Tea, Rum & Fags: Sustaining Tommy, 1914-18History Press, 2009 - 192 pages It is said that 'an army marches on its stomach,' but histories of the First World War usually concentrate on its political and military aspects. The gargantuan task of keeping the British Expeditionary Force fed and watered is often overlooked, yet without adequate provision the soldiers would never have been able to fight. Tommy couldn't get enough tea, rum or fags, yet his commanders sent him bully beef and dog biscuits. But it was amazing how 2 million men did not usually go short of nourishment, although parcels from home, canteens and estaminets had a lot to do with that. Incredibly, Tommy could be in a civilised town supping, beer, wine, egg and chips, and a few hours later making do with bully beef in a water-filled trench. Alan Weeks examines how the army got its food and drink and what it was like. |
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1/8/Royal Warwickshires 1/Cameronians 17/Leicesters 7/Royal Alfred Burrage April Armentières Army Arras arrived Artillery August bacon battalion Battle of Ypres beer billet Billy Nevill bottle boxes bread breakfast bully beef butter café cake calories canteens Captain champagne cheese chicken chocolates Christmas cigarettes cocoa coffee cold communication trench Connaught Rangers cooks Dick Richards dinner dixies drunk enemy estaminet Étaples food and drink francs Frank Dunham fresh front line Fusiliers George Coppard German hard biscuits Imperial War Museum John Glubb July kind permission kitchen Lance-Corporal Maconochie March meal meat mess tin miles milk night November October officers ounces pals parcels plum pudding Poperinghe Private ration party Reproduced by kind rest areas retreat Rifles Robert Graves Royal Engineers sandbags September 1915 shell Siegfried Sassoon smoke soldiers Somme soup stew stove sugar supply sweet biscuits Tommy's troops Warwickshires whisky wine Winston Groom Woodbines Yorkshires