Private Papers of Lieutenant J H Butlin

A collection of 135 ms letters and postcards (428pp), August 1914 - March 1918, written to his close friend and confidante Basil Burnett Hall and covering Butlin's work in the National Reserve Office at Weymouth, Dorset (August - December 1914); training with the 3rd Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment based at Wyke Regis (January - March 1915) before active service in France as a subaltern attached to the 2nd Battalion Yorkshire Regiment (21st Brigade, 7th Division) (March - August 1915); with the 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment (15th Brigade, 5th Division until December 1915, then 95th Brigade, 32nd Division) until March 1916, when he was evacuated back to the United Kingdom with ear inflammation; a brief period as OC of No 3 Southern Company, Non Combatant Corps at Durrington Camp, Salisbury (January - March 1917); back to France with the 6th Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment (50th Brigade, 17th Division) until April 1917, when he returned permanently to the UK suffering from shell shock; a period in Craiglockhart War Hospital, Scotland where he received treatment for neurasthenia (May - July 1917); then back to the camp at Wyke Regis until his forced retirement due to poor health in March 1918; containing good references to life on the Home Front, Basil's avoidance of conscription and their amorous pursuit of women, trench conditions at the Front including excellent descriptions of his involvement in the offensive at Festubert (May 1915), in which the British shelled their own men and Germans shot surrendering troops, and the Battle of Arras (April 1917), the use of poison gas and aerial warfare, his opinions of war journalists and the DAILY MAIL's munitions campaign, sporting activities, prostitution in France and the danger of venereal disease, his affair with a French girl, his anger at being given command of a Non-Combatant unit, and after being evacuated to the UK, excellent descriptions of life at Craiglockhart (where he seems to have been treated by W H R Rivers) and his fight against the medical board verdict leading to his retirement. Together with a series of 32 ms letters (120pp) written to his family while serving on the Western Front, April 1915 - April 1917, including interesting comments on the attitude of the French towards the war, the Germans' use of spies among the French population, and an inspection by Field Marshal Sir John French; plus 5 ms pocket diaries, 1914 - 1917 and 1919, containing extremely brief daily entries.

Catalogue date 1998-08-09

Cataloguer APR