Reposted by Trevor T
Happy Birthday to @alexchurchill.bsky.social, whose book RING OF FIRE is a must-read for anyone interested in the First World War! 👇
Trevor T
@gwgadc.bsky.social
320 followers 388 following 68 posts
Part of the Great War Group’s editorial team for Salient Points. Generally you’ll find me ferreting down Great War rabbit holes but my specific interests are Conscientious Objectors; Submarines; Q-Ships; PoWs; and Pigeons. Can’t not mention Pigeons.
![One thing that never occurred to me before writing Ring of Fire - when men were mobilised in 1914, there was no one left to collect the rubbish in Paris. The city began to stink. Here’s one journalist’s account:
'Strolling through the main streets of my neighbourhood, I realize that some public services are completely disorganized by the mobilization which deprives them of any manpower. Refuse, foul smelling, sits on the edge of the pavement, abandoned? In the August heat, the smell was nauseating. Then he saw a lorry with four men on it. The driver was a teenager, two others were well over forty. They appeared to be collecting rubbish, and so Delecraz asked the boy if they might swing past his street. ""Address yourself to the colonel," he replied, pointing out to me a man in an English cap walking alongside. I walk forward to meet him. "Are you the colonel, sir?" I examine him on the sly. Tall, straight, slim. The elderly man had a pronounced regal bearing, and an imperious white moustache:
I am indeed a retired colonel... I have two officer sons. Too old to return to the fire, at the age of seventy, I'm trying to be useful. You see, I am running temporary rubbish collec-tion, while waiting for the business to be reorganized. You have to serve as best you can, at such a time...' And when he opens his jacket to take a note [of my street]... I see the rosette of an officer of the Légion d'Honneur.
Photo from Musée Albert Kahn](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zwjijm4ikcfklhckhncabbxz/bafkreiaxwdspxpuart63sv5n4hofyefh6by7wfhioeueiqokwr7fkckgoi)
