Scribbled on mud-stained paper, they told of the hellishness of war in an often deceptively matter-of-fact tones peppered with the dark humour that somehow kept them going. 

They were the bloggers of their day, up to their knees in filth who felt compelled to share every detail – even the smallest and perhaps at the time seemingly least significant fact which, with the benefit of 100 years of hindsight, simply add to the realism. 

“Sunday, September 15”, wrote Lieutenant Robert Lindsay Mackay, a long way from his Glasgow home in a muck-covered tent south of Arras in 1916. “Had a bath. 16th, 17th, and so on till the end – MUD, MUD, MUD!”

Letters and diaries from the frontline, packed with stiff upper lip grit, horrific violence, terrifying descriptions of destruction and simple pleasures of a parcel from home or a taste of decent food have brought events of a century ago to life for generations in a way their authors could surely never have imagined. 

Penned amid the roar of battle, they tell the story of the First World War through the eyes of the men and women who endured it. 

Robert Lindsay Mackay grew up in Bank Street, Hillhead in Glasgow, the son of a warehouse wool buyer who would go on to be a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in both Edinburgh and Glasgow.

He developed a love for English literature and poetry at Hillhead High; a passion for the written word that would take a poignant twist amid the mud, blood and stench of the Western Front. 

He was studying at Glasgow University when duty called, and by 1916 he was with the 11th Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. 

His diaries – sometimes blunt, almost unemotional in the face of human loss – hint at the mettle that saw him awarded the Military Cross in 1918, when he undertook an intelligence foray to retrieve valuable information.

His diary, part of a Glasgow City Council online collection of First World War material, captures the excitement of marching to war. 

“September 12, 1916. Albert. Ordered up to the 11th. Service Battalion Argylls – the one to which I most of all wanted to go,” he wrote. “Albert is where the battle now going on began, so I hope to see something decent. 

“Went to see our latest form of frightfulness about which mystery hangs, namely, the tanks. They have not been used against the enemy yet.”

The Herald:

(Photo: Robert Stephens)

They would be deployed three days later at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, in an operation that proved less than spectacular with tanks stuck in the mud and huge losses for both sides. 

Having fought a personal battle against local wildlife – “Found out that there was a bigger population of beetles, wasps and mice in my tent than I had ever seen,” he wrote – by early October he was in the village of Martinpuich south of Arras. 

“We were shelled for three days by the old Hun,” he wrote. “Fortunately most of his stuff went 50 yards over, though we did have a few people laid out now and then. Weather beautiful.”

His diaries reveal moments of light humour, and narrow escapes. “We had a very lively three days of it,” he wrote of his spell in Martinpuich. 

“One old rascal showed me some eight or nine watches which he had ‘souvenired’. We used for line headquarters an old dug-out with eight entrances – five of which were blown in by shellfire, one actually while I was inside.”

And there’s mention of terrible conditions which become the norm. “Slept with the rats. Rain came down and soaked us through in our shelters.”

There was comfort for one colleague. “The CO got a mouldy haggis which he ate by himself. It came in a parcel labelled ‘CAKE’. He had kept it for three weeks!,” wrote Lt Mackay. 

As the war stutters to a conclusion in November 1918, there are games of football, rugby, boxing and fine dinners offset by the stark sight of refugees. 

“Pitiable scenes with refugees. Appalling beyond all description. I feel bitter against the Hun, as never before,” he wrote. 

“Our village is full of white-haired women, pale faced girls, and little mites of babies. Lorry after lorry has been passing through with refugees, each piled high with a mass of suffering humanity, shawl-less women and babies. Some of the latter were even gassed. 

“There were young women who had been forced to work in the mines, and others who had been outraged. It was a never-ending procession of the hungry, helpless, homeless and tired.”

While officers could jot down their thoughts, keeping a diary placed lower ranks at risk of court martial. Some thought it worth the risk. 

William Begbie was 15 when he signed up, 16 when he endured Gallipoli’s hell and just 20 when Armistice was declared. His diaries, held in the Museum of the Royal Scots at Edinburgh Castle, reveal life at the front for one of the youngest soldiers of the war. 

His entry on April 4, 1914, relates how he followed a bugler leading volunteers to join Leith-based 1/7 Royal Scots.

“When I arrived home, my mother said ‘take your uniform back – you are too young to be a soldier’, but my father laughed and said, ‘this will do him no harm – Territorials don’t go to war’.”

Having narrowly dodged the Quintinshill rail crash that killed 226 people, he was soon under heavy bombardment from the Turks at Gallipoli, where 150,000 troops would perish. 

His diary describes in stark detail going over the top on June 28, 1915: “Before the order came, when I was lying in the bottom of the trench with the noise of the shells bursting and the machine guns and rifles firing, the only place I didn’t want to go was over the parapet.

“When I got to my feet, I remembered our instructions so I kept yelling, rifle at the ready and ran like hell into the enemy trench.”

Soon beaten by fear and exhaustion, surrounded by the dead and dying, his legs could take no more. “I heard bullets striking the ground, so I lay still. The sand was crawling with insects of every shape and size,” he wrote. 

“The worst thing was the craving for water – our mouths were so parched that our tongues swelled. I turned round and crawled back, passing men of our company, some dead and some with ghastly wounds, obviously dying.”

Among the best-known First World War diarists was one of the war’s most controversial figures. 

Commander-in-chief of the British Armies in France, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, criticised for a stubbornness at the Somme and Ypres which costs tens of thousands of lives, wrote in his journal every day of the campaign. 

His entries jarred with reports of starving troops who found joy in a bite of mouldy haggis. One, jotted down on August 1916 amid the ghastly horror of the Somme, reflected on a hearty lunch of chicken, ham, bread and butter.

Another apparently fails to grasp what was going on “Everywhere I found the troops in great spirits,” he wrote on June 28, 1916. 

Then, while others celebrated on November 11, 1918, he simply observed: “Fine day but cold and dull.”

Women recorded their experiences too. Maggy Grander was a young nurse from Huntly, Aberdeenshire, who saw war at first hand in France from December 1914 and July 1918. One stark entry, on May 26, 1915, recorded: “Loaded at Bailleul at 8am, a heavy load. Men unconscious tied on stretchers, gas gangrene smells awful. One man died half an hour from Boulogne.”

Incredibly, even now, voices from the past are still being uncovered. 

Peterhead-born Lance Corporal Robert Stephen, was a Sapper with the Highland Division of the Royal Engineers.

His three small books, photographs and military documents were recently found dumped in a skip in Folkestone in Kent, and have just been handed to Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Archives.

The entry for October 1916 reveals his fears for what lay ahead. “As I watch the lights of England disappear… I ask God to bring me safe back to all,” he wrote. 

It was not to be for some. “April 6, 1917 – A shell from a Long Tom burst not far from our billet, killing three and wounding fifteen men. 

“It was terrible. I shall never forget the sight of poor fellows all lying where they had been struck.”

By February 1918, he seems almost immune, describing “a rather exciting time at night with Fritz” after a nearby bomb “put the wind up all of us”.

A final entry sums up the joy of the end of hostilities and the relief that he and his horse, Dolly, had survived. 

He wrote: “I overheard the bells as I was going over open country with Dolly. 

“HAPPY DAY. THANK GOD.”

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