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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 16h

Always good to see a memorial that honours those who returned from the First World War as well as those who didn't.

Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

When the French liberated Saint-Quentin in October 1918, they discovered that German engineers had drilled 93 holes in the medieval basilica and filled them with explosives that were ready to be detonated. Luckily, most of the building survived.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

What was it about that post-First World War year of 1919 that made it a golden age for bakeries and cafes?

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

On Tuesday we were driving north through France under clear skies and the temperature never dropped below 25C - so it’s all a bit of a shock!

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Just arrived, and I’m looking forward to reading this (as soon as I’ve finished Chris Marritt’s Did Not Fail, which I am very much enjoying). @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Sitting outside a bar in Ouistreham, Normandy - Sword Beach on D-Day. Is it coincidence that the street lights came on at exactly 19.44?

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Ha! We seriously considered buying in Machpelah when we moved to Hebden Bridge.... an apartment at the top of those steep external stairs. One thing that put us off: actually moving all our stuff in!

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

My initial thought was endnotes - but nearly got swayed by footnotes! I understand what people are saying, but these are academic references that most readers don’t need to look at, rather than additional information. Looking like endnotes as it stands…

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Thanks - though the information is purely references to sources. If anything else is worth telling, I believe it should be in the main text!

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

(Fair number of ibids, given the paucity of sources!)

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Thanks. This would be almost entirely source references.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

These would mostly be short references, rather than additional material that should probably be in the main text.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Here's a question for those of you who enjoy reading non-fiction, and history in particular: Do you prefer to see references as footnotes at the bottom of each page, or endnotes at the end of the book? (A lot is riding on your replies!)

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The Americans didn't do things by halves when they created monuments to their involvement in the First World War. This is the Butte de Montsec monument, designed by architect Egerton Swartwout and commanding sweeping views of the surrounding battlefields.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Amazing how they have survived, isn't it? Unfortunately, the Leeds Pals' camp is now private land, so you can't get up close without a drone.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The Linge is great - especially for seeing how close the trenches sometimes were.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

These ones have, but some of the “preserved” one further north are sometimes literally preserved, eg with concrete “sandbags”.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Thanks to Tom Isitt for alerting me to this fascinating location in his excellent book, Riding in the Zone Rouge: The Tour of the Battlefields 1919 – Cycling's Toughest-Ever Stage Race.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

If you visit the Somme, Ypres or Vimy Ridge, you can see sections of "preserved" First World War trenches. Head south to the St-Mihiel Salient, though, and you can spend hours wandering in the woods among trench systems that have hardly been touched since 1918.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Poilu (roughly translated as "hairy man") was an affectionate term for a French First World War soldier. All over France there are streets named after these soldiers.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The Hotel Regina in Saint-Palais-sur-Mer opened in 1932 and was requisitioned by the Germany army during the occupation of France. General de Gaulle visited after the Liberation in 1945. Today it is an apartment block and it is our home for tonight.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Maurice Blanchard - died for France, May 5, 1915. "The wind whispers his name in the heart of the Ailly wood."

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

And they did find a way to fit him in…

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Sometimes a name just won't fit conveniently on a war memorial plaque.

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Reposted by Nick Jenkins

Ancestral Enquiries - Tony Smith 🌳 @ancestralenq.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

The Grade 2 listed, Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub, Meadow Lane, Leeds which dates from the 19th century is to refurbished with work carried out on timber windows, external doors & building render. 👇 Leeds Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub to undergo repair work after reopening www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Leeds Sam Smith Old Red Lion pub to undergo repair work after reopening

The Tadcaster-based brewery applied to the council for listed building consent for the repair work.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I love an ancient doorway - and the 12th century church of Saint Pierre in Sers, Charente, has a particularly pleasing one (nice tower too).

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

And it closes with The Battle of the Somme, a great tune by William Lawrie, who served in France as pipe major of the 8th Argyllshire Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. He fell ill in 1916, the year of the battle, and was invalided to Britain, where he died on November 28 that year.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

About 720 Accrington Pals, from Lancashire, went into action from this position on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - 235 were killed and 350 injured in just half an hour. This is their memorial. Listen to Mike Harding's moving song about them, in the link below.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Duilio Donzelli (1882-1966) was an Italian sculptor who was forced out of Luxembourg in 1924 because of his Communist membership. He set up a studio in Lacroix-sur-Meuse, France, where he produced this remarkable war memorial, among others, later fleeing the Nazis in 1940.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The classical fountain in Lacroix-sur-Meuse was built in 1838 and restored in the 1920s - but it still shows clear signs of First World War damage.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The Voie Sacrée (Sacred Way) is the road that took troops and supplies to defend the vital city of Verdun in the First World War. The road is now numbered RD1916 in tribute to its vital role in that year, and since 1923 it has been marked every kilometre by one of these bornes.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Memorial debate after the First World War: should they be purely commemorative (eg a cross) or functional (such as a village hall)? The town of Holyoke, Massachusetts, went for the latter, providing a modern wash-house for the people of Loupmont, Meuse, in honour of US troops who died nearby.

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Reposted by Nick Jenkins

Blue Wave @votebiue.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Tell me this doesn’t give you chills. Japan opened the 12D theater. It is beyond your imagination.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I was working at the Yorkshire Post, and by the end of that first Sunday, bouquets of flowers had already been left - inexplicably - outside our Leeds office.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The Tranchée de la Soif (Trench of Thirst), in the Meuse, France... in May 1915, troops of the French 172nd Infantry Regiment were cut off in a captured German trench after advancing too quickly. They held out for three days without food or water before finally surrendering.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

Then and now... this IWM picture (October 2 1918) shows Brigadier-General John Vaughan Campbell addressing British troops who had crossed Riqueval bridge over the Saint-Quentin canal, breaking through the Hindenburg Line and helping to end the First World War. The scene today is far more peaceful.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

There are 5,590 German soldiers in this First World War cemetery in France - two to each cross. The graves that stand out, though, are those of the Jewish men who died for their German homeland.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Portsmouth raised money to help the ruined Somme village of Combles after the First World War. That didn't stop the residents of Combles taking the mickey out of the visiting dignitaries of Portsmouth in their village's theatrical revue. (Some knowledge of French required...)

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Impossible to imagine the pain of losing four sons to war. This window is in the post-First World War church in Metz-en-Couture, Pas-de-Calais, France. And there are five members of the Raingeval family on the village war memorial.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) was descended from enslaved African-Americans but graduated from the Royal College of Music and became a popular composer. He tore up this last movement of his only symphony after it was criticised, but a fellow student stuck it back together.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Just an ordinary farmhouse in north Dordogne, but it was a dangerous place in 1944. That June, more than 1,000 Résistants passed through this arch to sign up for the RAC brigade, formed by Rodolphe Charles Cézard, which fought to liberate several cities across the region.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Kathleen Brown was sentenced to seven days solitary for throwing stones in Whitehall, London, in 1909. She returned home to Newcastle after release and was greeted by a big group of supporters at Central station, before giving a speech to a large crowd at the Haymarket.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

These blue plaques on houses in the Tynemouth area were part of an admirable project, presumably to mark the centenary of the First World War. Shame the URL link now takes you to an Indonesian cryptocurrency site.

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Nick Jenkins @nickjhistorian.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Everyone knows of Horatio Nelson, but few remember Cuthbert Collingwood, his number two who took over at Trafalgar after his death. He was from Newcastle, and his statue at the mouth of the Tyne is monumental - flanked by four cannon from his Trafalgar ship, the Royal Sovereign.

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