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Dear all
A hundred years ago… while deadly
attrition continued on the Western Front (routine in broad retrospective, not
to the individuals involved), on the Eastern the German Army’s Gorlice-Tarnow
Offensive (May-October) designed to relieve Russian pressure on Austria-Hungary
reached one of its periodic crescendos with the occupation of Warsaw (August 5)
as the Russian Army continued the Great Retreat which was to take it way behind
its own national borders.
But
equally significant for the Allies grand strategy was the launch at Gallipoli
of the August Offensive – their second major attempt to overwhelm the Ottoman
forces, and just as tragic as the original invasion attempt in April.
The
onslaught revolved around establishing a new British Army beachhead (and more)
at Suvla Bay, to the north of Anzac Cove. With a British attack in the Helles
sector to the west planned as a diversion (Battle Of Krithia Vineyard, Aug
6-13), and all-out Anzac and Gurkha attacks (Battle Of Lone Pine and Battle Of
Sari Bair Aug 6-10, Battle Of The Nek, Aug 7, Battle Of Chunuk Bair – where
British Battalions joined in as reinforcements – Aug 7-19) it was a huge
effort, but terribly costly and largely unsuccessful because the British
commanders who strategised in advance and “on the ground” botched the Suvla Bay
centrepiece.
There,
in the dark, the landing craft ended up crucially out of position so soldiers
carrying maybe 80 pounds of equipment had to jump into water up to their necks
and nothing went right from then on. Although the British had assembled 20,000
troops and the Ottoman Army, unsure of where the expected second invasion
attempt would land, had only 1,500 on the spot, lack of coherent leadership meant
that the official history notes that, by daylight, “the situation… was verging
on chaos” while a German officer reported “the enemy is advancing timidly”
(because that’s the impression incoherent leadership created).
Notoriously,
British C-in-C Lieutenant-General Frederick Stopford remained some way offshore
on his sloop throughout, having apparently gone to bed just as the landings
began… Details next week on the conclusion of this new Gallipoli action.
Meanwhile...
in Malta, the thousand men of the 2/1st City Of London
Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, still had no idea that Suvla Bay would shortly
become their introduction to the reality of war. Among them, my father, Lance
Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe, his brother Ted (both
underage volunteers, 17 and 18 respectively), and their pals from Edmonton,
north London, carried on training and counting their blessings – given they’d
expected to be on the Western Front within 24 hours of sailing from Southampton
that February. Camped by a beautiful beach at Ghajn Tuffieha, on the north-west coast, they
had become used to thinking of more mundane matters than wounds, deaths and
other horrors…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, Sam recalled his promotion to the
loathed and loathsome rank of Lance Corporal, the lowest non-commissioned
officer in every sense, living and sleeping alongside the men over whom he had
a degree of power (that he didn’t want, especially as most of the Signallers
were older than him).
Still,
he found this misbegotten eminence did offer one perk:
‘The only practical advantage of this most minor of
promotions proved to be monetary. A Lance Corporal’s stripe should shortly
bring a small increase in pay, I’d heard, albeit for administratively tortuous
reasons. Normally, it was an unpaid rank. However, it appeared that our
qualification as Signallers entitled us all to a small rise as specialists.
There again, the paymaster had been unable to secure this increase for us – we
didn’t know why. But the four of us who had been awarded the petty promotion
then received a bonus of threepence a day for performing “extra duties”. Today
that sum would not induce you to hold out your hand to receive it, but the 1/9*
a week addition bought many good things back then.
Despite this, in
the following weeks I had little spending money. This had not mattered to me
because I was too young to have any substantial addictions, such as to alcohol
or tobacco – although I’d enjoyed smoking now and then, and certainly found
renewed strength and wellbeing in drinking a glass or two of beer after a hot,
heavy day. But my sudden relative poverty came about after brother Ted and I
had betaken ourselves to a quiet spot for one of our periodic chats and he had
called my attention to an item on the Battalion noticeboard.
It stated that if
any soldier wished to allot part of his pay to a next-of-kin relative, the
Government would add to that sum. In our case, if we allotted 2/6 a week each
to our family out of our seven-shillings basic wages, 3/6 would be added making
a weekly payment of 6/-* each, to be collected from a local Post Office. So our
mother could be 12/- a week better off. This we arranged to do, leaving
ourselves with the derisory – as it appears nowadays – weekly wage of 4/6 each
(plus that extra 1/9 in my case).’
And yet these modest sums
– see the asterisked footnote for a current perspective on “value” – could
actually allow Sam, Ted and their comrades a little leeway for luxury (at least,
so it seemed to a now 17-year-old boy from a poor family – I now realise my
father didn’t mention and I failed to note his birthday on July 6):
‘Most of this I spent on eatables to supplement the filling,
but unattractive rations. I had also been able to afford a few cigars at a
penny each and cigarettes – small Virginia – at 7d a hundred, tall glasses of
lemonade at a penny a time, or half a pint of good beer for a penny halfpenny.
Whiskey was available at 1/6 a bottle, but I never touched it though wine at 2d
a good glass was an occasional indulgence.’
It must have been comforting
to get their soldierly and family finances in good order before anything
“happened”… but soon came the first indication of change in their Mediterranean
near-idyll, the extended pre-battle hiatus which remained so unexpected and
baffling – as well as a great relief – to the Battalion. A farewell to a
friend…
‘A flutter of excitement arose in our section when our young
Lieutenant sent for Mossgrove**, who, like me, had suffered “promotion”. He was
missing for some time and then only rejoined us for long enough to pack his
kitbag, ask us to return his equipment to the Quartermaster’s store, and
briefly explain to his fellow Lance Corporals what his future job might be.
You may recall he
had obviously been educated to a higher standard than most of us, had lived
well, and must surely have enlisted under the influence of patriotic impulses
of great depth. Why else had he done so? One didn’t ask such a question of a
mate and, among soldiers, patriotism was never mentioned so we never knew the
answer to that one. He extracted promises of secrecy from the three of us, then
told us he was being temporarily attached to the Navy. They would give him
training in those aspects of signalling work which differed from Army practice.
After that, he would join a ship. So, goodbye Mossy.’
* For under-50s baffled
by the old money: 1/9 meant one shilling and ninepence = about 8.75p and 6/-
meant six shillings = 30p; put my father’s arithmetic together and his total
weekly wage as a Lance Corporal Signaller was 8/9 (43.75p) and his brother
Ted’s as an infantry Private 7/- (35p), but the “literal” calculations don’t
deal with inflation of course; my father wrote his Memoir in the ’70s, but the
www.thismoney.co.uk inflation calculator shows that today (August, 2015) a 1915
£1 would be worth £103.05, so for instance 1/9 translates to £9.02, 6/- to
£30.92, my father’s wage of 8/9 to £45.08 , Ted’s 7/- to £36.07, and the 2/6 a
week they each sent home to their mother to £12.88… that is, a pittance from
either end of the telescope (and Sam mentions elsewhere that, even so, his Army
pay excelled his teenage pay as an office boy in London up to September, 1914,
when he lied about his age and enlisted) – yet, as he illustrates, not too bad
in the circumstances of a soldier in barracks abroad at the time (the
battlefield, as you’ll see when the Battalion gets to Gallipoli, the
opportunities to both spend and be
paid generally proved rather limited).
** Mossgrove was among
the newly formed Signaller squad Sam introduced in Blog 45 on 17/5/2015: ‘about 20, tall, slightly pigeon-toed,
fair, wavy hair compulsorily short at sides and back where it showed below the
cap, unruly otherwise; he would overcome ill humour or garrulous chumminess
with his never-failing courtesy and friendly smile… a well-educated fellow. He
never patronised people, not even the occasional fawning type.’ (“Mossgrove”
may have been an alias as my father regularly changed names to avoid any pain
or offence to living comrades or their families.)
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Vaccinations, breaking camp, marching down to the docks… the
Battalion’s about to set sail again.
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