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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… Verdun
stopped. Quite a moment, though it’s only the French who date it as August 31,
while German accounts said September 2 or 9 and more recent overviews suggest
December – probably such datings tend to the arbitrary in attritional warfare
where the front lines move very little and the fighting continues over months
before and after the Generals make their declarations one way or another.
Estimated casualties for Verdun (commonly regarded as a stalemate): by a 2006
estimate, 373,231 French and 373,882 German.
On
the Western Front, the Allies prospered – at further terrible cost. The British
Army finally won the Battle Of Delville Wood (July 15-September 3), beat back
German attacks at High Wood (September 1), and instigated the successful Battle
Of Guillemont (3-6), while the French Army took Le Forest and Cléry-sur-Somme (3).
Although
the Russian war effort is often written of as creaking by this stage, they made
progress around Lutsk, Halicz, Lemburg and Volhynia (August 31-September1, all
in present Ukraine), while also backing up the Romanian attack on Austria.
In
the Battle Of Transylvania (August 27-November 26), the Romanian Army had a
misleadingly good first week, taking Kronstadt, Petrozseny and Hermannstadt,
but by September 2 the German and Bulgarian Armies had begun to strike back at
the Battle Of Tortucaia.
And
down in German East Africa, the British continued their relatively untroubled
conquest of the massive territory (most of current Rwanda, Burundi and
Tanzania), a key moment being the surrender of casptial city Dar-es-Salaam to
the British Navy (September 3).
Meanwhile,
my father Sam Sutcliffe, lately promoted to Corporal, from
Edmonton, north London (18 on July 6, 1916), was returning from home leave.
He’d been involved in Somme front-line fighting from mid-May onwards. This followed a ’15-’16 winter
at Gallipoli with the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers (250
survivors out of 1,000). They sailed from Egypt to France in late April,
only to be disbanded and transferred to other outfits – Sam to the Kensingtons. They fought on the
front line at Hébuterne/Gommecourt, suffering 59
per cent casualties on July 1 (see FootSoldierSam’s Blogs dated June 26 and
July 3, 2016). And then fought on and on…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, Sam continued the story of his first
home leave since December, 1914, with the surprising news that it arose from
his ordinarily quiet father writing a direct appeal to War Minister Lloyd
George – and a blossoming romance: a night out the pictures, French pastries, a
kiss…
But
that’s as far as it went because he was a young gent and, more conclusively, he
had to go back to the Somme when his week was up. He travelled again with the two
Sergeants who’d kept him good company on the way home:
‘So there I was, making my way back to France, to the
battlefield. With mixed feelings I must admit. The change, the rest at home,
had certainly made me feel better. And I was leaving many things I now valued
more highly than I had done before the war started. Everything so clean; life
very sweet. When one thought of the conditions up at the Front – always rough,
worse in some places than others, but never really comfortable…
One tried to
maintain a pride in one’s appearance. I anticipated that now, being louse-free,
I might be able to continue in that enviable state for a few days, but the odds
were against me – reinfestation inevitable. I knew from experience. I would lie
down in some place previously inhabited by one of my lousy pals, bound to pick
up a few of the little devils who had deserted him for reasons unknown.
When we arrived at
Boulogne, the two Sergeants – such merry companions on my journeys to and from
Blighty – had to leave me and right sorry I was to see them go. Before they
left their respective Battalions, they had been told where they should rejoin
it. I had no such instructions. You may recall in what haste I had been obliged
to leave, asleep near the front line one moment, the next starting off on that
most joyous journey.
From Boulogne, I
was directed to make my way to our Divisional Headquarters*, picking up such
transport as I could find. On arrival at HQ, I was told to spend the night
there and proceed next morning to the village in which my Battalion was now
resting.
After a couple of
lifts from Army lorries, the final kilometres I had to manage on foot. But this
provided me with a most warming experience as I strolled into the town. Our
lads, who had themselves arrived only a few hours earlier**, were billeted in
dwellings and outbuildings at various points along the main street. Groups of
them lay about on the wide grass verges on either side of the roadway and, at
intervals as I walked, fellows who knew me invited me to join them and each in
turn insisted I took a swig from their water bottles – all charged with the
same liquor, to wit, cider. I was greatly surprised, first, that so many people
knew me and, second, that they should offer me a drink. Their kindness warmed and
enlivened me just as much as the rather strong cider.
 |
| Millencourt-en-Ponthieu (see footnote): June, 2016, just before #Somme100 – my wife Gaylee walking down the lane where my father Sam was greeted by his comrades in August 1916 when he returned from him leave to find the Battalion enjoying a few days' rest from the Somme front line. |
The insistence of
one chap in particular that I should drink with him certainly startled me,
though I was careful to conceal it. I’d known him from time to time since the
beginning of the war – a short chap, head rather big considering his lack of
height, bright blue eyes in a usually red face. He’d joined a different Royal
Fusiliers Company, but circumstances occasionally brought us together.
However, I’d never
felt happy or secure in his company. Sometimes, if you attempted to share a
joke with him, the thing would go wrong, he’d see some personal adverse
implication in it***. For no reason that I could see, the red face would go
redder, the eyes would glare and he’d be all set for a scrap. I hadn’t chatted
with him for some time, and I had not known until that moment that he, along
with some others, had been transferred to my present Battalion. Maybe he felt
somewhat of a stranger in this new set-up so even my face was welcome. He
certainly insisted I should share cider with him.
From there on, my
progress along the road had something of a triumphal air about it. A wave here,
called to join a group there, swigs from bottles well filled with the local
cider; all this camaraderie took the edge off the regret I felt about leaving
family and friends to return to a life I had come to dislike, deep down inside.’
* Oddly, I can’t find any
source that pins down where the 56th Division’s HQ was. But some references
suggest Hallencourt, a village about 16 kilometres south of Abbeville, in the
Picardy region of the Somme department.
** This must have been
Millencourt-en-Ponthieu, 63 kilometres west of Hébuterne, in the Picardy
region. The Kensingtons’ War Diary says the Battalion left the Hébuterne area
of the Somme Front on August 19, stayed overnight and bathed at Bayencourt,
then marched to Halloy (16.7 kilometres northeast) and stayed another night
(acquiring some specialist reinforcements while there). On the 21st they
marched on to Doullens (7.5 kilometres west) where they caught a train to
Saint-Riquier (35 kilometres west; spelt with a hyphen by most sources but, as you see below, not on the town’s own war memorial which, of course, may well know best). They marched to Millencourt that night (5
kilometres northwest). So my father, arriving “a few hours” after them in
daylight must have got there on August 23 – probably via a lift to Abbeville,
then another 9 kilometres east to Saint-Riquier, concluding with a solo hike to
Millencourt (remembering that he had to carry most of his equipment, including
his rifle, home to London with him, a weight of about 60 pounds).
 |
| Saint-Riquier's memorial to their own World War 1 dead, pictured in June, 2016. |
*** Looking back to my father’s
account of joining up with the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers in September, 1914 (see the
Memoir or Blog 18, November 9, 2014) I reckon this sounds like “Sticky” Pryke,
“the Soho wide-boy, outgiving with his rich Cockney humour, but quick to take offence”.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Despite the
further horrors he anticipates when the Battalion returns to the Somme front
line, Sam rejoins his comrades “with greater pleasure than ever” in their
company – then ponders the relationship between them and lowly NCOs like
himself, and their collective role in “the enormous business machine running
the British part of the war”…
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