The stapled binding is good and secure, although the original staples are rusty. The card cover is in very good condition, with only minor signs of use. There is also advice on how to encourage 'the offensive spirit’, and avoid the ‘insidious tendency to lapse into a passive and lethargic attitude, against which officers of all ranks have to be on their guard’. It includes detailed advice on all aspects of trench warfare, from officers duties and the construction and maintenance of trenches, to machine gun emplacements, loopholes, sniping, bombing, attack and defence, artillery co-operation, and virtually everything else that a junior officer would have needed to know when taking over a position in the front line. This manual would have been issued to officers just before the Third Battle of the Ypres, which began in July 1917. H.M.S.O., London, 1917 ‘Constant activity in harassing the enemy may lead to reprisals at first, but if persevered in, it always results in ultimate mastery’.Īn original 1917 edition of the War Office manual Notes for Infantry Officers on Trench Warfare. For most of the war, after the initial more fluid battles of late 1914 and before the more open warfare that began in March 1918, the Allies and the Germans.
