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Dear all
A hundred years ago… while nothing
much changed in the Western Front’s trench-bound attrition, bombing became the
theme of the week. French Voisin bombers (in 1914, the first to be used in war)
attacked Ternier and Noyon (in German-occupied northern France), an iron works
in Dillingen (Bavaria) and a poison gas factory in Dornach (now Switzerland),
while British planes, probably Shorts, went for Henin Lietard and Loos (Pas De
Calais). They carried 1-200 pounds of bombs, the crew still lobbing them out by
hand it seems.
On
the Eastern Front, the German advance/Russian Great Retreat continued as, in Poland,
Brest-Litovsk (August 25) and Byelostok (26) fell, while the German Army also
began its Sventiany Offensive in present-day Lithuania (August 26-September
19). The Italian allies, however, had some success against Austria in Trentino
(28), as did the Montenegrins at Grahovo (27).
Although,
in Turkey, the Gallipoli campaign had another four months left, the Battle Of
Hill 60 proved to be the last substantial Allied attack, as well as the final
flaring of the August Offensive outlined last week. The British/Gurkha/Anzac endeavor
to link their beachheads at Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove foundered when a final
three-day onslaught (August 27-9) on this high point of the Sari Bair Hills
left the Turks still in command of the summit (1,100 Allied casualties, unknown
number of Turks).
Meanwhile...
the thousand men of the 2/1st City Of London
Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, thought their farewell thoughts about Malta. On August 27,
1915 (a Friday), after seven months of hard training – and,
in between, Mediterranean easy living of a kind they’d never expected to enjoy in
their entire lives – my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe, his
brother Ted (still secretly underage at 17 and 18), and their pals from
Edmonton, north London, boarded the SS Ivernia
in Valletta’s Grand Harbour/Marsamxett.
They feared Gallipoli would be their next stop, although the current rumour
suggested a different destination...
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, we left Sam,
in his Memoir, relishing reminiscence about the island’s loveliness while
trying to prevent his imagination wandering to the realities he might soon have
to face: “every moment of every day men
are being mutilated, shot to the point of collapse, killed, buried when found…”.
As commandeered liner Ivernia set sail, he
watched his “paradise” diminish in
the distance...
‘Brought back to earth by a pal asking me if I’d fixed up my
kip (somewhere to sleep), I followed his directions to the small area allocated
to our section and was surprised to find I had a small bed, of sorts, to
myself. Much of the first deck below had been ingeniously fitted up with a maze
of metal frames providing hundreds of single beds, each with a mattress and two
white blankets.
This showed how
differently shipping companies honoured their transport agreements with the
Government. This company, the Anchor Line if memory serves*, treated soldiers
well. Every morning, we had hot bread or rolls with first-rate coffee, boiled
eggs distributed in large string bags, or bacon served from large, hot dishes
with lots of lovely bacon fat to soak our bread in. They served daily two other
good meals, each equal to our usual dinners on land. Fine-flavoured yellow
apples, kept in a barrel, could be bought at one penny each.’
* Cunard bought the
Anchor Line in 1911 so my father may be misremembering, but that would be a
rare occurrence indeed. I expect Ivernia still
carried Anchor Line insignia despite the change of ownership.
Perhaps the strangest
aspect of the ordinary soldiers’ experience of sea travel – something totally
unknown to most working-class men and boys before the war, of course – was that
they never knew where they were going until they got there. On this voyage,
Sam’s Fusiliers’ expectations/wishful thinking failed to even get the right
continent:
‘The pity of it was that we stayed aboard so briefly.
Rumour, put about with some confidence, had us bound for India, but that order
must have been cancelled, for we disembarked at Alexandria in Egypt.**
I was amazed to
witness scenes of great cruelty on the quayside, where huge, black men
supervised gangs of workers, lashing them frequently with long cane swishes. If
this wasn’t slavery – which we had been assured at school was long ago
abolished – then what could it be called?*** Nevertheless, the men chanted as
they heaved and hauled and I supposed the small wages they received might
ensure sustenance for their families.
Catering for the
feeding and general wellbeing of troops in transit was well organised at this
busy port. They had been doing the job for years and their efficiency showed in
marked contrast to places where temporary wartime officials controlled
organisation. So we had a good meal, an hour or so of rest, then found
ourselves climbing into open railway wagons.
Someone could no
doubt have explained why trucks, not carriages, were chosen for a journey
through mostly sandy country under a scorching Egyptian sun; if wagons it had
to be, then why not covered ones? It was all accepted at that time as part of
the soldier’s lot, so we sat on the hard boards or occasionally stood up to
give our backsides a rest. When the track ran through a cutting, fine sand
swirled around us and caused discomfort. No singing to be heard: a sure sign
that Tommy Atkins – as soldiers were fondly, or patronisingly, known – was not
amused.’
** I can’t trace any
record of the date on which they reached Alexandria, but one nautical site says
the voyage takes about four days, so maybe August 31.
*** Egypt officially
abolished slavery in 1896.
Still, it turned out that
another, though brief, interlude of new and exotic experience awaited them:
‘Cairo proved to be the destination. After climbing out of
the trucks, we were allowed to fill our water bottles and eat hard biscuits and
melting cheese. Then we started marching through busy Cairo streets till we
reached a quieter district, mainly residential and, I guessed, favoured by
fairly wealthy people. After that, the road became more of a track, the
open-sided electric trams no longer clattered by, and soon the only buildings
in sight were Army barracks.
I hoped we could
anticipate another spell of life in solid buildings with shaded walkways and
roofs. I was wrong. We followed a track by the outer wall of the barracks and
soon moved clear of all buildings while, to left, right, and before us,
stretched a vast area of sand. However, we came to apparently chaotic heaps of
items dumped at intervals and in orderly lines. These we duly assembled into tents,
each the home of ten or more men — in fact, at a pinch, 20 men could lay down
in a bell tent, but not comfortably, nor healthily.
A tent town soon
appeared, a rough board named each “street” from First onwards, a number was
stuck on each tent, and a list of occupants hung on the pole at the front. So
we had addresses, purely for administrative purposes, of course. Meanwhile,
nearby, men of the Royal Engineers erected the frames of several large huts, in
due course adding roofs and walls composed of what looked like rush or raffia
mats. They left large openings in place of doors or windows and, while not
intended to be sun-proof, the huts provided cool, shady areas where we could
take our meals and recreation.
We discovered that
other engineers were busily connecting up systems of water pipes, the provision
including showers in cubicles made of that same matting. When, later, I heard
that we were temporarily under the command of the Indian Army, I appreciated
that they specialised in efficient housing and sanitation for troops frequently
on the move in hot, dry climates.
The intense interest I had always felt in new sights,
sounds, and smells once more dominated all my waking hours. Thoughts and vague
fears regarding future assignments I pushed to the background – and here, on
the edge of the desert, the romantic ideas of life in the Middle East culled
from short stories in cheap magazines appeared to be based on fact.’
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam, a temporary tourist en route for Gallipoli, takes a
wide-eyed trip to Heliopolis, the Sphinx, the Pyramids – and gets pie-eyed on
the local hooch…
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