‘This is a very war-scarred district, the scene of much severe fighting quite recently, and the villages are all mere heaps of debris. Till the rain came the dust, fanned by a strong wind, was terrible. It was most curious to stand on a piece of high ground and see all around what looked like burning villages […]’

Entry dated September 9th 1918, War Diary 1917 – 1919, by Aleyn Lyell Reade [ALR. A. 1. 2].