‘All of Us are Looking Forward to Leaving’: The Censored Correspondence of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps in France, 1917–18

Historians, in order to better understand the experience of life on the Western Front during the First World War, have sought out testimonies written at the time, not subject to the distortions of passing time. Among these sources of information correspondence with the home front, for all of its imperfections, provides an unparalleled insight into a military unit’s experience of battle and life in the trenches. This article focuses on the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps, trying to account for the poor morale which, wartime commentators agreed, was singularly poor, and is based on an examination of the collection of censored correspondence held in the Army Historical Archive, in Lisbon.