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A hundred years ago this week… On
the Western Front, the German Army resisted the last onslaughts of the year on
the Somme – and suffered fewer casualties October than the previous month – as
the Battle Of Ancre (October 1-November 11) and the Battle Of Le Transloy
(October 1-October 18 or November 5 according to different sources) bogged down
in saturating rain. But British/French/South African forces advanced notably
between the Schwaben Redoubt and Le Sars (October 21), at some points along the
Albert-Bapaume road (16-22) and, south of the River Somme, between La
Maisonette Château and Biaches (18).
Also
what’s known by the French (in translation I mean!) as the First Offensive
Battle Of Verdun began (October 20-November 1), en route to recapturing the forts
at Douaumont and Vaux.
While
the German Army continued its gradual turning of the tide against the Russian
in Ukraine (post Brusilov Offensive), the Battle Of Transylvania (August
27-November 6) also moved in favour of the Central Powers and against the
Romanians, supported by Russia. While an Austrian defeat at Aluta slowed them
significantly in south Transylvania, the week’s main event, the Second Battle
Of Cobadin, near the Black Sea coast, saw a Bulgarian-German-Ottoman force
suffer 17,000 casualties but overcome the Romanians and Russians to occupy the
port of Constanta (October 19-25).
On
the other hand, in Macedonia the Allies’ Monastir Offensive proceeded with the
displaced Serbian Army driving the Bulgarians back to take the village of Brod
while British troops repulsed a Bulgarian counterattack in the Doiran region.
Meanwhile, my father, under-age volunteer Corporal Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London, 18
on July 6, 1916, had fought with the Kensingtons Battalion from mid-May to
September, at Gommecourt on the north end of the Somme Front, then around Leuze
Wood and Morval to the south. About
September 30 he was told his age had been officially noticed, he was still legally
too young for the battlefield and he could take a break until his 19th birthday
if he wished. He wished all right – though not without a sense of guilt. That
same day, he left the Front for the British base camp at Harfleur.
For Sam, a September 1914
volunteer, this followed a ’15-’16 winter at Suvla Bay, Gallipoli, with the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers (200 out of 1,000
avoided the lists of shot, shell and disease casualties). They’d sailed to
France in late April,
1916, where – to their disgust – they were disbanded and transferred to other outfits…
Sam to the Kensingtons and the Somme front
line where, on July 1, they’d
suffered 59 per cent casualties (see FootSoldierSam’s Blogs dated June 26 and
July 3, 2016).
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, on his first morning at the Harfleur
camp my father found himself excused squarebashing in favour of working as a
grocer – a job whereof he knew nothing. But Archie Barker, a former
acquaintance from his Gallipoli Battalion, had seen him arrive, fancied working
with a familiar face and wangled him into a new role as buyer for his
“unofficial” (yet lucrative) snack bar.
Wholly
unqualified, Sam went along with Archie’s bluff on the basis that it would
probably be more enjoyable than anything else then on offer. He wrote in his Memoir:
‘I must have offered a show of reasonable confidence that I
would at least try to do the job; the following morning, Archie told me I
should make my first journey into town.
Meanwhile, I
cleaned up in the canteen, scrubbing the floor behind the counter, dusting the
shelves. We remained open for an hour after the midday meal. Then close, clean
up again, and reopen in the evening. I saw the job would be one of long hours.
That didn’t worry me. The hours up at the Front were the full 24 hours of the
day, sleeping when you could. But the conditions of life were so much better
here; I could see I was going to live well, and certainly not be short of food.
I intended to do
the job honestly, be loyal to Archie, and help him make a handsome profit –
even though I wondered where that profit would finish up. With the Captain Quartermaster,
I supposed. As the new buyer for his business undertaking I had to go along and
present myself to him – a large, florid type of Scot. I didn’t understand most
of what he said, because of his broad accent and rapid speech. So I left not
too certain he knew much about the business. Still, whatever his motives in
starting the venture, in Barker and me he had two workers who would give of
their best.
Up next morning, after I had breakfast, there on the road I
saw a large open wagon pull up, two horses, the driver on a high seat above
them. I didn’t even know where Le Havre was and told the driver so, but he said
he’d done the trip many times. We set off and came to a main road with
tramlines running along it in both directions. As we jogged along, I was amused
to see how the French travelled at that time in single-deck trams, two coupled
together, the passengers packed tight inside with men hanging on to the outside
and one or two standing with feet on a handrail and clinging to the edge of the
roof – on cobbled roads.
We passed through
a sort of suburban area and came to one of the main shopping streets, the Rue
Tière. Here I had the driver stop, and I walked along, looking for possible
goods to purchase. I had a large roll of notes, mainly of five francs each. I
think I’m correct in saying that the franc was then 27 to the pound**. It
didn’t matter really because the troops were paid in French money anyway.
 |
| Place Gambetta, central Le Havre, around 1900. Public domain, artist unknown. |
“Boulangerie” said the sign over one shop. I went in – a
bakery: we’d need quite a lot of bread, Archie had told me. French loaves made
a nice change from hard Army biscuits – though I will say that, where the Army
bakers could fix up their ovens properly, they produced very good bread too. So
I had to tell the French baker, who spoke no word of English, that I wanted 70
loaves. I knew little French, but what are fingers for?
“Demain,” he said – that I understood. Today’s
stock was sold. I asked him if he made apple turnovers, a special request from
the troops… but that I couldn’t convey and I left him at that – I’d secured the
bread anyway.
Thereafter, I had
tremendous good luck. We drove along the main street until I decided to take a
turn to the right. Halfway down was a grocery. We went in: on our left, crates,
sacks and boxes of vegetables and fruit, then the counter with shelves of
groceries behind it. The smell of coffee predominated. A shady, quiet shop. On
the right stood the cash desk, which almost every French shop had, no matter
how small – a glass-fronted cubicle occupied by the cashier or assistant who
would take your money and make an entry in the sales book. There sat my
new-found friend-to-be Marie-Louise.’
** “… the franc was then
27 to the pound”: my father’s recollection sounds about right according to Chris
Henschke – responding to a question on 1914-1918 invisionzone.com he wrote, “The
rate of exchange for issues of cash to the troops of the Expeditionary Force
was fixed at the rate of 5 francs = three shillings and seven pence for the
month of July, 1916”. I have seen different figures, though. I’m guessing
currency exchange rates were even more volatile in wartime than they are now.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Aaaah, Sam
gets to know Marie-Louise – and her mother. Who thinks he’s très gentil. Which he is, as ever, keeping
his mind on fruit and veg.
* In his 70s, Sam
Sutcliffe wrote Nobody Of Any Importance, a Memoir of his life from childhood
through Gallipoli, the Somme, Arras 1918 and eight months as a POW through to
the 1919 Peace parade.
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