Notebook of Private Arthur Snape of the 1/8th Lancs Fusiliers, including notes on training, poems, and diary (49)

A notebook kept by Private Arthur Snape of the 1/8th Lancashire Fusiliers, A Company, 42nd East Lancashire Division, believed to have been a sniper. The notebook contains a variety of material, including accounts of Snape's own movements and the operations he was involved in. He took part in the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, was in Malta later in 1915, then Egypt 1916-17, and finally France in 1917. The notebook also includes references to Gallipoli, Suvla Bay, and Anzac. Snape's account is in multiple sections throughout the notebook, but each is a continuous narrative, suggesting it may have been written as a retrospective memoir rather than a diary kept day by day. The longest section occupies most of the second half of the book: it begins with Snape's enlistment on 27th May 1915, and ends with his division leaving Egypt for France on 3rd March[?] 1917. There are also notes on training courses (subjects covered include sniping, orders for a camp guard, and bombing), details of the Dardanelles losses up to December 11th 1915, a list of payments, and two poems, one beginning "Here is a story of which a soldier tells / Who was in that famous landing / on the shores of the Dardanelles", and the other entitled "Empire".

该手稿为隶属于第42东兰开斯特师的兰开斯特燧发枪兵团第1/8营A连列兵阿瑟·斯内普所留存的笔记，据信其本人为狙击手。笔记涵盖多种内容，包括斯内普本人的行动轨迹与参与的作战行动记录。他曾参与1915年的达达尼尔战役，1915年后期前往马耳他，1916至1917年间驻扎埃及，最终于1917年赴法国作战。笔记中还提及加里波利、苏夫拉湾以及澳新军团（Anzac）相关战事。斯内普的叙述分布于笔记的多个章节，但各章节均为连贯完整的叙事，据此推测该笔记为回顾性撰写的回忆录，而非逐日记录的战地日记。笔记后半部分的最长章节占据了全书近半数篇幅：该章节始于1915年5月27日斯内普的入伍记录，终止于其所属师于1917年3月3日（日期存疑）离开埃及前往法国之时。此外，笔记还包含训练课程笔记（涵盖狙击训练、营地警卫勤务指令与爆破训练等内容）、截至1915年12月11日的达达尼尔战役伤亡统计详情、一份薪资发放清单，以及两首诗歌：其一开篇为"Here is a story of which a soldier tells / Who was in that famous landing / on the shores of the Dardanelles"，另一首题为《帝国》（Empire）。