Australia at War

This selection of drawings made during the winters at Ypres and on the Somme reflects more the misery and the depression of the material conditions of these campaigns than it does any of their exaltations or their cheerfulnesses.Here and now-here on the new Somme and now when Spring is about us in a land upon which War has not had time to fully wreak his wicked will-these two latter qualities are dominant. In the spirit of Dernancourt and of Villers-Bretonneux the selection made from my drawings may seem to overstress this winter note. They are not primarily cheerful-but it is open to doubt whether we are behaving generously in demanding that the soldier who is saving the world for us should provide us with a fund of light entertainment while doing it.The truth is that War has many moods and nothing more is hoped than that the selection made from my drawings and my notes may record something of the one of its moods to which I was temperamentally most attuned during those bad seasons on the Somme and at Ypres.W. D. France May 1918.