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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… while
skirmishes continued around Ypres and Albert, Verdun remained the hub of heavy
fighting, even though it had quickly become as bogged down there as on the rest
of the Western Front. The French and German Armies contested Hill 304 for days
with a modest German advance the only movement as artillery beat them back from
the summit (May 3-7).
During
the week, three German airships were destroyed on consecutive days (May 3-5) in
diverse locales: Norway (after raiding Scotland), the Schleswig coast
(straddling current German-Danish border), and Salonika (Greece).
In
British Isles news, the first three Irish rebel leaders from the defeated April
uprising were executed (May 3). And that same day, Parliament heard the introduction
of the Military Service Bill which would remove married men’s exemption from
conscription.
Further
South, the Allies had a successful week in various locations with the French
taking back Florina (Macedonia) from the Bulgarians (May 2), the Russians
defeating Ottoman forces in Persia at Srmil (5), Serin el Kerind (6) and
Oasr-i-Shirin (7), and South African (7, Kidoa-Irangi) and Belgian (3,
Shanzugu) troops developing their pincer campaign to invade German East Africa.
Meanwhile,
after four terrible winter months in Gallipoli, and three more restful months
in Egypt, my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe
from Edmonton, north London (still under-age at 17), his older brother Ted, 19,
and their mates – the 250-ish 2/1st City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers comrades
who’d survived Gallipoli – had arrived in Rouen, France. There they encamped
prior to Western front deployment. Their all-consuming objective was to save
the Battalion from disbandment, as threatened by the powers-that-be, via their
performance in training. This they’d been told, could ensure that they would
form the veteran core of a fully reinforced 2/1st…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, they trained with crazed devotion
and seemed to do very well in their decisive parade before the General on whose
judgement their future depended. But then, my father writes…
‘Days passed, and our enthusiastic hopes for the old Battalion
sagged; no news came of the new men who were to fill out our shrunken ranks and
make up the full-strength unit we could help to train and improve.
Came a day when
everybody – without exception! – was ordered to parade. With all present, we
were surprised not to see our popular Major out in front*. Instead, his
adjutant stood there. I had not seen him since the occasion of his appearance
at Gallipoli, walking out in the open when we were all in holes or trenches –
when one of his arms was bandaged and supported by a sling and he looked ill.
Today, he looked fit physically, but his face was pale.
He quickly told us
that, in spite of all our endeavours and successes, it had been decided that
our numbers were too small for making up with reinforcements. Groups of us
would be sent to various Battalions in the two Territorial Divisions on the
Front in France. He said much more. One could see tears on his face. But no
comment came from the ranks, no response whatsoever. Had the Major done the
execution job, some men would have said a few words, heartfelt if not exactly
polite. However, the adjutant’s emotion was wasted on us; when we dispersed we
were quite a different set of men to those hearty mugs who had, for weeks,
tried so hard to please.
I had one desire now and that was to somehow get a leave
pass. To spend a few days in England before going into action. I, and many
others, went around voicing this desire and also letting it be known that,
because of the scurvy treatment we had received, the Army could get stuffed.
Dangerous conduct this, but our outraged feelings needed some outlet, the more
so since it became known that a new Battalion bearing our title** was already
in existence in England.
One of our men,
Brotherton, did get compassionate leave for family reasons. But, before he’d
left France, he ended up in hospital with serious injuries; travelling on the
cheap to the Channel coast, he boarded a goods train and climbed into a small
cabin on the roof of the wagon. But the train took the wrong line, one where a
tunnel wasn’t high enough, and the wagon was smashed, Brotherton with it. He
survived, but it seemed odd that the only ranker I’d known to be granted leave
failed to reach home.
This is no tale of a God-fearing patriotic boy facing death
and achieving glory for beloved king and country. After Gallipoli, the survivor
members of our Battalion had felt some kind of joy-in-comradeship bond, but
we’d backed a loser and that was that. Henceforth, we owed allegiance to no
one, every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.
I spent much of my
spare time in a Church Army hut, where the mother and daughter who ran the
concern provided home-made wads (buns, rock-cakes, and the like) and cups of
good tea cheap, and always had time for a chat. They never rushed about trying
to work up more business, that was not the object of the venture; wisely, the
organisers of the overseas church missions to the troops realised many men
would value a quiet place where letters could be read and written, or books borrowed
and read, without interruption from hale and hearty religious fellows, who
meant no harm, but could be nuisances. Mum protected her daughter from physical
contact with the licentious soldiery, but permitted friendly conversation
across the counter as part of the service.
In camp, though,
where were the smiles and cheery greetings which had become customary during
our recent combined effort to impress the top brass? Gone missing, replaced by
faces registering all the wrong emotions, such as scorn, sadness and defiance.
Family men must
have felt additional anxiety at times, after having survived some risky
situations and come now so near to home, yet apparently still to be denied a
short period with their loved ones before going into battle alongside strange
comrades, men about whom they knew nothing. They did understand that no
definite undertaking had been given as to permission to visit home being
granted after a specified period abroad, but this did appear to be an opportune
moment for a kindly gesture from above… Our Battalion disbanded, no training
programme to be interrupted, still some days to be passed in idleness while our
individual fates were decided.
These matters
occupied almost all our thoughts and conversations. We became monomaniacs on
this subject of leave. Battles, logistics, advances, retreats – those things
concerned others; we were single-track thinkers who just wished to go home for
a while.
At least, during
our period of uncertainty, the opportunity had been taken to ensure we were
fully equipped, so when our transfers to new Battalions came through we would
make no demands upon them, beyond normal requirements of food and ammunition.
I was foolish
enough to allow today to be fouled up by speculations as to what tomorrow might
bring forth, but I ought to have enjoyed that spell at the huge Army base near
Rouen. The weather compared unfavourably with Egypt, but we did have a sort of
roof over our heads – albeit canvas – a luxury after the Gallipoli experience.
In addition, our circular bell tents had strong, sectional wooden floors.
We took our meals
in large huts, the food plentiful, nourishing, and of a higher standard than
our Battalion caterers had ever produced. So I could appreciate the camp
organisation was in the hands of men skilled in providing for the needs of
large numbers. Conscientious men maintained efficient sanitation – on the
buckets and night-soil-carts basis – using the unskilled labour freely
available to the best advantage. A large incinerator dealt with all combustible
waste. If many rounds of live ammunition found their way into the furnace, the
consequent explosive cracks served to remind us all that, not far away, there
was a war going on.
But the impending
dispersal of the old crowd soured most of my waking moments at the time. Even
though, in my estimation, the dispositions of these men ranged from more than
decent to anonymous to detestable, they had been my companions for the last 20
months. That most of them felt similarly afflicted showed clearly in their
faces. A generally held opinion developed that the sooner the chop came the
better – since, apparently, none of us in the ranks were going to see our homes
and families before they dispatched us to join some strange Battalion up in the
front-line trenches.’
* The Major: previously
much mentioned, this was courageous front-line leader Harry Nathan who’d seen
them through Gallipoli, they felt. He merited a biography, Strong For Service, by H Montgomery Hyde, because he later became a
Labour MP then peer and served in Attlee’s post WWII Cabinet. Hyde reports the
probable explanation for Nathan’s absence from this event: he “was granted a
month’s leave” shortly after the Battalion landed in Marseilles and returned in
June, 1916, to find remnants of his Battalion merged into a Reserve Corps (in
the 29th Division of the 8th Army; "Reserve" didn’t mean
non-combatant) under General Hubert Gough’s command on the left of the Somme
front – see forthcoming episodes for Sam’s account of what happened.
** One online reference
suggests that the Royal Fusiliers may have renamed the 3/1st Battalion the
2/1st, when the original 2/1st disbanded in Rouen (May, 1916).
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam transfers
to a new “mob”, moves to a village within earshot of the front line and feels
the old battlefield tensions gathering – but still enjoys the fundamental
decency of a farmer’s daughter still going about her daily work…
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