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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… after
a winter of lesser (though deadly) skirmishing on the Western Front, to the
surprise of the French high command, a massive German artillery bombardment
began the Battle Of Verdun (February 21 – official ending December 18). In the
first few days, the German Army advanced quite steadily, at one point taking
the fort at Douamont when driven on by the misplaced “friendly fire” of their
own artillery and finding the expected garrison all but non-existent (Douamont
village now has a population of six and an ossuary containing the bones of
100,000 unknown soldiers). But, by the end of the week, General Pétain had been
summoned to the scene, decided to concentrate on defence and halted German
progress – assisted by a thaw rendering hard ground swampy. First week
casualties: French 24,000, German 25,000.
Elsewhere,
the significant action proceeded much further east and south. The Austrian Army
occupied Alabania’s then capital, Durazzo (February 27); the long Russian
Caucasus campaign approached Trebizond on the Turkish Black Sea coast, while
their West Persian inroads continued as they took control of a couple of
mountain passes and the towns of Kashan, Ispir (both 26) and Kermanshah (27); Ottoman
forces captured two Saharan oases, Farafra and Dakhla, in south-western Egypt
(27); and the Action At Agagia, near Egypt’s north-western coast, saw a
British/Sikh/Australian/South African force defeat Senussi tribesmen in one of
the last cavalry fights anywhere (26; the Senussi were allies of the Ottomans
and Germans; they suffered about 500 casualties to the British-led army’s 184).
Meanwhile,
the 200-odd 2/1st City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers comrades
who’d survived Gallipoli without serious wound or illness, had constructed a
tented town, shared with other British and Australian
Battalions,
adjacent to a village called Beni Salama, 30 miles north-west of Cairo. My father, Lance Corporal
Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London
(still under-age at 17), his older brother Ted (19), and their mates rather
enjoyed life on the banks of the Nile and the edge of the Sahara… until a new
arrival came to taint their fragile contentment…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, Sam and pals completed their
enormous masterpiece al fresco desert latrine, open to observation by the sun,
assorted passing camels, and passengers on the adjacent Nileside railway.
Further,
on the family front, his beloved older brother Ted rejoined the Battalion with
his Transport section – actually pro tem wranglers/grooms to the officers’
horses – and Sam found himself embarrassed by the authority of his Lance
Corporal’s stripe compared to his bro’s freebooting style.
This
week, he turns to a more general reflection on Army hierarchy and discipline,
provoked by the unwelcome arrival and imposition of a new commanding officer on
the battered band of comrades the 2/1st had become:
‘We began to see a tall, burly officer around our camp, a
Lieutenant Colonel*, very stern as to facial appearance, and a complete
stranger to all of us, officers and rankers. We didn’t wish to know him, but
secretly feared that, at some not very distant moment, he would force us to
acknowledge his existence. Because, since coming to this place on the edge of a
desert, we had done practically no formal training or drill. Months of living
in holes or trenches on a poor diet and with insufficient water – until the
flood and freeze came** – had reduced the vitality of even the strongest men.’
My father then elaborates
in more depth than anywhere else in his Memoir on the brotherhood which had
developed among these Suvla Bay sufferers/survivors:
‘A previously unsuspected tide of comradely feeling had
recently manifested itself among all ranks; a sort of reaction to recent
experiences, a feeling that we had all endured many risks and hardships
together, that we had been true to the volunteer spirit and stuck it out when
so many others had managed to get away from it all.
All men differ in
the degree of sincerity with which they express themselves. The human animal
is, perforce, selfish because the instinct to survive, under test, masters all
beliefs, hopes and emotions. So this feeling that we had become a band of
brothers*** – that we 250**** comprised the valuable essence squeezed by harsh
experiences out of the former one thousand – while warming and heartening, was
subscribed to tacitly en masse and never individually declared.
A hub around
which, or whom, the consequent accumulation of loyalty could revolve had to be
agreed upon; without discussion, dissent – or, indeed, any actual voting – we
elected the Major, pride of all ranks. And Major Booth*, a junior officer a
year ago, was indeed now officially in charge of us, since all of more senior
rank had vanished, in most cases for reasons unknown to me and probably to all
of us.
In the early days
back home and on Malta, his ability to learn, to practice what he’d learnt, and
to lead men stood out above that of all others and quick promotion to Captain’s
rank followed. Whereat, being now in charge of a Company, he imposed on its
members a discipline sterner than that applied in any other – and for this, men
worshipped him, because he tempered power with justice.
An average officer
would not investigate a charge brought by an NCO against a Private, but would
listen to the charge, then listen to and, usually, disregard the accused
sinner’s reasons or excuses, find the case proven, and pass sentence. In our
hero’s case, though, clear enquiry would be made. The NCO would have to prove
his case, or not. But if the charged man were then found guilty, he’d get it
right in the neck. In the nick as well.
The good officer’s
fame spread throughout all Companies and most men wished they belonged to his
superior cohort. His men’s buttons and the brass on their equipment shone more
brightly than theirs, their deportment on parade, even the horse the Major rode
on long marches, made the rest of us look rather lacking and down-at-heel.
Later, in action,
his fearless way of walking upright while surveying and inspecting the front
line in full view of the enemy was very impressive – some said foolhardy, but
in the men’s eyes it was great and it did wonderful things to our morale. And
then the Major had brought us safely out of two evacuations***** and had
supervised the setting up of our new camp home.
But, rightly or
wrongly, the rank-and-file chaps felt that the officers in the upper bracket
generally, and perhaps class-consciously, despised this man now in command of
our small Battalion (as we still liked to call it). He was a Jew and a year or
more in the hotter climate had darkened his complexion so that, had he donned
the robes popular in Egypt, his appearance would have matched that of any other
Semite******.
He had, and
deserved, the loyalty of all of us. Now though, on to this scene strode the
tall, burly Colonel, from whence or for why none of us knew, but most of us
fearfully guessed. He marched everywhere, he looked healthy, fit and sternly
purposeful, with his stout, leather leggings around his hefty calves. The
unfairness of what we saw developing became the subject of discussion during
most of our waking hours.’
* A couple of pars further on you’ll
see reference to Major “Booth”. This is my father’s alias for Major Harry
Nathan, who had shown at every stage since the Battalion’s formation in
September, 1914, that he cared for his men and stood with them, quite literally
when it came to the battlefield. Long after, having served in civilian life as
a Liberal, then Labour MP and Minister in the Attlee Government post-WW2, he
became the subject of a biography by H. Montgomery Hyde called Strong For Service. This book makes it
clear that the new CO, whom my father consigned to anonymity, must have been Lieutenant
Colonel A.C.H. Kennard; in a quotation which Hyde doesn’t date or source,
Nathan complains that Kennard was parachuted in to take over his command simply
because he had the ear of someone powerful in London; Nathan expresses further
outrage on learning from Kennard that he would be installing his own
second-in-command. (I just report this, I know no more of the ins and outs.)
** My father refers to
the notorious blizzard which hit Gallipoli at the end of November.
*** Sam wrote this in the
1970s, long before the excellent WW2 Steven Spielberg TV series had the
unfortunate side effect of devaluing the phrase to cliché.
**** I gather he refers
to 250 men here, rather than the 200 he mentioned several times a little
earlier in these chapters, because some wounded and/or ill men had returned to
the Battalion during their, to date, six weeks in Egypt.
***** Suvla Bay in
December, 1915, and V Beach, Cape Helles in January, 1916.
****** Semite: while
“anti-semitic” has come to mean “prejudiced against Jews”, my father used the
root word accurately because it means “a member of the group of people who
speak a Semitic language, including the Jews and Arabs as well as the ancient
Babylonians, Assyrians and Phoenicians” – source Collins Concise Dictionary Plus.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam and the
2/1st get paid at last! And, for the first time in Egypt, fresh meat to eat!
But the pain-in-the-rear new Colonel just carries on giving them gyp…
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