 |
|
The First World War and the recruiting campaign |
| Britain declared war against Germany on August 4 1914, when the Germans invaded Belgium. On the advice of David Lloyd George a Welsh division of the army was set up to fight in the Great War. Owen Thomas from Llanfechell, Anglesey was appointed its General, and John Williams, Brynsiencyn its chaplain. | 
|
|
|
John Williams, Brynsiencyn was a Methodist minister who was very active in the recruiting campaign, especially in some of the more rural and Welsh speaking areas of Wales. He would preach wearing his military uniform and his ministerial collar, emphasising the rights of small nations and encouraging men to join the army. |
|
100,000 Welsh people had joined the army before May 1915. By the end of the War 272,000 Welshmen had fought in the Great War and nearly 35,000 of them were killed.
|
|
|
Welsh soldiers fought at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 and also at Mametz Wood where there were great losses. Dafydd Roberts, brother of the author Kate Roberts was injured in Salonica and died in Malta in 1917 at seventeen years of age. |
|
|
|
|
|
Another to lose his life in the fighting was the poet 'Hedd Wyn' (Ellis Humphrey Evans). After the introduction of conscription in 1916 he was forced to join the Army. He was killed on 31 July 1917, just over a month before the National Eisteddfod in Birkenhead. Hedd Wyn had won the bardic chair that year, but when the name of the winner was announced the chair was draped with a black cloth and Hedd Wyn became known as the 'poet of the Black Chair'. |
|
|
|
||
| Recruitment and the First World War | Pacifism | CND |
| The Spanish Civil War | The Second World War | |
|
|
||
| Top of this page | Ymgyrchu! Home Page | |