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Dear all
A hundred years ago tomorrow… the
British Navy scored an absolute victory over the German, a strange and rare
event in this war which, on the Western Front, had already bogged down to a
process of attritional massacre — at the Battle Of The Falklands, Admiral Von
Spee led his squadron in to attack Stanley, realised too late he had fallen
prey to over-ambition and/or tricks by British Intelligence, and after a few
hours’ battle with a clutch of British cruisers which had arrived only the
previous day the Germans lost six ships (no British), and 1,800 sailors (10
British). Von Spee and his two sons were listed among the dead.
In
the Middle East, one quiet move began to prepare the way for those – like my
father Sam’s Battalion, the 2/1st City Of London, Royal
Fusiliers – who would eventually end up at Gallipoli; Field-Marshall Von Der
Goltz set off for Constantinople where, as agreed between Germany of its
Ottoman Empire ally, he took control of the Turkish Army.
Meanwhile,
billeted with local families in peaceful Tonbridge,
Kent, under-age volunteer Sam Sutcliffe, 16, his older brother Ted, 18, and
their pals from Edmonton, north London, dug their trenches – to protect the
capital in case a German invasion got that far – marched about a good deal, and
trained as best they could...
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Enjoyable and
informative, as we used to say about school trips to wherever – that was how
these weeks came to feel for Tommy (my father’s alias for himself in the early,
third-person part of his memoir). He wrote that this first-ever long period
away from home and parents just “flew by”:
‘Route
marches through the lovely countryside in late autumn — pausing sometimes in a
small town or village for a break — alternated with exercises over commons and
large, open or wooded spaces, and map-reading classes held on high ground from
which features could be visually identified.’
But the continuing status quo and absence of any hint
as to what might come next – despite all the “news from the Front” they all read
in the papers and speculated about every day – gave him pause to ponder what had
happened to this 1,000-strong crowd of men, so lately thrown together by the
random act of volunteering:
‘Tommy had seen a mass of men changed from civilians into a
working Battalion of soldiers, moved away from their homes, placed in other
people’s houses, and all arrangements for their maintenance and training
planned and carried out with reasonable efficiency — all this executed and
supervised by men who had, until recently, been engaged in other professions
and businesses.
For example, one
Major had been a barrister, another officer a junior partner in a Covent Garden
firm, while the Colonel came from an old country family with wide interests.
All were caught up in this rapidly developing war machine, determined to get it
won and finished with as quickly as possible. Tommy wondered whether there had
ever been another time when a young soldier could have been part of forming a
new Battalion like this...’
One thing continued to puzzle
them, and nag at their burgeoning self-respect as soldiers – although, even
then, in his heart of hearts, Sam could see the advantages...
‘... still they had no
guns. The trenching work would eventually make good or bad navvies of them. However,
had they been given weapons, trained to use them and then gone off to France,
they could have made a useful contribution at a critical point in the Allied
effort to hold the German attack. Their confidence high, their knowledge of war
abysmal, they would have gone into their first and, perhaps, second battles
full of zest and patriotism.
They talked freely
of their wish to “have a go” and “get over there” to see the damn thing off.
Even Tommy occasionally ventured a few words along those lines — while
guardedly watching for the sneers about his youth and lack of size which he
feared such boldness might evoke. But his worries proved groundless. The others
took it for granted that he felt as they did, sharing this desire to risk life
and limb in defence of their country and people — ignorant, at that stage, that
a minority existed who moved heaven and earth to ensure that they never ever
became involved in actual warfare and remained free to take every advantage
while the mugs were away at the Front. In due course, riches and honours
rewarded some of those types, testament to their understanding of certain facts
of life.’
Obviously, these latter
thoughts came to my father in looking back on his days of utter innocence about
much of life. But the seeds of this discontent he expressed here, when writing
in his 70s, were sown by experiences he went through between Gallipoli and the
Somme in 1916. The statistical context for his emotions in late 1914, as an
unwitting part of a great generational movement, was that in early August
Parliament called for 100,000 volunteers and, by September 30, 750,000 had come
forward, a million by the end of January, 1915 – which explains why, despite
the desperate rate of deaths and woundings at the Front, the Government could
afford to hold back conscription until January, 1916.
All the best — FSS
Next week: Food, glorious food – courtesy of the Tonbridge families
they’re billeting with, Sam and the poor boys from north London eat more and
better than ever before...
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