Western Front – WW1

The thousand yard stare

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South Africans in WW1. This is face of defeat, fatigue and war – this time from the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge. This German prisoner of war was captured in the attack on Vampire Farm by Scottish and South African troops near Potijze on the 20th September 1917.  This photograph of his expression shows his emotional and physical state of mind, it’s a phenomenon known to soldiers as “the thousand yard stare,” and it is a condition brought about by the extreme stressors of combat.

Image copyright Imperial War Museum

Call for South Africans to avenge Edith Cavell

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1915 – Fascinating World War 1 recruiting poster urging South Africans to arms. The poster urges South Africans to avenge the execution of a nurse – Edith Cavell (1865-1915) who was a Red Cross nurse in Belgium, executed by the Germans during the First World War.

The British-born Cavell arrived in Belgium in 1907 to take up the post as matron of a training school for nurses. When the Germans invaded in 1914 she remained in Belgium joining the Red Cross and treating the wounded of both sides. However, in August 1915 she was charged, along with an accomplice, with aiding the escape of over two-hundred Allied soldiers to neutral Holland. She confessed her guilt and faced the firing squad in October.

Her execution provoked an outcry in Britain and was often cited in Allied propaganda as an example of German brutality.

Copyright – Imperial War Museum

South Africans in the Battle of Menin Road Ridge – WW1

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Rare photo of South Africans in action during World War One. Battle of the Menin Road Ridge; part of the Ypres initiatives. A wounded South African being given a hot drink by a Padre and a comrade, after the attack on Potsdam (a German stronghold near Zonnebeke). Near Potijze, 20 September 1917.

Image copyright – The Imperial War Museum