This film is part of Free

Feeding the Fighters

Mess tins at the ready! Enough meat and grain to feed an army is prepared for the front.

Non-Fiction 1914 1 mins Silent

Overview

As Britain stepped up for war, newsreel crews filmed the preparations up and down the country, encouraging everyone to pitch in and 'do their bit'. This sombre Topical Budget item, filmed in Brentwood in Essex, shows the South Midland Division of the Army Service Corps weighing meat carcasses and loading vast quantities of grain onto carts bound for the east coast.

The Army Service Corps was the division of the British Army responsible for supplying and transporting food, equipment and ammunition to the front. Tasked with this logistical feat, the ASC numbered hundreds of thousands of men during World War I.