Letter from Ted Hurdley

A CHELMARSH SOLDIER’S INTERESTING LETTER
[Bridgnorth Journal, 21st July, 1917]

A Chelmarsh resident has handed us a letter received from a relative on active service on the Western fron. It is a well-written document and most interesting. We give the first part below, and the second and concluding portion will appear next week:- T arrive at how we stand today I must take you back to 1914. Passing over the Allied retirement and the German blunders which led to the Battle of the Marne (that great historical event that lost Germany the world and gave us the chance of arriving where we are today), to the time when both armies by deploying outwards faced each other from the Alps to the sea. There was a momentary pause, nobody seemed to know what had happened. Germany was licking her sores, and we after the awful mauling we had received were gazing into the terrible future. We never tried to deceive ourselves, our hopes were few. There faced us the greatest organised power the world had ever produced; how powerful we alone knew. Could we stick the hammering which she was going to give us, long enough for Kitchener to raise a force as strong as this that faced us, that took Germany 20 years to build up. Would England believe even now, after her best men had been vainly praying to her for the last two or three years. Would she believe him when he told her the number of men he would require to save her, and as those German batteries massed, leaving [more to be transcribed – also part two printed on 28th July (P1000340.JPG)]