Reading and Using Trench Newspapers
Adam R. Seipp
On 26 February 1918, the BEF Times published a new edition, the sixth in its two-year run, in the sector held by the 24th Division in Flanders. This little paper, printed on a small press found in a village just behind the lines, was the product of a British Army Captain named F. J. Roberts of the 12th Battalion, Sherwood Foresters. He and a few collaborators overcame repeated technical and logistical problems to keep the paper in production, even as the division moved along the Front. Variously called the Somme Times, the Kemmel Times and the New Church Times, the paper is best known by its original name the Wipers Times. Roberts titled his newspaper after the habitual British mispronunciation of the devastated Belgian city of Ypres. The Wipers Times is probably the most famous example of trench journalism in the English-speaking world.
You will encounter this remarkable piece of journalism in the collection you are using right now. You will see a fascinating portrait of the psychological life of a handful of well-educated, highly-literate, and deeply funny young officers, writing for their fellow soldiers and expressing opinions about the war, the Army, and life on the home front. A mock-epic poem called The Battle of Oxford Street tells the story of a squabble over rationed groceries in London. An 'American' correspondent apologizes for his earlier claim that that war would end “before I dipped a hoof in this mud.” An advertisement for war bonds suggests that “now that all Subalterns get about a million pounds a year, save for the future. Don’t throw it away on leave, Amiens, and other fleeting pleasures.”