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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… on
the Western Front the deadly, desultory stage of grinding continued with the
German Army shelling Loos, northeastern France
(February 3), the Allies responding in kind by bombarding nearby
German-held Lille (February 6). Also an alarming Zeppelin raid on East Anglia
and the Midlands killed 70 and injured 113 (January 31).
Russia
continued to be the most aggressive of the Allies, attacking Riga, Latvia
(February 1), and in the Bukovina region of modern Romania/Ukraine (3), on the
Eastern Front. Further south, in the Caucasus (between the Black and Caspian
Seas) they pressed the Ottomans back towards the conclusion of their Erzerum
Campaign, begun on January 10, while launching a follow-up action in the
two-month Trebizond Campaign (February 5) pressing into territory where, in
1915, the Ottomans had massacred or deported 30,000 Armenians.
Down
in the Balkans, though, the Austrian and Bulgarian Armies emphasised an Allied
failure; having conquered Serbia, they pressed on through Albania and even
launched a Zeppelin raid on Salonika, where – following their Gallipoli defeat
– French and British forces had installed themselves to prevent any attempt at
invading Greece.
However,
down in Africa the Battle For Lake Tanganyika apparently reached a somewhat African Queen-style conclusion when two cutely
named, though armed, British motor boats, the Mimi and the Toutou,
captured the German gunboat Kingani.
Meanwhile,
the 200-odd 2/1st City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers comrades
who remained after four months fighting at Suvla Bay and V Beach, Gallipoli, found
their brief R&R (and de-lousing) respite in Alexandria swiftly concluded –
the Army still having neglected both to pay them since they shipped into
Gallipoli and to replace their tattered clothes. For my father, Lance Corporal
Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London
(still under-age at 17), and his mates there followed a spell in a rural
location on the banks of the Nile and the edge of the Sahara doing… well, as
usual, nobody told them what the plan was…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, my father’s vestigial Battalion
travelled in the usual PBI “cattle-truck” discomfort to a place called Beni
Salama, 30 miles north-west of Cairo. Given that a bare patch of ground, rather
than any pre-arranged accommodations awaited them, they had to sort themselves
out pdq. Sam recalls:
‘We hauled the tent bags some distance away from the
railway; officers measured out spaces and minions laid out ropes to mark the
lines where the tents were to stand. We had earlier learnt the drill for
erecting tents without wasting a single move and a camp sprang up quickly. The
marquees proved tricky, but we managed and, before nightfall, we had settled
into our own allotted canvas homes. With two blankets apiece, being really
tired, we soon slept – all except the poor devils who had to mount guard and
scare off intruders if any, or, more likely, the jackals which scrounged around
desert habitations.
We spent the next
couple of weeks toiling for long periods each day on a diet of hard biscuits,
corned beef and dried, shredded veg, with a little jam and a small amount of
cheese once or twice a week. The corned beef, basis of the main meal, would be
served cold one day and warm the next, as a hash with the shredded vegetables.
An unusual addition to this diet was a daily measure of lime juice, compulsory
drinking. The official reason for this latter treat never reached my ears – men
who professed to know said it was to cool the blood and subdue men’s natural
lusts (though they used less churchy words). Like a clever little ex-Boy Scout,
I preferred the anti-scurvy theory.
Each day a train
brought in a fresh load of tents. These we loaded on to some splendid
horse-drawn wagons manned by really fine Australians, big, powerful fellows.
They had brought in their own equipment and set up a camp where, looking on
from the outskirts, I could see that everything worked on a better and more
generous scale than ours ever had. I believe they were the Australian Light
Horse*, probably some of the first volunteers from Down Under.
The camp grew,
each day’s work providing accommodation for one more Battalion**.’
So there they were, settled
in a tented encampment between the Sahara and the Nile… when a romantic-looking
figure came into view, riding a camel. Was it a Sheikh, was it a Pasha, was it
Lawrence Of Arabia? No, it was Ted Sutcliffe from Edmonton:
‘My brother Ted reappeared one day***, to my joy and my
amazement, for he was riding high on a camel led by an Arab. An arrangement of
rope netting slung over the beast’s back provided, on each flank, a container,
one filled with loaves, the other with large clumps of dates. A sort of
cavalcade followed Ted, some animals carrying similar loads, others with tins
of bully beef or special provisions for the officers. “We’re what’s left of the
old Transport Section and eventually we shall be with the Battalion
permanently,” he told me. Good news indeed.
Once we got
talking, I told brother Ted – himself, unpaid for weeks – how I longed for
something luxurious to eat after the long period of small, poor rations which
had been my lot. I knew complete replacement of all apparel and equipment lost
in the recent campaign would soon occur, and we decided that my heavy, wool,
long pants might yield a harvest of a few piastres if offered to the local fellaheen****.
We didn’t know how
to go about it though…’
* The five Australian
Light Horse Brigades served at Gallipoli and throughout the war.
** Up to 1,000 men.
*** Sam last saw Ted in Lemnos on Boxing Day, before the Battalion
suddenly got the order to sail back to Gallipoli to help with the evacuation at
V Beach (immediately after they had themselves evacuated Suvla Bay). Ted, two
years older than Sam, so 19 at this point, was an original 2/1st member, but
he got separated from his comrades in
September, 1915, when he had his front teeth knocked out in a fist fight. See Blogs
62 13-09-15 and 77 27-12-15.
**** Arabic word meaning
peasant, farmer, agricultural labourer – “effendi”,
I read, are the land-owning class.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: International
trade agreement – despite hot-blooded Ted cutting up rough, natural negotiator
Sam sells his old underpants to a villager…
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