Personal Memoirs & Diaries Books

Breaking Us In. On a morning early in August, 1915, the Brigade disembarked at Havre without mishap to man, horse, or material, and proceeded to a Rest Camp on the outskirts of the town. We were in France at last! The same evening the Batteries started to entrain, and every two hours a complete unit was despatched up the line—to an unknown destination. The men received refreshments at various Haltes,... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                               NOVEMBER                                 1667 November 1st. Up betimes, and down to the waterside (calling and drinking a dram of the bottle at Michell's, but saw not Betty), and thence to White Hall and to Sir W. Coventry's... more...

CHAPTER I MAC BECOMES A TROOPER A winter storm raged across the ridges and tore in violent gusts down the gullies, carrying great squalls of fleecy snow. The wind swept the flakes horizontally through the gap where the station track ran an irregular course through the bush; and, though but a short hour had passed since the ominous mass of black cloud had swept over the early morning sky, the ground was... more...

                          DIARY OF SAMUEL PEPYS.                                 OCTOBER                                  1666 October 1st, 1666. Up, and all the morning at the office, getting the list of all the ships and vessels employed since the war, for the Committee of Parliament. At noon with it to Sir... more...

PREFACE The kind reception given to the rough notes from the Author's Diary, which appeared first in the daily papers in Canada, encouraged the production of this book. These notes, in order to make them more readable, have been put in narrative form. There is no pretence that this is a history of the war. It is only a string of pen pictures describing life and incidents of the campaign common to... more...

THE FRENCH POLITICAL EMIGRANTS: MISS BURNEY MARRIES M. D'ARBLAY. [The following section must be pronounced, from the historical point of view, one of the most valuable in the " Diary." It gives us authentic glimpses of some of the actors in that great Revolution, "the Death-Birth of a new order," which was getting itself transacted, with such terrible accompaniments, across the... more...

IN HOSPITAL Close behind the trenches on the Ypres salient stands part of "Chapel Farm"—the rest of it has long been trampled down into the mud by the many hundreds of men who have passed by there. Enough of the ruin still stands for you to trace out the original plan of the place—a house and two barns running round three sides of the farmyard that is fœtid and foul and horrible. It is an... more...

CHAPTER I AT THE AMERICAN EMBASSY Paris, Tuesday, August 4th. I presented myself at the American Embassy today and offered my services to Mr. Herrick. They were promptly accepted. I was put to work with such suddenness that no time was spent in determining my official status. I cannot say whether I am a doorman or an Attaché. At present the duties of the two seem to be identical. Now, as in 1870, the... more...

The troops belonging to the first Hessian Division had as yet not all been assembled in the harbor of Portsmouth, for, on account of the lack of transport ships, General von Mirbach with his regiment and that of Commander Rall, a Knyphausen Company, and a part of the Commissariat still remained at Bremerlehe, when the fleet was ready and the wind often long in coming, was just then very favorable to... more...

I War, war, war. For me the beginning of the war was a torchlight tattoo on Salisbury Plain. It was held on one of those breathless evenings in July when the peace of Europe was trembling in the balance, and when most of us had a heartache in case—in case England, at this time of internal crisis, did not rise to the supreme sacrifice. It was just the night for a tattoo—dark and warm and still. Away... more...