Officer's Batmen at Ecoust 1917

A scene from the real '1917 '

This image games from the same source as one of the first I posted here on Substack, of the officers of 2nd Queen’s at Bullecourt. It was taken by Lieutenant Ron Short MC of the 2nd Battalion Queen's Regiment, who had an illicit camera with him on the Western Front in 1917.

The village of Ecoust St Mein was captured by the 7th Division in the Advance to the Hindenburg Line in the Spring of 1917. It then remained in British hands until the following March, and became a staging post for the fighting in front of Bullecourt. By war's end it was completely destroyed; an insight into that destruction can be seen here.

The village also featured in the film 1917 - which we reviewed on the podcast a while back. Ron Short’s images mix those crisscross paths of the Great War with modern cinema, making them all the more extraordinary and fascinating perhaps.

The image shows two officer's servants - batmen - are standing at the entrance to one of the officer's dugouts; in this case the cellar of a partially destroyed house in Ecoust. While they are relaxed and out of view of the Germans here, the presence of war is not far away and both men are carrying their Small Box Respirator; the latest bit of kit at the time the photo was taken in early 1917 that helped to protect the British Tommy against gas attacks. The soldier on the right is wearing a Leather Jerkin, issued in cold periods as a piece of cold weather gear and often all that soldiers had to protect themselves from the extreme temperatures in Northern France.