Camera Portrait by E. O. Hoppé....

Captain Lionel Salmon , 1st Bn. the Welch Regt. Captain Helier Percival , M.C., 9th Bn. the Welch Regt. Captain Alan Young , 2nd Bn. the Welch Regt. Captain Colin Macnaughtan , 2nd Dragoon Guards. Lieutenant Richard Young , 9th Bn. the Welch Regt. PART I BELGIUM CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI PART II AT HOME PART III RUSSIA AND THE PERSIAN FRONT CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CONCLUSION PART III RUSSIA AND THE PERSIAN FRONT CONCLUSION...

In presenting these extracts from the diaries of my aunt, the late Miss Macnaughtan, I feel it necessary to explain how they come to be published, and the circumstances under which I have undertaken to edit them. After Miss Macnaughtan's death, her executors found among her papers a great number of diaries. There were twenty-five closely written volumes, which extended over a period of as many years, and formed an almost complete record of every incident of her life during that time. It is amazi

On September 20th, 1914, I left London for Antwerp. At the station I found I had forgotten my passport and Mary had to tear back for it. Great perturbation, but kept this dark from the rest of the staff, for they are all rather serious and I am head of the orderlies. We got under way at 4 a.m. next morning. All instantly began to be sick. I think I was the worst and alarmed everybody within hearing distance. One more voyage I hope—home—then dry land for me. We arrived at Antwerp on the 22nd, twe

12 October. —Everyone has gone back to England except Sister Bailey and me. She is waiting to hand over the wounded to the proper department, and I am waiting to see if I can get on anywhere. It does seem so hard that when men are most in need of us we should all run home and leave them. The noises and racket in Ostend are deafening, and there is panic everywhere. The boats go to England packed every time. I called on the Villiers yesterday, and heard that she is leaving on Tuesday. But they say

21 November. —I am up to my eyes in soup! I have started my soup-kitchen at the station, and it gives me a lot to do. Bad luck to it, my cold and cough are pretty bad! It is odd to wake in the morning in a frozen room, with every pane of glass green and thick with frost, and one does not dare to think of Mary and morning tea! When I can summon enough moral courage to put a foot out of bed I jump into my clothes at once; half dressed, I go to a little tap of cold water to wash, and then, and for

I have not written my diary for some weeks. I went home to England and stayed at Rayleigh House. On my way home I met Mr. F. Ware, who told me submarines were about. As I had but just left a much-shelled town, I think he might have held his peace. The usual warm welcome at Rayleigh House, with Mary there to meet me, and Emily Strutt. I wasn't very tired when I first arrived, but fatigue came out on me like a rash afterwards. I got more tired every day, and ended by having a sort of breakdown. Th

Villa les Chrysanthèmes, La Panne. —I have been to London for a few days to see about the publication of my little war book. I got frightful neuralgia there, and find that as soon as I begin to rest I get ill. I went to a daffodil show, and found myself in the very hall where the military bazaar was held last year. I saw the place where the Welch had their stall. What fun we had! How many of the regiment are left? Only one officer not killed or wounded. Lord Roberts, who opened the bazaar, is go

19 May. —In order to get material for my lecture to munition-workers I was very anxious to see more of the war for myself than is possible at a soup-kitchen, and I asked at the British Mission if I might be given permission to go into the British lines. Major —— in giving me a flat refusal, was a little pompous and important I thought, and he said it was impossible to get near the British. To-day I lunched on the barge with Miss Close, and we took her car and drove to Poperinghe. I hardly like t

October, 1915. —So much has happened since I came home from Flanders in June, and I have not had one moment in which to write of it. I found my house occupied when I returned, so I went to the Petrograd Hotel and stayed there, going out of London for Sundays. Everyone I met in England seemed absorbed in pale children with adenoids. No one cared much about the war. Children in houses nowadays require food at weird hours, not roast mutton and a good plain Christian pudding, but, "You will excuse o

Had any one of them failed to rally round the flag? Had they kept anything back in this great war? She hoped not. The war had tested us more than anything else, and we had responded greatly to it; and the young manhood had come out in a way that was remarkable. We knew very well that when the war was begun we were quite unprepared for it; but she would tell them this, that our army, although small, was the finest army that ever took the field. (Applause.) Miss Macnaughtan then related a number o

Mrs. Wynne, Mr. Bevan, and I left London for Russia on October 16, 1915. We are attached provisionally to the Anglo-Russian hospital, with a stipulation that we are at liberty to proceed to the front with our ambulances as soon as we can get permission to do so. We understand that the Russian wounded are suffering terribly, and getting no doctors, nurses, or field ambulances. We crossed from Newcastle to Christiania in a Norwegian boat, the Bessheim . It was supposed that in this ship there was

We paid our heavy bills and left Petrograd on Monday, the 29th November. Great fuss at the station, as our luggage and the guide had disappeared together. A comfortable, slow journey, and Colonel Malcolm met us at Moscow station and took us to the Hôtel de Luxe—a shocking bad pub, but the only one where we could get rooms. We went out to lunch, and I had a plate of soup, two faens (little wheat cakes), and the fifth part of a bottle of Graves. This modest repast cost sixteen shillings per head.

Tiflis. 1 January, 1916. —Kind wishes from the Grand Duke and everybody. Not such an aimless day as usual. I got into a new sitting-room and put it straight, and in the evening we went to Prince Orloff's box for a performance of "Carmen." It was very Russian and wealthy. At the back of the box were two anterooms, where we sat and talked between the acts, and where tea, chocolates, etc., were served. They say the Prince has £200,000 a year. He is gigantically fat, with a real Cossack face. Scanda

8 February. —A "platteforme" having been found for my car, I and M. Ignatieff of the Red Cross started for Baku to-day. We found our little party at the Métropole Hotel. Went to the MacDonell's to lunch. He is Consul. They are quite charming people, and their little flat was open to us all the time we were at Baku. The place itself is wind-blown and fly-blown and brown, but the harbour is very pretty, with its crowds of shipping, painted with red hulls, which make a nice bit of colour in the gen

My car turned up at Hamadan on March 9th, and on the 13th I said good-bye to my friends at the Consulate, and left the place with a Tartar prince, who cleared his throat from the bottom of his soul, and spat luxuriously all the time. The mud was beyond anything that one could imagine. There was a sea of it everywhere, and men waded knee-deep in slush. My poor car floundered bravely and bumped heavily, till at last it could move no more. Two wheels were sunk far past the hubs, and the step of the

Perhaps a review of her war work by an onlooker, and a slight sketch of Miss Macnaughtan's character, may form an appropriate conclusion to this book. I stayed with my aunt for one night, on August 7th, 1914. One may be pardoned for saying that during the previous three days one had scarcely begun to realise the war, but I was recalled by telegram from Northamptonshire to the headquarters of my Voluntary Aid Detachment in Kent, and spent a night in town en route, to get uniform, etc. Certainly a