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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… while
the weather, rather than the festivities, slowed the war on Western and Eastern
Fronts deadly action proceeded – at Hartmanswillerkopf where the French Army
attacked and took 1300 German prisoners, then got beaten back again (December
21-2, Vosges), at De Panne where German planes bombed the King and Queen of
Belgium’s home from home (20, Flanders), on the River Strypa where the Russian
and German Armies fought fiercely (24, Ukraine) and in Bukovina where the
Russians assailed the Austrian Army (27, then Moldavia, now Ukraine/Romania).
On
Greece’s northern border where French and British forces intended to hold a
line after the German/Austrian/Bulgarian conquest of Serbia, 120,000 Bulgarian
soldiers gathered (22) – while the Italians who had taken Durazzo on the
Albanian coast provided a diversion for the Allies.
Much
further south, the extraordinarily widespread Russian Army continued gnawing at
western Persia, occupying Kum (20) and Kangavar (25), while in neighbouring
Mesopotamia Ottoman forces attacked the besieged British garrison at Kut on the
Tigris (23 and Christmas Day), and down on Lake Tanganyika two British Navy
motor boats, the cutely named Mimi
and Toutou, captured German gunboat Kingani (December 26 – and maybe just a
little something to do with The African
Queen, which will again get a couple of outings on British TV this
Christmas week).
Meanwhile,
in Gallipoli the Allied troops in the Cape Helles sector remained in place. But,
further east, after three months getting nowhere at Suvla Bay, the remnants of
the 2/1st City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers,
including my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe
from Edmonton, north London (still under-age at 17), had at last evacuated – on
the night of December 18-19 – and encamped on the Greek Island of Lemnos, hub
for the British Mediterranean forces. After all that, it was Christmas…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, Sam and the 200 remaining from the
1000-man Battalion which sailed from Egypt in September, experienced the joy and
relief of escape from that terrible campaign, then the wretched dejection of
defeat. But Sam’s spirits were lifted by a surprise reunion with his older
brother and fellow Fusilier Ted (19 by then) whom he’d last seen on the docks
at Alexandria being led off their troopship because the medics said he couldn’t
serve in Gallipoli without his front teeth – which had been knocked out in a
fight with another soldier.
And
now, it seemed, though the boys were far from home, they could prepare for at
least a peaceful Christmas. Picking up from their arrival at the huge
encampment on Lemnos, Sam writes:
‘Next morning, Drake, a fellow Signals Lance Jack, and I
were told to go searching for missing communications, so to speak. In fact, we
were to board a steam pinnace – lent by the commander of a battleship – go
round to the east side of the island and search for mail dumped there; it had
been allowed to accumulate while we were on active service because transport to
deliver it had not been available. In charge of the trim, little vessel was a
midshipman, a lad of about my age, quite pretty with his pink cheeks, his
immaculate uniform, but a fine young officer. He had a rating for crew.
Off we puffed
round the coast after leaving the big harbour. East Mudros* had a useful jetty
and, going ashore, Drake and I found piles of full, canvas mailbags — a
quantity commensurate to the full Battalion of a few months back. We began
carrying them back to the pinnace and stacking them on the deck. By the time
we’d loaded up there was little to be seen of the boat but her funnel. Not a
word of complaint came from the young officer, though. The cherubic smile, the
acceptance of things as they were, inspired me, given that almost all my
companions of late had been depressed by the pervading feeling of material
poverty and defeat.
Happy in the
knowledge that we were accomplishing a really useful mission, to avoid rolling
overboard Drake and I crawled over the sacks, seeking places with handholds. I
spotted a sort of handle near the top of the funnel, clambered up and held on
there. Drake jammed himself close to the small superstructure which housed the
steering wheel, the rating, and the midshipman. I had my doubts that they could
see where they were going, but of course they managed fine.
Just as we cast
off, someone came running towards the landing stage, waving. It was Jackson,
the man whose spectacles had been damaged one dark night on machine-gun hill**.
Before we passed out of hearing, he yelled that he had temporary glasses he
could just about see with, and he was awaiting shipment to Egypt. His rosy face
was all smiles and his wife and children could surely hope to see Daddy before
long.
Back in Mudros,
Drake and I did no unloading, for an eager party of helpers awaited delivery of
the first mail many of them had seen for some months. We two got down to eating
a meal thoughtfully saved for the two heroes of the moment.
By candlelight, we
all read late into the night, each concerned with his own news and feelings.
Ted and I had a couple of parcels each from our parents, letters too. He also
had some small packages from girlfriends. Among many nice things, our parents
had sent photographs of our family taken in the back garden. Our baby sister***
was standing there, now able to do so without help. Our young brother looked
bonny, the older sister all smiles, the ever solemn dad still solemn, while
mother wore her usual rather stern expression.
It was good to
have this reassuring picture, visible proof that life at home had not greatly
changed. Father’s letters, written in his impeccable hand, gave us a clear
picture of the national scene as he understood it, and Ma’s gave us news of
family and local happenings. All was well there, and that was great.
I also received
several long, interesting letters from my school friend Charlie****, the
draper’s son, telling me about his life in the newly formed Royal Naval Air
service, first at Howden in Yorkshire, and later at Cardington in Berkshire.
Late that night, a
message circulated that after careful thought and discussion it had been
decided that all parcels intended for men no longer with us — in one sense or
another — should be opened and the contents fairly divided among us. The absent
men’s letters would be cared for pending final disposal.’
With this sweet connection with home still in
their minds and hearts, Sam and Ted felt eager for Christmas Day… which turned
out to be probably the strangest and most contradictory they would ever
experience:
‘Christmas nearly upon us and, next morning, our generous
Major***** had our crowd assemble and announced that arrangements had been made
for a supply of beer, lots of it, to be collected from the Forces’ Canteen.
Volunteers, genuine on this occasion, set off, carrying the large dixies in
which the cooks normally prepared stews or tea. When they returned, noticeably
more talkative and cheerful than before, they carried far more beer than it
appeared likely we could cope with. The distribution of cakes, biscuits,
Christmas puddings and sweets from the parcels of absent comrades followed —
such a plenitude of good eatables compared with the scarcity during recent
months.
Ted spent as much
time with me that day as his odd-job duties at the nearby Field Hospital
allowed. To work off the heaviness from over-eating and drinking, we two took a
walk – nostalgia and the effects of strong beer rendering us untypically
sentimental about the dear dead days beyond recall as we strolled, perhaps a
little unsteadily, in no particular direction. The day was dull, the sky grey,
the wind very chilly, but divil a bit cared we… until we came to the hole.
Yes, yet another hole
after all those others I’d lived in recently. This, however, was a big one,
circular and possibly 15 feet deep. When, why or by whom it had been excavated
we had no idea, but now it provided shelter from the winter for a number of
Arabs. Dressed in the usual poor man’s gowns and hood-like headgear, they
crouched in circles well below the rim. They looked ill and miserable. Dotted
all around, above and below them was their excreta, all noticeably coloured by
the blood which escapes from dysentery sufferers.
Of course, I
stated my belief that it was wrong to bring these people from a very poor sort
of life in Egypt to an even worse one in this cheerless island, but Ted
informed me they had competed for the opportunity to come and earn some cash, a
chance seldom available to them at home. Things had not been all that good for
me in recent months, but I still had pity to spare for these poor devils. Even
more so when Ted told me how they, and others, had travelled from Egypt; he
knew because he had been ordered to escort some of them on to a ship, to send
them below and close the hatches. During the voyage, the labourers had to be
kept down there at all times, their guards armed with trenching tool handles to
quell any revolt that might occur.
It all seemed wrong
to me. We walked away discussing the wisdom of the officials concerned in
deciding that these poor, debilitated souls should be sent across the sea to
finish up shivering in a hole in the ground surrounded by shit…
We came upon a
village with several small shops and a number of our fellow soldiers, British
and ANZAC, wandering about. We had no money, but out of curiosity we entered
one shop and were surprised to see the Greek man and woman who ran it, and all
their stock, sat behind iron bars. We had seen something similar in post
offices and banks back home, but usually those bars were made of brass, whereas
this black, iron enclosure had the aspect of a prison.
However,
justification for the bars appeared almost instantly when an altercation between
a Scot and an Australian flared up. The Scot wanted a loaf of bread similar to
one he’d purchased previously at about eightpence. The shopkeeper told him
today’s price was two shillings. The colonies were paying this without demur,
while the Scot knew that, at home, a bigger loaf than this could be bought for
threepence or less. So the eightpence he offered appeared more than generous to
him out of about seven shillings weekly Army pay. He upbraided the Aussies for
spoiling the market just because their Government treated them far more
generously than ours did British soldiers.
We left them still
pursuing their argument and returned to our camp where Christmas parcel
goodies, lashings of beer or tea, Christmas puddings, and all things nice, were
there for the picking-up and guzzling. What a reversal of fortune – we looked
forward to some days of ease and over-indulgence. Late that night, Ted left me
to return to his tent and we, the very happy brothers, promised ourselves
another lovely day tomorrow.’
* I’m somewhat confused
about this little trip on the pinnace. My father writes that they sailed around
to the east side of Lemnos, which would mean leaving Mudros bay/harbour. But
“East Mudros” seems to be a small place on the east side of Mudros bay. So his wondrous
memory was probably wrong on one detail or another here. My guess, given his
detailed recollection of their voyage, is that they did sail out and round to
the east side of Lemnos and that he misremembered the place name - but I can’t
be sure! If anyone knows where that mail dump was, please tell me and put me
right for a corrected footnote in the next “edition”.
** See Blog 69 Nov 11,
2015, for the story of how my father “accidentally” ended family man Bill’s
Suvla campaign by kneeling on his glasses in the middle of the night – in the Signals
post/hole they shared on what Sam names “machine-gun hill” after their
neighbours, a veteran Essex Regiment unit who became his friends and, to a
degree, protectors.
*** The “baby sister”,
not mentioned before (a little more background in the Afterword when you get
there): Edith “Edie” Minnie Sutcliffe, born May 22, 1912, at 26, Lowden Road
(see endnote 7).
**** For more on Charlie
Bolton and the childhood background in Edmonton this refers to see Facebook
childhood episode 16, posted March 3, 2015, on https://www.facebook.com/Nobody-Of-Any-Importance-A-Foot-Soldiers-Memoir-of-WW1-300782296758247/
***** Harry Nathan, the
Battalion’s never forgotten leader/hero.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: The “lovely day tomorrow” ends in the small hours with a
Sergeant’s roar and Boxing Day sees the remnants of the Battalion sailing back
to Gallipoli!
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