The Army has suffered an awful rout
In the terrible battle of (place left out),
But the enemy’s hordes have been defeated
On the banks of the River (name deleted).
The Austrians, under General Dank,
Attacked the Russians at (name left blank).
On the road near (cut) they fled in fear,
But they turned and fought at (blue-pencilled here).
Our men have had but little rest
Since the fighting began at (name suppressed).
But a funny thing happened — we had to laugh —
When (word gone) we (missing paragraph).
If the Censor destroys this letter, well —
I wish the Censor would go to --------- (Deletion by Censor).

Information about the progress of the war was censored before being sent back to Britain. News from the Front appeared first in Dead Horse Corner Gazette; subtitled A Monthly Journal of Breezy Comment, the newspaper of the 4th Battalion of the First Canadian Contingent with the British Expeditionary Force. The poem, written anonymously, was subsequently picked up and used by a number of other trench newspapers, such as Kamp Knews published by the 3rd West Lancashire Brigade, Royal Field Artillery.

The world wasn’t made in a day

The world wasn’t made in a day,
And Eve didn’t ride on a ’bus,
But most of the world’s in a sandbag
The rest of it’s plastered on us.

The world wasn’t made in a day appeared anonymously in the most famous and enduring of trench newspapers, the Wipers Times. Its editorial offices were in a rat-infested, waterlogged cellar in the old Ypres ramparts, and the printing was done in a wrecked printing house near the Cloth Hall, using type and a printing press discovered there by a sergeant who had been a printer before the war. The verse comes from the first edition of February 12 1916, when the pages had to be printed one at a time, as they had so few “y”s and “e”s.

I know a blithe blossom in Blighty

I know a blithe blossom in Blighty
Whom you (I’m afraid) would call flighty
For when Zepps are about
She always trips out
In a little black crêpe de chine nighty.

This limerick was published anonymously in The Moonraker, the magazine of the 6th Battalion, The Wiltshire Regiment. Zepps, or Zeppelins, were German airships which were first used in bombing attacks in East Anglia in January 1915. London suffered its first bombing raid by Zeppelins in May that year.

Deportment for Women
By One of Them

Sisters, when fashion first decreed
To our devoted sex
That beauty must be broken-kneed
And spinal cords convex;
When sheathlike skirts without a crease
Were potent to attract,
Those were the piping times of peace
When everybody slacked.