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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… the
French, British and other Allied Armies continued their relatively successful
follow-up to the catastrophe of July 1 on the Somme Front. The British won
ground at Ovillers (concluded July 17 – in so far as any of these battles had
an "ending") and the French south of the Somme at Estrées and Soyecourt (20).
The
South Africans attacked Delville Wood and Longueval, suffering heavy losses to
a German counterattack, and then settling in for several weeks with an
artillery bombardment (July 22, the battle's dates July 15-September 3). At
Pozières, on the Albert-Bapaume road, the Australians suffered more heavily
than in Gallipoli en route to eventual victory (July 23-September 3, 23,000
casualties). But the German Army battered Anzac and British forces at
Fromelles, near Lille (19-20, Allied casualties 7,080, German 1,600-2,000).
Verdun
still saw action with a week of fighting around Fleury, the French gaining the
upper hand.
The
Russian Army relentlessly pushed back the Austrian and German Armies in the
east. the Brusilov Offensive saw them drive on south of the Lipa (July 18),
near Lutsk and Berestechko (20) and Brody (22, all Ukraine). At the same time,
they pressed on through Turkey, capturing Kighi (18) and Hunishkhanek (20) to approach their
objective, Erzincan.
However,
the Turks defeated the astonishingly stretched Russian forces at Kermanshah,
Persia (190. They also launched an offensive against the Suez Canal, bombing
Suez and Port Tewfik (July 20).
Meanwhile,
my father (now promoted from Lance to) Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe
from Edmonton, north London (his 18th birthday on July 6, 1916), remained on
the Somme Front where he'd been involved in daily fighting from mid-May onwards.
This
followed a ’15-’16 winter at Gallipoli, and three months recovering in Egypt, until
his 2/1st City Of London Royal Fusiliers (250 survivors out of 1,000) moved to
France in late April. Shortly after their arrival, to their
chagrin, the Army disbanded the Battalion and transferred the remnants to other
outfits – Sam to the Kensingtons. Because they had enough Signallers he became an ordinary soldier
in the line. The Kensingtons did a long stint in and around the front line at Hébuterne, opposite the German positions at Gommecourt,
including July 1 – Battalion casualties 59 per cent – and beyond…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, I used some material from Sam's
Memoir I’d had to defer from pre-July 1 because he wrote
too much for the blog in that period (I'm not complaining!) – it brought out
his thoughts, as a front-line Tommy, already a Gallipoli veteran though not 18
until July 6, 1916, on the volunteer spirit, on the Government's recent introduction
of conscription and the tangled pros and cons of every man’s new right to be a conscientious objector.
Now we’re back to the present-a-century-ago. Scarred
by July 1 in the front line at Gommecourt and by the Army's earlier, rather
different display of carelessness in discarding his original Battalion, Sam's again
obsessing about how he’s
had no home leave for more than 18 months (in the meantime training in Malta
and Egypt, then fighting in Gallipoli):
‘Time
passed and still no leave came my way. Chatting about this one day – grumbling
to a comparative stranger – I got a hint about trying a different approach. At
first, it appeared ridiculous. The chap said he knew a man badly in need of a
break who, in desperation, got his father to write to Lloyd George about it.
Soon afterwards he was granted seven days leave.
So, in my next letter to my father, although fully aware that
the officer acting as censor would read it, I stressed that I had been so badly
treated that I would be grateful if he would write to the Rt. Hon. David Lloyd
George* stating that I had not been allowed to visit my home since Christmas,
1914, that I had served in Gallipoli and Egypt and now in the trenches in
France – when still actually below the age at which one was allowed to be on
active service.
That last item I expected to be noticed, because around that
time the authorities responsible for calling up men for military service had
discovered a gap in the supply of recruits. Thousands of youngsters to whom
papers had been sent on reaching 18 did not reply or report for duty. This led
to the discovery that these chaps had enlisted, under age, at the beginning of
the war; it was decided to bring them back, wherever possible, and restore them
to their proper position in the stream. Many were, of course, long since dead
and buried, like young Nibs, previously mentioned, at Suvla Bay**.
Having got that load off my chest, I forgot about the matter
for, on reflection, the idea of a youngster expecting his dad to write to the
War Minister or whatever his title then was, looked like madness.’
Just as well Sam could
lift himself out of that bitterness, because he still had a battle to
concentrate on – for his own sake, but also for the men of his platoon as his
conspicuous reluctance with regard to promotion a few weeks earlier from Lance
Jack to Corporal was rewarded with a further, temporary upgrade to Sergeant (vacancies
did occur rather frequently at all levels among the front-line troops). Then,
although he remained lucky as to the destination of bullet and shell, he
realised that conditions in the trenches were hitting him like a wasting
disease.
‘As
acting Sergeant, I was kept pretty busy. We moved to difficult areas fairly
frequently, but the general routine of living didn’t vary much: some places
muddier, filthier than others, sometimes the front trenches uncomfortably close
to Jerry. The red tabs way back laid on occasional raids to sample the
occupants of the enemy front line. Some men were lost, one way and another.
The nervous strain always prevailing up front had its cumulative
effect on me. Stripped, when we had the periodical bath*** and change of
underwear during a rest some kilometres to the rear, I saw that insufficient
flesh, let alone fat, covered my boney framework. One ate very meagrely for a
growing lad, good-quality food seldom available, a really full belly a rarity.
This was active service and, although our Cook Sergeant performed marvels with
the food allotted to him and his men, the PBI**** never had a meal such as
would be placed before a member of an average working-class family for Sunday
dinner. There were grumbles, but seldom rebellious or very violent expressions
of dissatisfaction.
Of course, the word “scrounging” had joined the vocabulary of
most soldiers by that time. It was used freely by so many men, most of whom
would have been ashamed two years previously to steal, thieve, or even remove
without permission, things in the care of others. Not that “scrounge” gave
justification for stealing a comrade’s personal possessions. But the word did
cover “lifting” or “borrowing” things from “them” – all those anonymous people
not actually belonging to one’s Company or perhaps to one’s Battalion.
The man claiming to have “scrounged” something usually did so with
self-forgiving humour and a grin – though sometimes with bitterness if he
suffered from a sense of grievance. The proportion of previously honest men who
adopted the habit of scrounging as a way of life may have been as high as 50
per cent of us.
It was also around that time I first heard someone say, “F!@# you,
Jack, I’m alright!” – again, something that appeared to have come into the Army
via the first forcibly conscripted wave of civilians. Wrenched from their
families and a settled way of living, their bitterness may have expressed
itself in that harsh declaration of the rule by which they intended to live
henceforth.’
Still, at Gommecourt,
they fought on, cannonfodder in the attritional action that followed the grand
tragedy of July 1. Here Sam recalls a couple of examples of the raw good luck
through which he, like thousands of others no doubt, avoided joining the
casualty listings.
‘Still,
in the forward area, we continued to “do our bit”, not taking part in any
notable action, but holding bits of the Front***** in what usually seemed to us
to be quiet spots. They gradually brought our numbers up to strength, but never
again to the thousand men who originally comprised an infantry Battalion.
Around 800 had become the rule.
We all had our bits of luck, just to continue without being
killed or seriously hurt…
There was the time when a Minen from one of those bloody Werfers burst close behind me. The shock shattered
me temporarily. I wore the chinstrap of my steel helmet fairly tight, yet the
blast – from below it seemed – lifted the heavy headgear off and dumped it
several yards away. Eventually I appeared none the worse.
Another time as I walked along a trench a shell landed at the
end I had just left. Bits and pieces whizzed in all directions and I felt a
severe blow to the lower part of my back. No pain resulted, but a pal took a
look and found the webbing which held the wide metal head of my trenching tool
cut clean across. Without that lucky shield, the base of my spine could have
been severed.’
* David Lloyd George: Liberal Secretary Of State For War
June 9-December 5, 1916; took over from Herbert Asquith as Prime Minister,
December 7, 1916 to October 22, 1922.
** For Sam's account of young Nibs's death within minutes of
the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers landing on the beach at Suvla Bay, September 25,
1915, see Blog 64 September 27, 2015.
*** For example, the Kensingtons’ WD notes the troops
getting baths on July 7-8, then July 29 at Bayencourt, a couple of kilometres
behind the front line.
**** In case you never heard this one before, “PBI” means “Poor Bloody Infantry”
***** The Kensingtons remained around the
Hébuterne-Gommecourt section of the Front, and in the trenches most of the
time, until August 21.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam finds support-trench
life a holiday relatively speaking: he has time to wander and meet a Canadian
sniper in action, and turn his rifle into a “guitar” (!?) with which he
tortures his comrades, officers, and… the whole idea of music really.
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