flanders from March 1915. By mid-1916, the British Army had around 25,000 trained tunnellers, mostly volunteers taken from coal mining communities. Almost twice that number of attached infantry worked permanently alongside the trained miners acting as 'beasts of burden'.From the spring of 1917 the whole war became more mobile, with grand offensives at Arras, Messines and Passchendaele. There was no longer a place for a tactic that depended upon total stasis for its employment. The tactics and counter-tactics required deeper and deeper tunnelling, hence more time and more stable front lines were also required, so offensive and defensive military mining largely ceased. Underground work continued, with the tunnellers concentrating on deep dugouts for troop accommodation, a tactic used particularly in the Battle of Arras.