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Somme Mud: The war experiences of an Australian infantryman in France, 1916–1919
It's the end of the 1916 winter and the conditions are almost unbelievable. We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it, work in it, fight in it, wade in it and many of us die in it. We see it, feel it, eat it and curse it, but we can't escape it, not even by dying.' Somme Mud tells of the devastating experiences of Edward Lynch, a young Australian private (18 when he enlisted) during the First World War when he served with the 45th battalion of the Australian Infantry Forces on the Western Front at the Somme, which saw the most bloody and costly fighting of the war. In just eight weeks, there were 23,000 Australian casualties. The original edition of twenty chapters, was written in pencil in twenty school exercise books in 1921, probably to help exorcise the horrendous experiences Private Lynch had witnessed during his three years at war from mid-1916 until his repatriation home in mid-1919. Lynch had been wounded three times, once seriously and spent over six months in hospital in England. Published here for the first time, and to the great excitement of historians at the War Memorial Somme Mud is a precious find, a discovered treasure that vividly captures the magnitude of war through the day-to-day experiences of an ordinary infantryman. From his first day setting sail for France as the band played 'Boys of the Dardanelles' and the crowd proudly waved their fresh-faced boys off, to the harsh reality of the trenches of France and its pale-faced weary men, Lynch captures the essence and contradictions of war. Somme Mud is Australia's version of All Quiet on the Western Front. Told with dignity, candour and surprising wit, it is a testament to the power of the human spirit, a moving true story of humanity and friendship. It will cause a sensation when it is published.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 88 reviews
November 18, 2023
Shines the best when being a combat memoir. Vivid and stark.
June 6, 2023
Every now and then one comes across an especially extraordinary book. Somme Mud, real diary of an Australian infantryman serving in the trenches in World War I, is one such book.
It’s not a perfect book: some aspects of Lynch’s time at war are skipped over, such as time spent recovering from wounds or when resting between campaigns. Whether this is down to Lynch, or the editor who knocked the diary into shape posthumously, I don’t know. Overall, these don’t detract from what is an excellent, moving and often harrowing account of a dreadful war.
And harrowing it is: the descriptions of the relentless deaths and injuries are often graphic, though never indulgent. The sheer senselessness and, to a certain extent, gory tedium and monotony of the war bear down on the reader page after page. That men – some who were little more than boys – could cope with this terrible situation is nothing short of astonishing.
There are acts of heroism, moments of incredible luck and even some really quite funny situations. And of course there are accounts of violence, brutality and killing that turn the stomach – and, in the middle of it all, some genuinely moving acts of kindness, even towards the enemy.
I can totally understand many readers not having the stomach to read a book like this – but it deserves to be read, to keep alive the reality of a war that distinguishes itself in history by the sheer expendability of human life.
It’s not a perfect book: some aspects of Lynch’s time at war are skipped over, such as time spent recovering from wounds or when resting between campaigns. Whether this is down to Lynch, or the editor who knocked the diary into shape posthumously, I don’t know. Overall, these don’t detract from what is an excellent, moving and often harrowing account of a dreadful war.
And harrowing it is: the descriptions of the relentless deaths and injuries are often graphic, though never indulgent. The sheer senselessness and, to a certain extent, gory tedium and monotony of the war bear down on the reader page after page. That men – some who were little more than boys – could cope with this terrible situation is nothing short of astonishing.
There are acts of heroism, moments of incredible luck and even some really quite funny situations. And of course there are accounts of violence, brutality and killing that turn the stomach – and, in the middle of it all, some genuinely moving acts of kindness, even towards the enemy.
I can totally understand many readers not having the stomach to read a book like this – but it deserves to be read, to keep alive the reality of a war that distinguishes itself in history by the sheer expendability of human life.
April 16, 2012
Somme Mud is a memoir by E. F. Lynch, written in the 1920s, and published in 2006. This book has been repeatedly called the Australian All Quiet on the Western Front, and has apparently started to be included on school reading lists to try and make callow young school children understand What Their Forefathers Went Through. This book is an absolutely startling testament to the psyche of the soldiers. It will resonate with anyone who is interested in the ANZAC experience, but I think it has broader appeal as well.
The story of Somme Mud’s genesis captures the imagination. After his tour in Flanders from 1916 to 1919, Lynch returned home and got on with his life. He went to teacher’s college, married, and had children. But during the 1920s and 1930s he wrote the first draft of Somme Mud into notebooks. Later, he typed it up and tried to get it published to earn some money during the depression, but there was no appetite for books about the war, and it sat in the family archives until 2002 when Lynch’s grandson showed it to academic Will Davies, who was enthralled by the story and had it published. I picked up Somme Mud because of the story of its inception. My grandfather wrote a similar memoir of his time in the Merchant Marine and the Navy during WWII, the five bound copies of which are passed from hand to hand around my family. So I identified personally with Lynch’s family and the eighty-year journey this book has been on to get published.
Somme Mud has the same feeling as All Quiet on the Western Front of the author trying to work through the images and memories of Flanders that are stuck in his mind. It reads as a series of vignettes, covering some moments in detail and in other places skipping over months at a time. Both reflect at length on the futility and cost of war; Nulla often reflects on people who have gone west, and is particularly bothered by the suddenness and meanness of death in the trenches, and the number of Australian soldiers buried so far from home. He reflects ironically at one point on Rupert Brooke’s “corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” There is no context of where the engagements Nulla participates in sit in the overall battles, or where the battles sit in the war. It’s written for an audience that is familiar with at least the general shape of the WWI Western Front (or is comfortable going with the flow). I suspect this is partly due to a hatchet job by the editor, trying to cut it down to a readable length.
Like All Quiet, Somme Mud operates exclusively at the level of the narrator. Like Paul Baumer, the narrator, Nulla, is commonly understood to be the author himself, probably with a few details of his friends and cronies thrown into the mix. But where All Quiet is ultimately pessimistic, as Baumer watches his friends die and be crippled until he loses himself entirely, Somme Mud is more optimistic, and peppered throughout with what one might characterise as the ANZAC spirit. As a result, Nulla is probably a more interesting narrator than Paul Baumer. Despite periods of exhaustion, depression and trauma, Nulla remains essentially upbeat. He epitomises mateship, that great ANZAC virtue, and enjoys the simple pleasure or stealing an officer’s kit, a relief’s clean blanket, or a French farmer’s goose (and blaming it on the Liverpudlian regiment next door). You also get a better sense of the totality of infantry operations from Nulla, who moonlights as a runner and signaller at various times, and of the fundamental resilience to trauma that enabled these men to come home from the war and somehow take up civilian life. You see the discipline and determination that allowed the ANZACs to distinguish themselves at Pozieres, Amiens and Mont-St-Quentin. You also see the lack of respect for authority and the juvenile sense of humour that annoyed the British so much.
However, Somme Mud doesn’t employ any of the literary techniques that All Quiet does. If there was a sense of narrative developing, it was lost in the editing. It’s a pity that Lynch wasn’t alive when this was prepared for publication, because it would have benefited from the author being able to go in and provide bridging passages in places, to try and develop (or preserve) the sense of narrative. As a result, there are bits of this book that are a hard slog, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to someone who wasn’t innately interested in the subject matter. Other books have done a better job of blending memoir and fiction.
I would be inclined to include Somme Mud on a compulsory reading list for WWI, which may be partly my Aussie bias speaking, but I think it is a fascinating view of everyday life in the war, and a tribute to the men who went through it: those who died and those who survived.
The story of Somme Mud’s genesis captures the imagination. After his tour in Flanders from 1916 to 1919, Lynch returned home and got on with his life. He went to teacher’s college, married, and had children. But during the 1920s and 1930s he wrote the first draft of Somme Mud into notebooks. Later, he typed it up and tried to get it published to earn some money during the depression, but there was no appetite for books about the war, and it sat in the family archives until 2002 when Lynch’s grandson showed it to academic Will Davies, who was enthralled by the story and had it published. I picked up Somme Mud because of the story of its inception. My grandfather wrote a similar memoir of his time in the Merchant Marine and the Navy during WWII, the five bound copies of which are passed from hand to hand around my family. So I identified personally with Lynch’s family and the eighty-year journey this book has been on to get published.
Somme Mud has the same feeling as All Quiet on the Western Front of the author trying to work through the images and memories of Flanders that are stuck in his mind. It reads as a series of vignettes, covering some moments in detail and in other places skipping over months at a time. Both reflect at length on the futility and cost of war; Nulla often reflects on people who have gone west, and is particularly bothered by the suddenness and meanness of death in the trenches, and the number of Australian soldiers buried so far from home. He reflects ironically at one point on Rupert Brooke’s “corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” There is no context of where the engagements Nulla participates in sit in the overall battles, or where the battles sit in the war. It’s written for an audience that is familiar with at least the general shape of the WWI Western Front (or is comfortable going with the flow). I suspect this is partly due to a hatchet job by the editor, trying to cut it down to a readable length.
Like All Quiet, Somme Mud operates exclusively at the level of the narrator. Like Paul Baumer, the narrator, Nulla, is commonly understood to be the author himself, probably with a few details of his friends and cronies thrown into the mix. But where All Quiet is ultimately pessimistic, as Baumer watches his friends die and be crippled until he loses himself entirely, Somme Mud is more optimistic, and peppered throughout with what one might characterise as the ANZAC spirit. As a result, Nulla is probably a more interesting narrator than Paul Baumer. Despite periods of exhaustion, depression and trauma, Nulla remains essentially upbeat. He epitomises mateship, that great ANZAC virtue, and enjoys the simple pleasure or stealing an officer’s kit, a relief’s clean blanket, or a French farmer’s goose (and blaming it on the Liverpudlian regiment next door). You also get a better sense of the totality of infantry operations from Nulla, who moonlights as a runner and signaller at various times, and of the fundamental resilience to trauma that enabled these men to come home from the war and somehow take up civilian life. You see the discipline and determination that allowed the ANZACs to distinguish themselves at Pozieres, Amiens and Mont-St-Quentin. You also see the lack of respect for authority and the juvenile sense of humour that annoyed the British so much.
However, Somme Mud doesn’t employ any of the literary techniques that All Quiet does. If there was a sense of narrative developing, it was lost in the editing. It’s a pity that Lynch wasn’t alive when this was prepared for publication, because it would have benefited from the author being able to go in and provide bridging passages in places, to try and develop (or preserve) the sense of narrative. As a result, there are bits of this book that are a hard slog, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to someone who wasn’t innately interested in the subject matter. Other books have done a better job of blending memoir and fiction.
I would be inclined to include Somme Mud on a compulsory reading list for WWI, which may be partly my Aussie bias speaking, but I think it is a fascinating view of everyday life in the war, and a tribute to the men who went through it: those who died and those who survived.
January 30, 2013
We are so accustomed to seeing war in movies and on television, sanitized of the true horror of the battlefield, a book like this can be both enlightening and traumatizing. There's a very interesting scene over halfway into the book, where the narrator joins the generals at the infantry command headquarters, high on a hill, with a view of the conflict which embraces the entire front line as it makes steady progress in pursuit of the German army. From up there at a comfortable distance, it all looks so orderly. The artillery shells fall in a beautiful line which moves steadily toward the enemy, followed by the line of infantry men, also making steady progress. This is the only point in the book where we are not subjected to the gruesome carnage, the mangled bodies, the blood, the ripped chunks of flesh, the shattered bones, the corpses, the screams of agony, the final gurgling of a man in the final seconds of his life. This distanced view is what much of war looks like to us now, both in romanticized depictions of glory, and to those who kill from remote platforms, either aircraft or drones. A mere video game, which avoids confronting the horrors of killing another human being.
April 19, 2025
high key so interestinggg
December 4, 2016
This book is a must read, particularly for young Australians.
If you expect a journey through the politics and tactics of the war this is not what you are gonna get with this book. Although This is not a diary, it pretty much reads as the diary of a man, that like many others went trough an extraordinary experience of relentless violence.
With this book you are placed right in the trenches of the western front and the author will describe it all for you in extreme detail, from the sea of mud to the pools of blood and guts.
In fact it is so intimate that I found that through the stories told by the author about his experiences and the ones of his mates you can find a well established young Australian national identity, which I found, is a beautiful thing to discover knowing that most of these men came from different backgrounds and in some cases were first or second generation Australians whose families came from different countries.
The language used by the author, the larrikinisms of the troops and the horror described here made me feel the perfect balance of nostalgia and gratefulness that I will never go through anything like this even if I ever see combat in my lifetime and all thanks to brave men like the ones you'll meet in this book.
If you expect a journey through the politics and tactics of the war this is not what you are gonna get with this book. Although This is not a diary, it pretty much reads as the diary of a man, that like many others went trough an extraordinary experience of relentless violence.
With this book you are placed right in the trenches of the western front and the author will describe it all for you in extreme detail, from the sea of mud to the pools of blood and guts.
In fact it is so intimate that I found that through the stories told by the author about his experiences and the ones of his mates you can find a well established young Australian national identity, which I found, is a beautiful thing to discover knowing that most of these men came from different backgrounds and in some cases were first or second generation Australians whose families came from different countries.
The language used by the author, the larrikinisms of the troops and the horror described here made me feel the perfect balance of nostalgia and gratefulness that I will never go through anything like this even if I ever see combat in my lifetime and all thanks to brave men like the ones you'll meet in this book.
November 5, 2017
This is the second time I have read this book and it must rate among the best books ever written on World War One. This book is detailed with heart felt anguish and humour. It is at times shockingly honest but never over the top! I believe it is a must read! Rates up there with"All Quiet on the western Front" and "The Middle Part of Fortune" as an in-depth look into the life of a Soldier in World War One written by those that witness and experienced it!
August 23, 2025
Somme Mud,
What a gripping and heartbreaking memoir to read! As someone who has always focussed on World War II in my reading, knowing very little about World War I, this was a thrilling and captivating read.
Following the life and death of the frontline in the war-torn, trench-filled France, Mr. Lynch, an Australian infantryman, takes us on an extraordinary journey. It’s a read that showcases the bravery and stoicism of soldiers, painting a vivid picture of their lives in the trenches.
If you’re a fan of military memoirs, this is a must-read. I would also highly recommend it to anyone looking to experience the true horrors of the battlefield.
What a gripping and heartbreaking memoir to read! As someone who has always focussed on World War II in my reading, knowing very little about World War I, this was a thrilling and captivating read.
Following the life and death of the frontline in the war-torn, trench-filled France, Mr. Lynch, an Australian infantryman, takes us on an extraordinary journey. It’s a read that showcases the bravery and stoicism of soldiers, painting a vivid picture of their lives in the trenches.
If you’re a fan of military memoirs, this is a must-read. I would also highly recommend it to anyone looking to experience the true horrors of the battlefield.
May 8, 2020
This _novel_ (not memoir) succeeds because of, and despite, the apparent closeness of the narrator's persona to the experiences of Lynch himself. Some individual incidents fall into the so-unlikely-it-may-have-actually-happened department. Possibly also the "I wasn't there, but I heard about it" department.
May 11, 2019
Somme Mud by E P F (Edward) Lynch is the first hand account of by Australian infantryman about life and death in the front line trenches of war-ravaged France, around the battlefields of the River Somme.
Written in forthright and plain language, including some slang that may not be politically correct today, Lynch tells it like it was, describing the mateship, wry humour, bravery, stoicism and the sheer terror and horror of war.
Time after time as Australian and Allied troops fought fierce battles against the Germans (always referred to as Fritz), Lynch recounts the realities of streams of machine gin bullets whizzing overhead, artillery shells exploding all around for long continuous periods, shrapnel bombs that thrust hot shards of metal into soft human bodies, and the frightful gas canisters that make breathing impossible and destroy a man from the inside out.
Without being gratuitously gory, Lynch is not shy in describing what war ordinance can do to a living body, the massive number of dead, dismembered and injured bodies on both sides, and the sheer terror of having a frenzied enemy soldier in your trench with a bayonet that he is able and eager to use.
He describes the bitter cold, the relentless rain, the ubiquitous sucking mud, the extreme hunger and extended periods without sleep, the filth, the stink, the constant noise of artillery barrage, and the persistent irritation of living with lice in your clothing, not to mention the knowledge that you are always just an instant from death or cruel injury.
Lynch was one of the lucky ones - he was injured five times, once requiring a 6 month break in England for surgery and recovery - and yet thousands of his comrades died. Some lasted mere seconds into their first front line action.
And yet he finds time for the pleasures of mateship, the spirit of sharing what you have when nobody has enough, the opportunities for a little Aussie larrikinism, and the bleak, wry humour that can only people in such a situation could express.
Lynch wrote of his experience in pencil in 20 notebooks a couple of years after returning to Australia. That someone recognised its value, took the time to tidy it up and have it published, is remarkable and wonderful.
For it has produced an indelible record and testament to the bravery of Lynch and many thousands of men just like him for future generations to be awed and inspired by, recognising that they made an extreme sacrifice for the freedom we now enjoy.
Written in forthright and plain language, including some slang that may not be politically correct today, Lynch tells it like it was, describing the mateship, wry humour, bravery, stoicism and the sheer terror and horror of war.
Time after time as Australian and Allied troops fought fierce battles against the Germans (always referred to as Fritz), Lynch recounts the realities of streams of machine gin bullets whizzing overhead, artillery shells exploding all around for long continuous periods, shrapnel bombs that thrust hot shards of metal into soft human bodies, and the frightful gas canisters that make breathing impossible and destroy a man from the inside out.
Without being gratuitously gory, Lynch is not shy in describing what war ordinance can do to a living body, the massive number of dead, dismembered and injured bodies on both sides, and the sheer terror of having a frenzied enemy soldier in your trench with a bayonet that he is able and eager to use.
He describes the bitter cold, the relentless rain, the ubiquitous sucking mud, the extreme hunger and extended periods without sleep, the filth, the stink, the constant noise of artillery barrage, and the persistent irritation of living with lice in your clothing, not to mention the knowledge that you are always just an instant from death or cruel injury.
Lynch was one of the lucky ones - he was injured five times, once requiring a 6 month break in England for surgery and recovery - and yet thousands of his comrades died. Some lasted mere seconds into their first front line action.
And yet he finds time for the pleasures of mateship, the spirit of sharing what you have when nobody has enough, the opportunities for a little Aussie larrikinism, and the bleak, wry humour that can only people in such a situation could express.
Lynch wrote of his experience in pencil in 20 notebooks a couple of years after returning to Australia. That someone recognised its value, took the time to tidy it up and have it published, is remarkable and wonderful.
For it has produced an indelible record and testament to the bravery of Lynch and many thousands of men just like him for future generations to be awed and inspired by, recognising that they made an extreme sacrifice for the freedom we now enjoy.
February 10, 2012
Probably the best book on WW1 from the point of view of the ordinary infantryman in the trenches I've ever read. Lynch writes from a first persons perspective and captures life in and around the trenches brilliantly. He has a captivating way with words that succeeds in bringing you there, so close to the action you can almost smell the sour stench of warfare, feel the cold mud sticking to your boots, feel the fear of bullets 'phut, phut, phut' whizzing around and realise the overwhelming odds Lynch and his mates faced in the industrialised war on the Western Front.
The real enemy is not Fritz, who is treated as another human being once he has surrendered. The real enemy is the faceless shell, the anonymous machinegun bullet, the soft thud of exploding gas grenades that has your name on it.
Read it, taste the words, feel the sentences and you'll be as close to the war in the trenches as you'll ever be without going to war yourself
The real enemy is not Fritz, who is treated as another human being once he has surrendered. The real enemy is the faceless shell, the anonymous machinegun bullet, the soft thud of exploding gas grenades that has your name on it.
Read it, taste the words, feel the sentences and you'll be as close to the war in the trenches as you'll ever be without going to war yourself
March 5, 2017
Somme Mud is a memoir by E. F. Lynch, written in the 1920s, and published in 2006. This book has been repeatedly called the Australian All Quiet on the Western Front, and has apparently started to be included on school reading lists to try and make callow young school children understand What Their Forefathers Went Through. This book is an absolutely startling testament to the psyche of the soldiers. It will resonate with anyone who is interested in the ANZAC experience, but I think it has broader appeal as well.
The story of Somme Mud’s genesis captures the imagination. After his tour in Flanders from 1916 to 1919, Lynch returned home and got on with his life. He went to teacher’s college, married, and had children. But during the 1920s and 1930s he wrote the first draft of Somme Mud into notebooks. Later, he typed it up and tried to get it published to earn some money during the depression, but there was no appetite for books about the war, and it sat in the family archives until 2002 when Lynch’s grandson showed it to academic Will Davies, who was enthralled by the story and had it published. I picked up Somme Mud because of the story of its inception. My grandfather wrote a similar memoir of his time in the Merchant Marine and the Navy during WWII, the five bound copies of which are passed from hand to hand around my family. So I identified personally with Lynch’s family and the eighty-year journey this book has been on to get published.
Somme Mud has the same feeling as All Quiet on the Western Front of the author trying to work through the images and memories of Flanders that are stuck in his mind. It reads as a series of vignettes, covering some moments in detail and in other places skipping over months at a time. Both reflect at length on the futility and cost of war; Nulla often reflects on people who have gone west, and is particularly bothered by the suddenness and meanness of death in the trenches, and the number of Australian soldiers buried so far from home. He reflects ironically at one point on Rupert Brooke’s “corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” There is no context of where the engagements Nulla participates in sit in the overall battles, or where the battles sit in the war. It’s written for an audience that is familiar with at least the general shape of the WWI Western Front (or is comfortable going with the flow). I suspect this is partly due to a hatchet job by the editor, trying to cut it down to a readable length.
Like All Quiet, Somme Mud operates exclusively at the level of the narrator. Like Paul Baumer, the narrator, Nulla, is commonly understood to be the author himself, probably with a few details of his friends and cronies thrown into the mix. But where All Quiet is ultimately pessimistic, as Baumer watches his friends die and be crippled until he loses himself entirely, Somme Mud is more optimistic, and peppered throughout with what one might characterise as the ANZAC spirit. As a result, Nulla is probably a more interesting narrator than Paul Baumer. Despite periods of exhaustion, depression and trauma, Nulla remains essentially upbeat. He epitomises mateship, that great ANZAC virtue, and enjoys the simple pleasure or stealing an officer’s kit, a relief’s clean blanket, or a French farmer’s goose (and blaming it on the Liverpudlian regiment next door). You also get a better sense of the totality of infantry operations from Nulla, who moonlights as a runner and signaller at various times, and of the fundamental resilience to trauma that enabled these men to come home from the war and somehow take up civilian life. You see the discipline and determination that allowed the ANZACs to distinguish themselves at Pozieres, Amiens and Mont-St-Quentin. You also see the lack of respect for authority and the juvenile sense of humour that annoyed the British so much.
However, Somme Mud doesn’t employ any of the literary techniques that All Quiet does. If there was a sense of narrative developing, it was lost in the editing. It’s a pity that Lynch wasn’t alive when this was prepared for publication, because it would have benefited from the author being able to go in and provide bridging passages in places, to try and develop (or preserve) the sense of narrative. As a result, there are bits of this book that are a hard slog, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to someone who wasn’t innately interested in the subject matter. Other books have done a better job of blending memoir and fiction.
I would be inclined to include Somme Mud on a compulsory reading list for WWI, which may be partly my Aussie bias speaking, but I think it is a fascinating view of everyday life in the war, and a tribute to the men who went through it: those who died and those who survived.
The story of Somme Mud’s genesis captures the imagination. After his tour in Flanders from 1916 to 1919, Lynch returned home and got on with his life. He went to teacher’s college, married, and had children. But during the 1920s and 1930s he wrote the first draft of Somme Mud into notebooks. Later, he typed it up and tried to get it published to earn some money during the depression, but there was no appetite for books about the war, and it sat in the family archives until 2002 when Lynch’s grandson showed it to academic Will Davies, who was enthralled by the story and had it published. I picked up Somme Mud because of the story of its inception. My grandfather wrote a similar memoir of his time in the Merchant Marine and the Navy during WWII, the five bound copies of which are passed from hand to hand around my family. So I identified personally with Lynch’s family and the eighty-year journey this book has been on to get published.
Somme Mud has the same feeling as All Quiet on the Western Front of the author trying to work through the images and memories of Flanders that are stuck in his mind. It reads as a series of vignettes, covering some moments in detail and in other places skipping over months at a time. Both reflect at length on the futility and cost of war; Nulla often reflects on people who have gone west, and is particularly bothered by the suddenness and meanness of death in the trenches, and the number of Australian soldiers buried so far from home. He reflects ironically at one point on Rupert Brooke’s “corner of a foreign field that is forever England.” There is no context of where the engagements Nulla participates in sit in the overall battles, or where the battles sit in the war. It’s written for an audience that is familiar with at least the general shape of the WWI Western Front (or is comfortable going with the flow). I suspect this is partly due to a hatchet job by the editor, trying to cut it down to a readable length.
Like All Quiet, Somme Mud operates exclusively at the level of the narrator. Like Paul Baumer, the narrator, Nulla, is commonly understood to be the author himself, probably with a few details of his friends and cronies thrown into the mix. But where All Quiet is ultimately pessimistic, as Baumer watches his friends die and be crippled until he loses himself entirely, Somme Mud is more optimistic, and peppered throughout with what one might characterise as the ANZAC spirit. As a result, Nulla is probably a more interesting narrator than Paul Baumer. Despite periods of exhaustion, depression and trauma, Nulla remains essentially upbeat. He epitomises mateship, that great ANZAC virtue, and enjoys the simple pleasure or stealing an officer’s kit, a relief’s clean blanket, or a French farmer’s goose (and blaming it on the Liverpudlian regiment next door). You also get a better sense of the totality of infantry operations from Nulla, who moonlights as a runner and signaller at various times, and of the fundamental resilience to trauma that enabled these men to come home from the war and somehow take up civilian life. You see the discipline and determination that allowed the ANZACs to distinguish themselves at Pozieres, Amiens and Mont-St-Quentin. You also see the lack of respect for authority and the juvenile sense of humour that annoyed the British so much.
However, Somme Mud doesn’t employ any of the literary techniques that All Quiet does. If there was a sense of narrative developing, it was lost in the editing. It’s a pity that Lynch wasn’t alive when this was prepared for publication, because it would have benefited from the author being able to go in and provide bridging passages in places, to try and develop (or preserve) the sense of narrative. As a result, there are bits of this book that are a hard slog, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to someone who wasn’t innately interested in the subject matter. Other books have done a better job of blending memoir and fiction.
I would be inclined to include Somme Mud on a compulsory reading list for WWI, which may be partly my Aussie bias speaking, but I think it is a fascinating view of everyday life in the war, and a tribute to the men who went through it: those who died and those who survived.
April 21, 2023
4.5🌟 Somme Mud by E.P.F Lynch, edited by Will Davis
🪖
It's a Memoir of a soldier who served on the front line, I mean what could go wrong in that. Somme Mud puts you in trenches, enduring the mud and the cold, smelling the stink of whale oil, following the dogfights overhead, and facing death's randomness. This book shows a detailed description of a soldier's life in the trenches of Somme.
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A Non Fiction novel written from first person perspective of the writer himself, it's not like normal non fiction which continues like articles, it continues in a narrative story telling way which will put you right into no man's land and the somme mud, making you feel the coldness and fear of the war.
🪖
E.P.F Lynch had served as a private in the great war all over Somme from 1916-1919 till the war ended. He had been there on the front line, support line and had been a messenger too for the COs.
🪖
He had seen the blood bath and hell of war being present on some of the major campaigns, various hop overs and offenses.
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Lynch had written all of his experience of that terrible place called somme mud where his comrades took there last breath and died riddled with bullets, headshots, blown from trench mortar or the floppin' gas and himself being injured too to be sent back to London for months.
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Lynch wrote his experiences on the Somme Mud in twenty excercise books in 1921, probably in the hope of coming to peace with the horror of war that he had faced.
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Probably one of the best memoir of the great war ever written, it makes you feel it and live that experience. It has a medium pace and it's not something that will get you bored. It was interesting all the way through and wouldn't make you complain over anything. There's not gonna be anything this detailed and epic, definitely a great read.
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It's a Memoir of a soldier who served on the front line, I mean what could go wrong in that. Somme Mud puts you in trenches, enduring the mud and the cold, smelling the stink of whale oil, following the dogfights overhead, and facing death's randomness. This book shows a detailed description of a soldier's life in the trenches of Somme.
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A Non Fiction novel written from first person perspective of the writer himself, it's not like normal non fiction which continues like articles, it continues in a narrative story telling way which will put you right into no man's land and the somme mud, making you feel the coldness and fear of the war.
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E.P.F Lynch had served as a private in the great war all over Somme from 1916-1919 till the war ended. He had been there on the front line, support line and had been a messenger too for the COs.
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He had seen the blood bath and hell of war being present on some of the major campaigns, various hop overs and offenses.
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Lynch had written all of his experience of that terrible place called somme mud where his comrades took there last breath and died riddled with bullets, headshots, blown from trench mortar or the floppin' gas and himself being injured too to be sent back to London for months.
🪖
Lynch wrote his experiences on the Somme Mud in twenty excercise books in 1921, probably in the hope of coming to peace with the horror of war that he had faced.
🪖
Probably one of the best memoir of the great war ever written, it makes you feel it and live that experience. It has a medium pace and it's not something that will get you bored. It was interesting all the way through and wouldn't make you complain over anything. There's not gonna be anything this detailed and epic, definitely a great read.
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August 19, 2018
I found this book when doing my usual exchange of books read, at my local secondhand booksellers. I have a lot of books on both world wars and was looking for something to complement the Les Carlyon tome about Gallipoli. Seeing as my main interest in books about wars and conflicts lies with the Royal Navy (both parents served). Somme Mud stood out because it was written in the uncompromising style of the day and was laced with the typical "larrakin" Australian and New Zealand brand of humour and approach to life. The details and descriptions as indicated in the original notes and diaries swing from the gay, happy go lucky send off from ports along the Australian coast picking up more volunteers, to the monotony of life onboard ship punctuated by practical jokes. Ports of call, and then arrival in "Blighty". Another warm welcome, some depot time working up then across to the horrific fields of France and Belgium. The book details the very personal experiences of soldiers, and references battles that you can go to You Tube and watch documentaries about. I highly recommend it purely for that reason, as well as it doesn't bestow sainthood on soldiers, who wanted nothing of the sort and who did not buy into the birth of the nation forged at Gallipoli nonsense, they just told it as it was, a brutal, industrialised and horrific encounter between their fellow men, and they hated it.
May 16, 2024
Edward Fancis Lynch was a WW1 soldier in the Australian Imperial Force, AIF, who saw action on the Western Front. Lynch wrote about his war experiences, however his writings were not published until years after his death. Somme Mud is a narrative written by Lynch after he was repatriated in 1919 supposedly as a device to distance himself from the story in hope of exorcising the horrors that he witnessed. He claimed the main character, Nulla, was a friend of his. Nulla was, in fact, Lynch himself. Records indicate that Lynch saw similar service and suffered similar injuries as Nulla. Nulla served as a front line guide or runner due to his inate sense of direction. Lynch wrote of his experiences longhand in 20 notebooks when, in the depression of the 1930s, and needing money, he hoped to publish his memior. But it seems the pain of the Great War was still too raw and deep for the public to want to revisit. In 2002 editor Will Davies was loaned the manuscript by his friend, Mike Lynch, grandson of E.F. Lynch. Will Davies had an interest in the era and was captivated by it. He realized it was an important, historical record. His work in editing the manuscript for publication was a labor of love.
May 31, 2019
Oh my God !
The first thing to say is that this war diary pulls no punches. It's language will be offensive to a modern day audience so be warned.
The violence is graphic and frequent.
It is the memoir of an ordinary Digger living and fighting through extraordinary times.
What a hero, as they all were.
The content is best summed up by a tiny paragraph in which a soldier meets a mate he knew before the war as they pass each other on their way to/from the front line. The one coming back has his arms folded and refuses to shake the hand of his former friend. When questioned why he apologises and explains that if he did, his intestines would fall out...
His friend looks down and sees that a bullet has cut the injured man's stomach open.
When asked why he was walking back on his own instead of being helped the soldier explains, 'Because the stretcher bearers need to attend to the more seriously wounded!'
A doomed generation of heroes who should NEVER be forgotten. Thank you for your sacrifice. RIP.
The first thing to say is that this war diary pulls no punches. It's language will be offensive to a modern day audience so be warned.
The violence is graphic and frequent.
It is the memoir of an ordinary Digger living and fighting through extraordinary times.
What a hero, as they all were.
The content is best summed up by a tiny paragraph in which a soldier meets a mate he knew before the war as they pass each other on their way to/from the front line. The one coming back has his arms folded and refuses to shake the hand of his former friend. When questioned why he apologises and explains that if he did, his intestines would fall out...
His friend looks down and sees that a bullet has cut the injured man's stomach open.
When asked why he was walking back on his own instead of being helped the soldier explains, 'Because the stretcher bearers need to attend to the more seriously wounded!'
A doomed generation of heroes who should NEVER be forgotten. Thank you for your sacrifice. RIP.
December 9, 2019
Somme Mud by EPF Lynch - incredibly moving
Read in November as a themed read for Remembrance - I try to do this every year now.
From the back cover (abridged):
"Private Edward Lynch enlisted in the army (Australian Imperial Forces) at just eighteen and shipped out to France. Upon his return from France in 1919, Private Lynch wrote Somme Mud in pencil in twenty school exercise books, perhaps in the hope of coming terms with all that he had witnessed. Published for the first time in 2006, the work is a rare, precious find. It vividly captures the horror and magnitude of the First World War, written from the perspective of ordinary infantrymen. Told with dignity, candour and surprising wit, Somme Mud is a testament to the power of the human spirit. Out of the mud that threatens to suck out a man's very soul rises a compelling story of humanity and friendship."
He wrote this from the perspective of Nulla, he said that it was a friend of his, but most believe this is autobiographical and that he needed to distance himself from everything he experienced by creating this character to tell his story.
And no wonder that he should need that barrier. The things these men went through. Their bravery even when 'unstrung'. Time and again they followed their orders and advanced into almost certain death. Watched friends die. Saw their numbers decimated. Kill or be killed, they killed or captured the enemy and yet still had compassion for their enemies, understanding that they too were there at their Leaders' command, out of duty rather than wanting to kill.
Whilst reading, I marked dozens of passages that I wanted to share, but on reading through them, I just can't. What these men went through is deeply moving and should be read by all, especially those taking decisions about going to war!
I will share three quotes.
Whilst crawling through no man's land:
"We lie in a sea of light, half-expecting Fritz to spot us and open fire any minute. We don't move, not a twitch for we know that unless we make a movement, it isn't very likely they'll see us. The flare starts to burn out and begins to fall to the ground, gathering speed as it does so and great black shadows like the wings of death fly across the mud in all manner of shivering shapes."
The sheer hell of the conditions were another constant theme. To be standing thigh deep in mud for days on end whilst defending the front line, trying to walk through it, defend the trench and even sleep standing up in it.
"It's the end of the 1916 winter and the conditions are almost unbelievable. We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it, work in it, fight in it, wade in it and many of us die in it. We see it, feel it, eat it and curse it, but we can't escape it, not even by dying."
Finally:
"The Somme mud may take your brave bodies from us, boys, but neither mud, time nor distance will efface the memory of your mateship. Yesterday, mates of men. Today, 'fallen comrades', but mates still in the minds of mates."
Deeply, deeply moving.
Read in November as a themed read for Remembrance - I try to do this every year now.
From the back cover (abridged):
"Private Edward Lynch enlisted in the army (Australian Imperial Forces) at just eighteen and shipped out to France. Upon his return from France in 1919, Private Lynch wrote Somme Mud in pencil in twenty school exercise books, perhaps in the hope of coming terms with all that he had witnessed. Published for the first time in 2006, the work is a rare, precious find. It vividly captures the horror and magnitude of the First World War, written from the perspective of ordinary infantrymen. Told with dignity, candour and surprising wit, Somme Mud is a testament to the power of the human spirit. Out of the mud that threatens to suck out a man's very soul rises a compelling story of humanity and friendship."
He wrote this from the perspective of Nulla, he said that it was a friend of his, but most believe this is autobiographical and that he needed to distance himself from everything he experienced by creating this character to tell his story.
And no wonder that he should need that barrier. The things these men went through. Their bravery even when 'unstrung'. Time and again they followed their orders and advanced into almost certain death. Watched friends die. Saw their numbers decimated. Kill or be killed, they killed or captured the enemy and yet still had compassion for their enemies, understanding that they too were there at their Leaders' command, out of duty rather than wanting to kill.
Whilst reading, I marked dozens of passages that I wanted to share, but on reading through them, I just can't. What these men went through is deeply moving and should be read by all, especially those taking decisions about going to war!
I will share three quotes.
Whilst crawling through no man's land:
"We lie in a sea of light, half-expecting Fritz to spot us and open fire any minute. We don't move, not a twitch for we know that unless we make a movement, it isn't very likely they'll see us. The flare starts to burn out and begins to fall to the ground, gathering speed as it does so and great black shadows like the wings of death fly across the mud in all manner of shivering shapes."
The sheer hell of the conditions were another constant theme. To be standing thigh deep in mud for days on end whilst defending the front line, trying to walk through it, defend the trench and even sleep standing up in it.
"It's the end of the 1916 winter and the conditions are almost unbelievable. We live in a world of Somme mud. We sleep in it, work in it, fight in it, wade in it and many of us die in it. We see it, feel it, eat it and curse it, but we can't escape it, not even by dying."
Finally:
"The Somme mud may take your brave bodies from us, boys, but neither mud, time nor distance will efface the memory of your mateship. Yesterday, mates of men. Today, 'fallen comrades', but mates still in the minds of mates."
Deeply, deeply moving.
November 15, 2018
I loved this account from a no-nonsense Aussie making the best of the ghastly conditions of the Somme front. He and his mates have a wonderful crossing from Australia and take the opportunity to amuse themselves at the officers’ expense which lightens the tone of possibly sombre book. The details he shares of being a runner because he had a great sense of direction to get the commanding officer safely to and from the front, using his expertise to quickly change over troops leaving the line for the rear trenches and replacing them with fresh troops. When he was wounded, the stretcher bearers tried to remove his boots and then he revealed he tied them with signallers’ wire acquired from a listening post. He is full of praise for the stretcher bearers risking their lives over and over in no man’s land to retrieve the wounded as fast as possible and getting them to safety.
A great read and like the author who ghosted the book from diary entries, I wish I’d met Mr. Lynch.
A great read and like the author who ghosted the book from diary entries, I wish I’d met Mr. Lynch.
June 4, 2018
This is one of the best personal memoirs of the First World War that I have read.
The author Edward P.F.Lynch was an Australian who signed up at the age of 18 years and served from 1916 to 1919 being involved in some of the heaviest and bloodiest battles in the trench warfare in France and Belgium. How he survived is a miracle. Of the 250 men and 2 officers who joined up when he did only 19 men survived and 1 officer badly wounded. The author was himself wounded seriously twice. His descriptions of the war in the trenches are strangely gripping despite the almost unspeakable horrors he witnessed and lived through. His account is very frank and even funny at times and captures the mood of the ordinary soldiers faced with an existence sometimes reduced to savagery. Their bravery was extraordinary.
The author Edward P.F.Lynch was an Australian who signed up at the age of 18 years and served from 1916 to 1919 being involved in some of the heaviest and bloodiest battles in the trench warfare in France and Belgium. How he survived is a miracle. Of the 250 men and 2 officers who joined up when he did only 19 men survived and 1 officer badly wounded. The author was himself wounded seriously twice. His descriptions of the war in the trenches are strangely gripping despite the almost unspeakable horrors he witnessed and lived through. His account is very frank and even funny at times and captures the mood of the ordinary soldiers faced with an existence sometimes reduced to savagery. Their bravery was extraordinary.
April 16, 2019
The author arrived in France in 1916 from Australia and other than when recovering from wounds in England remained there until 1919. This is stark account of life in the trenches on par with the account in All Quiet on the Western Front. It exposes the horrors, brutality, heroism, and friendships in a way only a front line soldier could. A book that is difficult and compelling to read at the same time. I will not try and paraphrase it. This book should be a must read for anyone trying to understand WW1 trench warfare, the mass slaughter through to and including Monash's use of tanks and aircraft. This book puts into perspective the difference between WW1 and WW2. The authors ability to speak French aids his and our understanding of the Somme. His plain but effective writing style only empathises the horror. I find this review difficult to write.
August 22, 2021
Ik sloeg zonet de laatste bladzijde van dit fe-no-me-na-le boek dicht en weet nu al dat ik het erg ga missen.
'Modder van de Somme' is een boek geschreven door Edward Lynch (bijnaam Nulla), gebaseerd op zijn oorlogsbelevenissen. Nulla is een Australiër die in 1915 dienst neemt, de boot op stapt en weken later in Engeland aankomt om zo verder te reizen naar Frankrijk.
Lynch vocht eerst aan de Somme, een paar maanden na de Big Push desalniettemin was hij betrokken bij slagen met rokende namen als Hamel, Villers-Betronneux, Peronne,... daarna werd zijn bataljon overgeplaatst naar België waar hij de mijnenslag in Mesen meemaakte en wat later ook de slag van Passendale voor de kiezen kreeg. Na Passendale gingen ze terug naar de Somme streek.
Het feit dat Nulla dit overleefde is al hallucinant, de keren dat hij nipt wegraakte zijn niet te tellen en het aantal keren dat hij gewond raakte is ook niet min. Het boek vertelt dit verhaal zo beeldend dat je mee in de slagen zit, het is zonder enige twijfel de Australische Barthas maar misschien nog flitsender als ik dat zo onrespectvol mag uitspreken.
Zeker één van de de strafste boeken die ik ooit las over de Eerste Wereldoolrog
'Modder van de Somme' is een boek geschreven door Edward Lynch (bijnaam Nulla), gebaseerd op zijn oorlogsbelevenissen. Nulla is een Australiër die in 1915 dienst neemt, de boot op stapt en weken later in Engeland aankomt om zo verder te reizen naar Frankrijk.
Lynch vocht eerst aan de Somme, een paar maanden na de Big Push desalniettemin was hij betrokken bij slagen met rokende namen als Hamel, Villers-Betronneux, Peronne,... daarna werd zijn bataljon overgeplaatst naar België waar hij de mijnenslag in Mesen meemaakte en wat later ook de slag van Passendale voor de kiezen kreeg. Na Passendale gingen ze terug naar de Somme streek.
Het feit dat Nulla dit overleefde is al hallucinant, de keren dat hij nipt wegraakte zijn niet te tellen en het aantal keren dat hij gewond raakte is ook niet min. Het boek vertelt dit verhaal zo beeldend dat je mee in de slagen zit, het is zonder enige twijfel de Australische Barthas maar misschien nog flitsender als ik dat zo onrespectvol mag uitspreken.
Zeker één van de de strafste boeken die ik ooit las over de Eerste Wereldoolrog
June 21, 2024
While I already knew that being in Somme was like being in hell I never thought for one moment it's description was true. The story begins when they are on a ship from their home land to England before going to France and in first chapter the antics what the got up to was absolutely hilarious probably not knowing what hell they were going in to. From the second chapter onwards begins the horror and what horror it is. The author doesn't hold back on the descriptions on how those soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice sometimes in a horrible way in some cases it would have been quick for the poor fella. God rest their souls. I have a lot of never ending respect for these fellas always have always will. May rest in peace for ever more in all eternity. I for one salute you 🙏😢💔🫡
January 30, 2018
Generally war memoirs fall into 2 categories. Those listing battles, date and times and those more personal accounts. For some reason the latter category tend to be lacking when it comes to the 1st world war, and those that exist tend to be hard going.
However Somme Mud is one rare breeds , a world war 1 book, readable, engaging and enthralling while at the same time painting a realistic picture of what it was like to be a WW1 soldier .
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. With the 100 year anniversary coming up of the end of the 'great war' it should be recommended reading for everyone
However Somme Mud is one rare breeds , a world war 1 book, readable, engaging and enthralling while at the same time painting a realistic picture of what it was like to be a WW1 soldier .
I cannot recommend this book highly enough. With the 100 year anniversary coming up of the end of the 'great war' it should be recommended reading for everyone
March 12, 2018
This book does not pull any punches - it is real, raw and in some parts rather graphic, enough to make me go "Ewww!" or "Gross!" The author's semi-autobiographical work covers his experience amongst the battlefields and battles of the Somme during World War I. It is very descriptive and evocative but clearly focuses on the frontline experience. Any time he is injured or on furlough, the story will skip ahead to the next battle. Sometimes, it felt like it just needed something to break up all the war and death. That being said, it is rather a slog at 426 pages, so I don't think it needed too much more.
April 10, 2025
This book was so challenging to read. At times it was incredibly slow because of the monotony of trench warfare. At other times, it was incredibly gory and gruesome. In the beginning it was incredibly racist and hard to stomach. In the end though, this is someone's life story. It is heartbreaking. These men went through so much during this war with hardly any recognition at all. By the end, the men are so changed from who they were in the beginning. I recommend this for anyone wanting a deep dive into the feelings and actions of allied troops in WW1 from a non-American or British perspective.
November 25, 2023
Each November, I try to read a book like this to pay my own small tribute to the millions of men and women involved. It's not an exciting or enthralling read; I don't think it's meant to be. It's well-written by an ordinary soldier in the language of the time. Some may find that unacceptable today.
It is an autobiographical account of life at the point of a bayonet. A grotesque but harrowing and exhausting read. It gave me considerable insight into how five of my own family endured as infantrymen, including one who has no known grave.
It is an autobiographical account of life at the point of a bayonet. A grotesque but harrowing and exhausting read. It gave me considerable insight into how five of my own family endured as infantrymen, including one who has no known grave.
June 9, 2021
The Vietnam war cost just over 500 young Australian lives over some years. Imagine if the casualties had been 23000 in just eight weeks! Well that happened in this book, Somme Mud taken from the exercise books of the Australian author as a WW1 soldier. Not reading for the faint hearted but essential for anyone to understand what sacrifices were made by our forebears and to compare those same horrible events to the "first world" problems that seem to get us so stressed today.
April 10, 2022
5/5 highly recommend if interested in war memoirs or WWI.
Written just after the war finished and is the story of one Australian soldier from August 1916 when he leaves Australia as part of reinforcements for the 12th brigade of the AIF to 1919 when he returns home. The foreword compares it to All Quiet on the Western Front in terms of content and quality and I think that is a fair assessment. I think I enjoyed this more than Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger as well, for comparison.
Written just after the war finished and is the story of one Australian soldier from August 1916 when he leaves Australia as part of reinforcements for the 12th brigade of the AIF to 1919 when he returns home. The foreword compares it to All Quiet on the Western Front in terms of content and quality and I think that is a fair assessment. I think I enjoyed this more than Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger as well, for comparison.
July 9, 2025
Blunt and brutal first hand telling of the Western Front. It also describes the author's time signing on and the voyage to Europe, during which he gives what can only be described as severe racist denunciations of non-white people he encounters. They make for grim reading for a modern audience, but the editors were right to leave them in, as it should not be denied or suppressed that those attitudes existed at the time.
December 31, 2020
Another personal account of the Great War and another very good one. Taken from the diaries of Edward Lynch an Australian who served in the Australian Imperial Force arriving on the Western Front in 1916.
You really get a feel for how dehumanising his experiences were as you can detect a change in the way he writes about them as the war progresses. A fantastic book.
You really get a feel for how dehumanising his experiences were as you can detect a change in the way he writes about them as the war progresses. A fantastic book.
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