Dimitri’s Reviews > Mud, Blood, and Poppycock: Britain and the Great War > Status Update

The only drawback in war is a tendency for the mule to bray, a sound which carries for miles, particularly at night, and most army mules had their vocal cords surgically removed to prevent an unwitting bray giving their [handlers' ] position away to the enemy.

Despite the difficulties of converting an industrial base that was not under state control into a machine that could play its part in total war, by 1916 the weapons avaliable to the British infantry were as good as anything the Germans had and in some cases, such as the Lewis light machine gun and the Lee Enfield rifle, better.

[They] could easily obtain the staple of the British soldier, fried eggs & fried potatoes. It is said that the current Belgian obsession with chips with everything stems from their enterpreneurial culinary activities during the war, although this does not their curious habit of lacing them with mayonnaise.

Put'em up, vinegar boy :-D

He marches all the way to the front, singing Tipperary and smoking his pipe, forage cap on the back of his head. Reaching the line, he is put into a filthy hole in the ground & stays there until 1918. If he survives, he is fed a tastless, meagre diet of bully beef & biscuits. Most days, if he's not being shelled or bombed, he goes over the top... never sees a general, while rats gnaw the dead bodies of his comrades.