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Dear all
A hundred years ago… while
the British at home absorbed the news of a second battleship sunk by a German
submarine (HMS Formidable, off Portland Bill, January 1, 527 men lost), status
quo slaughter on the Western Front proceeded, much of it around the First
Battle Of Champagne (December 20, ’14-March 17, ’15).
On the Eastern Front, the Russian Army continued terrible,
“successful” winter campaigns against the Ottoman Empire in the Caucasus at
Sarikamish, Kara Urgan and Ardahan, and in the Carpathians. This last, a
three-month-long attack on the northeast corner of Austria-Hungary forced
soldiers to endure night-time temperatures of -25°F for weeks on end, causing a
75 per cent casualty rate on the less well prepared Austro-Hungarian side.
The worldness of the war developed further with battles in the
Cameroons (the French repulsing a German attack, January 5), the UK-allied
Muscat Army supported by Indian battalions defeating a rebellion by Turkish-supported
tribes (January 10-11), and the British taking Mafia Island, off Zanzibar, from
the Germans (January 12).
Nonetheless, today, January 4, a Monday a century ago, the
London Stock Exchange reopened for the first time since July, 1914, when it
closed after pre-war panic saw interest rates double in 24 hours and a run on
the Bank of England as people besieged Threadneedle Street demanding gold in
exchange for their paper money.
Meanwhile, my father, under-age Royal Fusilier Sam Sutcliffe,
16, his brother Ted, 18, and their pals from Edmonton and elsewhere in London concluded
brief festivities at home with their families...
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
‘Too soon,’ Sam wrote,
‘even Boxing Day had passed, farewells had been said and the brothers, with
Harold, were on their way back to Bunbridge.’
Which reminds me to explain, for new readers, that in this
first part of his Memoir my father wrote in the third person, referring to
himself archetypally as “Tommy”, and that, for reasons I never elicited, he
felt moved to thinly disguise some place names – so “Bunbridge” is really
Tonbridge, Kent, and that’s where his 2/1st City Of London
Battalion found itself billeted for a couple of winter months, 1914-15.
After Christmas leave, they trained on (still
without rifles!) and resumed digging trenches, which served the dual purpose of
building defences in case of invasion and rehearsing their excavation skills to
meet the demands of onward destinations including Gallipoli, the Somme and
Arras.
As Sam wrote:
‘That part of the London trench defence Tommy’s crowd were
responsible for had reached an average depth of about five feet....
From time to
time in that war, well-constructed trench systems, properly reinforced with
wood, wire net or expanded metal, and, at the bottom, drainage sumps covered by
slatted boards — duck boards — served as home to hundreds of thousands of men.
But at any point where a major attack developed, the structure which looked so
strong could soon be reduced to a useless shallow rut, its only occupants
mutilated corpses; yesterday’s bright boys, today’s cadavers.
With short,
wintry days and muddy trenches to work in, Tommy fully appreciated the warmth
and comfort always awaiting him at Leigh Drive [his billet with Mr and Mrs
Fluter and another young volunteer, Churniston]. Before entering the house, he
scraped the thick mud from his boots; then his next care demanded using old
newspaper to further clean boots and puttees. He hung his damp, outer clothing
in a corner of the large kitchen and put on a pair of civilian trousers. This
broke no regulations provided he stayed indoors. He knew good luck had set him
up in a very special billet, so he tried to make the Fluters feel that housing
and feeding a strange lad was not one of life’s greatest trials.
The question of
how to pass the winter nights did not arise after all. Lingering over the
wonderful evening meals, listening to Mr Fluter’s reminiscences or thoughts on
current affairs or, on occasions, Churniston’s chilly experiences among the
cadavers at the teaching hospital [where he’d worked before enlisting], saw him
through easily to about 10 o’clock when preparations for going to bed usually
commenced.
Ever one to
survey the past and compare the present, Tommy concluded he could count this
Bunbridge sojourn among his best times. He felt almost guilty when he read
about the misfortunes and sufferings of soldiers on active service. True, the
men at the Front in those early months of the war were almost all regular soldiers
carrying on the kind of work for which they had long trained and, by all
accounts, doing it well — but they lacked numbers, as well as sufficient
machine guns and artillery.
For years,
ordinary people — even Tommy — had known that war with Germany was probable,
but apparently the message had not reached the Liberal government and the War
Office. “Nobody thought to tell them, poor souls,” Tommy would reflect. So fear
of a long war grew and the patriotic bloom began to fade from the eager
defenders’ faces. This gradually changed many a cheerful patriot into a
thoughtful schemer. For them, the mad rush to the Front turned into a careful
study of the Rear, and a search for some niche there wherein their talents
could be utilised.’
All
the best for 2015! — FSS
Next week: The making of FootSoldierSam – a boy who went to war
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