I hope many more contributions like this come forward. "It all begins so cheerfully, in gorgeous weather, with the troops itching to join the great adventure abroad. As the 2nd Battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry sets sail from Dublin for Le Havre on an old cargo ship, the SS Buteshire, on 14 August 1914, a chorus of hoots and sirens fills the riverside air as a large crowd sends them noisily on their way. It feels, in the words of a young medical officer on board, "like the realisation of the dream of every soldier". When they head out into the open sea and are sailing towards Land's End, a message is read out to all those on deck from King George V. "You are leaving home to fight for the safety and honour of my Empire," he tells them. "I pray God to bless you and guard you and bring you back victorious." Just two and a half months later the same 26-year-old doctor, who kept a daily diary, beautifully written in pencil in his standard-issue Army Book 129, is holed up in a farm in northeastern France which he has chosen as his aid post, just outside a tiny village called Richebourg-l'Avoué. The battalion is already severely depleted. The retreat from Mons in August and early September and the subsequent "race to the sea" have taken a terrible toll. But what is unfolding now is even worse than what went before." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/03/ww1-memories-imperial-war-museum-share
