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Ypres, April 1915. The rue de Lille, The gable of Aimé van Nieuwenhove’s house is on the right. The photograph is taken from the Post Office (Imperial War Museum)

Ypres, rue de Lille. ‘It was a dreadful sorrow to find nothing but burnt-out shells and charred walls. The gable end of our house was still standing, as well as some of the inner walls.’ Aimé van Nieuwenhove, July 1915. The ruins of his house are on the right of the photograph (Imperial War Museum)

Ypres. In the shadow of the new Cathedral the remnants of statuary from the old church still stand in the cloister garden

Ypres, 1915. The altar still stands inside the ruined cathedral (Imperial War Museum)

April 1915. The bombarded cathedral (Imperial War Museum)

Seventy years on, Ralph Langley at the grave of his brother Charlie, Lovencourt Military Cemetery France

Ralph Langley: ‘I joined up when I was seventeen. Everyone thought we were great lads, but when my brother was killed a few months later, my Mother fetched me out…’

2nd Lieutenant Jock Macleod on the eve of leaving for France

‘Being Orderly Corporal I was carrying dispatches with these four armed men round me. One old girl shouted out, “Yon little lad’s off to prison!’” Corporal A. Wilson, 1/5th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment

Ed’s brother, Sergeant Harry Hall, who served with the Canadians at Ypres

Lance-Corporal Ed Hall who served as a British stretcher bearer at Neuve Chapelle

Norman Tennant. Off to battle, 1915

Norman Tennant. On the old battlefront seventy years on

Douglas Pankhurst RFA. ‘My Father said, “I know you’ll do your duty, but don’t forget Mother will be worrying about You”. So I had to do my duty, if only for him – and my Mother’

2nd Lieutenant Bryden McKinnell, Liverpool Scottish, killed at Bellewaerde Ridge, 16 June 1915

The troop train disaster. ‘We were eight to a compartment and the doors locked. Suddenly there was a terrific crash. The carriage rose up and sank down again listing dangerously. The cries and screams and hiss of steam escaping was deafening.’ Private A. Thomson, l/7th Royal Scots

The troop train disaster. ‘The shrieks and moans of the men as they were being slowly roasted to death was terrible to hear.’ Sergeant J. Combe, l/7th Royal Scots

The troop train disaster. It was afternoon before we’d rescued everyone we could. Fifty-seven of us answered our names out of nearly five hundred who left Larbert that morning.’ Private A. Thomson, l/7th Royal Scots

The troop train crashed into a local train; two express crashed into them both minutes later the London express crashed into them both

The plaque on the memorial to the Royal Scots on their mass grave (W. Paterson)

Private Duff’s 25-year-old widow was photographed with her two children a month after the disaster. The photographer framed the sitters carefully, leaving a gap in which to insert the photograph of the dead father of the family

Frank Quiller, one of the few men of the signal section who survived badly wounded

Gallipoli. The landing from the River Clyde at V Beach. Painting by Charles Dixon RI

‘Lighters blocked with dead and dying… fire immediately concentrates any attempt to land.’ Lieutenant-Colonel Williams GHQ (Imperial War Museum)

Gallipoli. The Anzac HO dug-outs beneath Plugges Plateau (Imperial War Museum)

‘Dick got a bullet through his head and fell at our feet. We think an enemy sniper must have been just out in front. I made sure I got that sniper later on.’ Corporal G. Gilbert, A. Squadron, 13 Australian Light Horse (Imperial War Museum)

Walking wounded at Gully Beach. ‘The MO said to the orderly, “This man’s dressing seems to be OK, so if he thinks he can hop, he can do so.’” Private William Begbie, 7th Battalion Royal Scots (Imperial War Museum)

The ruins of Hooge Chateau in the early stages of the Second Battle of Ypres (Imperial War Museum)

Seventy years on. The modest modern chateau rebuilt on the margin of the mine crater, scene of bitter fighting, now landscaped as a sunken lawn