Postcard Reveals ‘Hundreds’ Leaving Town To Fight In WWI

One hundred years ago today World War One began, and a postcard we have found gives a local insight to the build up to war.

The war formally began on the 28th July 1914 following a telegram from Vienna with Austria-Hungary declaring they were at war with Serbia, from there the conflict widened.

Prior to the declaration of war militarisation of Europe was taking place, and on a local level this is illustrated by a postcard found by Wrexham.com sent to an address on Algernon Road in London, that is dated 7th August 1914 speaking of a visitor to Wrexham observing hundreds of soldiers leaving the area.

The message pictured above reads – we think – as follows:

Hope this will find you quite well we ?????
We are here for a fortnight
What do you think of the war?
The soldiers are going in hundreds from here.
fondest love from Joules & Lois, 8 Kings Mills Road, Wrexham

The postcard front is below, and a modern day shot of the same view we took at the weekend:

EDIT – WHOOPS!: John has been in touch and said “The postcard is dated the 7th August 1914 which is when the first troops left from Wrexham General railway station having marched from the Barracks as reported in the Wrexham Advertiser the following day.

“Not sure who managed to make 7th July out of 7.8.1914 – back to school and not just for history classes!”

The correction above is of course right, and the postcard is from one hundred years ago just over a week away, not as we wrote initially a couple of weeks back in July.

Also Simon Roberts has created this wonderful composition of both images above: