Tag: Western Front

William Jones, Glynneath, 100 years on

October 8, 2017 0 Comments
William Jones, Glynneath, 100 years on

Almost exactly 100 years ago, at 6:25am on 25 October 1917, a terrible thing was done to a young man from Glynneath named William Jones.  A group of soldiers from the Worcestershire Regiment formed a firing squad and shot him dead as a punishment for deserting his post on the Western Front. William, probably a […]

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National Theatre Wales’s ‘Mametz’: a review

June 26, 2014 0 Comments
National Theatre Wales’s ‘Mametz’: a review

As part of Wales’s commemoration of the First World War, and almost exactly two years ahead of the centenary of the battle, National Theatre Wales has ‘staged’ a version of the fierce struggle for possession of Mametz Wood. This battle was fought over six days in July 1916 between largely Welsh volunteer soldiers and highly […]

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‘Sweet sister death has gone debauched today’: artists and writers in Mametz Wood

April 13, 2014 7 Comments
‘Sweet sister death has gone debauched today’: artists and writers in Mametz Wood

Mametz Wood: three syllables that have lost none of their power to appal, after almost a hundred years. On 7 July 1916 the infantrymen of the 38th or Welsh Division, most of them volunteers and amateur soldiers, were ordered to make a frontal assault on a German-held line in front of a wood, roughly a […]

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