Description
Object description
image: An attack in misty, wet weather. From the cover of a low breastwork riflemen and a Lewis gun team face the German
attackers. In the foreground a soldier lies dead, facedown in the mud of the trench while another, with a wounded hand, walks away to the
right.
Label
The soldier on the right, clutching his wounded hand, is the artist Harold Williamson. In April 1918, he was involved in heavy fighting on the Western Front. German troops – seen here on the horizon – attacked his battalion. After being wounded, Williamson faced a long and dangerous journey across open country swept by enemy fire. He eventually managed to get to safety and receive medical treatment.
Label
A background note for the Royal Academy exhibition of this work states:
'A recollection of a heavy local attack in the neighbourhood of Villers-Bretonneux, during the great German offensive, Spring 1918. The painter has tried to give the impressions of the tired soldiers. The remains of the 8th Battalion KRRC, not a hundred strong, who had been on the retreat since March 21st, were hastily reorganized, and sent up in reserve the night before, to hold a sunken road, not a shot being heard from the Germans. Before dawn, an intensive bombardment of our lines opened up, and was maintained for a couple of hours. In the gloom and rain the storm troops then came over, and smashed through our two first lines. The picture shows them moving with exact discipline and just appearing to the few men in reserve. The shell holes in the foreground show the accuracy of the preceding bombardment. The British are hopelessly outnumbered, but training and discipline keep them going, without thought of retirement. Two men are firing a Lewis gun. The wounded man has a poor chance of getting away; he must cross much open country swept by enemy fire, and go through a heavy barrage. At the last the few left were surrounded, but fought their way out, some wounded, some being taken prisoner.'
The note fails to mention (perhaps deliberately) that the soldier wounded in the hand at the right of the picture is a depiction of Williamson himself.
Label
This painting was to feature in a Hall of Remembrance devoted to 'fighting subjects, home subjects and the war at sea and in the air'. The centre of the scheme was to be a coherent series of paintings based on the dimensions of Uccello's 'Battle of San Romano' in the National Gallery (72 x 125 inches), this size being considered suitable for a commemorative battle painting. While the commissions included some of the most avant-garde British artists of the time, the British War Memorials Committee advisors saw the scheme as firmly within the tradition of European art commissioning, looking to models from the Renaissance. It was intended that both the art and the setting would celebrate national ideals of heroism and sacrifice. However, the Hall of Remembrance was never built and the work was given to the Imperial War Museum.
History note
Ministry of Information Commission, 1918
History note
Note: This artwork was relocated in August 1939 to a less vulnerable site outside London when the museum activated its evacuation plan.
Inscription
H.S WILLIAMSON