That last scene of a WWI battle reminds me of the very last scene in the
classic film, "All Quiet on the Western Front."  Also a lot of the mentions of
the wet conditions, hospitals, the Americans raising the British morale, etc.,
etc., are also mentioned in one of my favourite books, "A Testament of Youth"
by Vera Brittain.  Ms. Brittain was a middle-class young woman who got caught
up in the patriotic fevour in the early days of WWI and signed up as a VAD and
served as a nursing assistant for the duration of the war.  Her descriptions
of the horrors and reality of life in the trenches are all too true and I'm
awed that she survived the war with her spirit still there if changed beyond
recognition. One point she made was that the war and its aftermath (including
the Great Influenza pandemic of 1919) killed almost all the eligible bachelors
of her generation; what was left were either young boys or elderly men.  Her
fiance and brother were killed as well as all her male friends.  It kind of
explains why my grandmother chose to marry later (in her mid-20s) and why she
married an American.

Kat

> One of my favourite
>     lines comes in the very last episode in
> which the British are told
>     to prepare to make the
>     final, last push over the top out of the
> trenches in the war, and
>     Blackadder
>     tries to get out of it and go home.  Upon
> receiving stupid advice from his
>     mentor his reaction is, "Well the phrase
> I'd use to describe that
>     would rhyme with 'Clucking bell...'" (Just
> think on it).
>
> A classic line, for sure!  And the very last
> scene always gets
> me...
>