Counter-Attack

Click on the link to the Oxford First World War Poetry unit on Sassoon and work your way through as many of the poems/letters as you wish.

Explanatory Notes not covered in Oxford tutorials.

Lewis gun: A light machine gun, designed in 1911 by U.S. Army Col. Isaac Lewis, and widely used by British and Empire forces from 1915 onwards.

Sap: A covering over a trench; the extension of a trench from within the trench itself to a point beneath an enemy’s fortifications.

Allemands: Germans, from the French “Allemand,”; German: sometimes referred to as the “Alleyman.”

Five-nines: 5.9-calibre shells.

Fire-step: A board or ledge in a trench, upon which soldiers stand when firing.