Episode 18: 25th March to 21st May, 1918

Sudden order to move again – at once! This time the move is through Amiens, onto Abbeville to work at Camiers and then back to Etaples. Extremely busy times in theatre and life is very chaotic but Nan Reay is always ready for duty. What is striking about her entries is the pure physical effort it took to get to the hospital bases and then the exhausting work which follows. Nan Reay meets refugees fleeing to safety from hard continuous fighting along the frontlines and an old friend from London.

Chinese Labor Corps. These labourers have been essentially been wiped out of the history of the Great War. Recruitment began in 1916 when the escalating deaths and casualties meant labourers became disastrously scarce. The allies had promised that after the war, the Shandong peninsula would be returned from Japanese control but that promise was broken and consequently, China did not sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. There is no tribute to them amongst Britain’s 40,000 war memorials (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/14/first-world-war-forgotten-chinese-labour-corps-memorial). China declared war on Germany in 1917 when a German torpedo ship sank the French ship Athos, with the loss of 543 Chinese lives.

World War 1 Timeline for Episode 18 

29 March 1918 . Ferdinand Foch appointed as Allied Co-ordinator in France, He was very successful and is credited with masterminding the victory over Germany. Foch headed the Armistice negotiations and played a vital role at the Paris Peace Conference from 1919-1920.

28 May 1918 Battle of Cantigny: in their first major battle of World War I, American troops captured the town of Cantigny, depriving the Germans of an important observation point.

May 1918 Casualties escalated at the 3rd Battle of Aisne and on 30 May, the Germans were only 90 kms from Paris.

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