I. Censored sections from IWM 202-01 and IWM 202-02 WITH THE INDIAN TROOPS AT THE FRONT showing units of the former Indian Corps in rear areas of the Western Front, November and December 1915.

Men of 34th Sikh Pioneers digging a model trench, firstly marking out the ground with white tape. Gurkhas route marching through the rain. Men of 1st Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders also on the march. A supply dump by the roadside. More of the Gurkhas on the route march.

II. Censored sections from IWM 203 MAKING OF AN OFFICER showing basic training by the Artists Rifles at Saint Omer, Western Front, December 1915.

The relief of the guard in front of battalion headquarters at Saint Omer. Cadets going home on leave waiting for a train at Saint Omer station. The train arrives and they board it.

Notes

Title: this is taken from the shotsheet

Production: censored or discarded sections of three films from the first series of features released by the War Office in early 1916. See IWM 202-01, IWM 202-02, IWM 203 and IWM 114 for production details

Cameraman: this was either Malins, Tong, or both

Remarks: it is not on first viewing obvious why some of these scenes were cut from the finished film. Possibly considerations of pace played a part as well as those of security. Generally, scenes have been cut of which the location was either obvious (as in the case of Saint Omer station which has a large sign advertising the fact) or possibly deducible. Other scenes seem to have been cut since soldiers in them, indifferent to the camera, have an informal or 'unsoldierly' appearance, as with the relief of the guard at Saint Omer; or to preserve an illusion of actual combat, as with the trench-digging scene in which traffic can be seen on the road facing the trench. The cutting has been clumsy, producing jerks in the finished film. One caption in IWM 203 in fact promises the scene of "relieving the guard" which has been cut. Generally, if this represents the level of censorship the Army was prepared to apply to the first films it permitted of the Western Front, it lends support to the contention of the cinema industry of the time that the military attitude was unrealistic