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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… the
further north the fight the closer it was to “shutting down’ for the winter. On
the Western Front, bar some bloody skirmishing, the British/French and Germans
tacitly agreed to a breather in the mud and rain at the Battles of Ancre
Heights and Le Transloy (the tail end of the Somme, though it’s concluding date
is regarded as November 18 – the latter battle’s casualty figures for October:
Allied 95,348, 78,500 German).
However,
prop tem, French success encouraged them to press on with their First Offensive
Battle of Verdun where they recaptured Fort Vaux (November 1) and Damloup (4).
On
the Eastern Front Russian success had peaked with the summer’s Brusilov
Offensive, but their powers had not yet collapsed as they fought the German
Army to and back around the River Narajowka, Galicia (October 30-31). But Germany
and Austria flaunted their confidence when they declared an “independent” state
of Poland (November 5).
In
the Battle Of Transylvania, started by Romania on August 27, Austria progressed
in several areas (Predeal Pass October 31, Torzburg and Roter Turm Pass
November 1) despite a setback in the Vulkan Pass (2) and a Russian naval
bombardment of Contanza on the Black Sea, lately taken by Austrian-German
forces (4).
The
Italian Army instigated the Ninth Battle Of The Isonzo (October 31-November 4)
around Vrtobja and the Karst Plateau (in current Slovenia). Although the
Italians made some headway, taking Falti Hrib (November 2) and Mount Volkovnjak
(3), casualties proved prodigious, as in its immediate predecessors – Italian
39,000, Austria-Hungarian 33,000 in five days – that they again broke off their
attack.
A
little further east in Macedonia, other significant action saw the Bulgarian
Army pushed back by the Serbians in the Cherna region (October 30) and by the
British on the River Struma front (31).
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 Hébuterne/Gommecourt on the north end of the Somme Front, then
around Leuze Wood and Morval to the south (FootSoldierSam’s Blogs dated May 15 to September 25, 2016). 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. He left the Front for the British
base camp at Harfleur and a surprise move into catering.
For Sam, who joined up in September
1914, 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 – Blogs dated September
13, 2015, to January 3, 2016). 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 (on July 1, they
suffered 59 per cent casualties).
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, my father got stuck into his new
role as a food buyer for his crafty old Royal Fusiliers comrade Archie
Barker’s, um, semi-official caff at the massive Harfleur British Army camp,
providing his fellow Tommies with a few tasty luxuries – all profits to the
Captain Quartermaster, he presumed.
Not
getting shot at and shelled for a while amply compensated him for the
difficulties of learning an entirely new trade in a foreign country… as did the
(platonic!) friendship and assistance of grocer’s daughter Marie-Louise Baudlet,
who not only sold him some of the items he needed but taught him the French
phrases he needed and advised him where to go in the big covered market (Les Halles) for his larger orders.
Now
Sam acquires a slightly mysterious “assistant” – and plays out a small farce
involving a whole sitcom’s worth of comedic international crossed wires:
‘For some reason which I didn’t quite understand, but didn’t
concern myself with, another man began to come along with me on the trips into
Le Havre. A Lieutenant to the Captain Quartermaster had arranged it, and when
this fellow joined me, he said he simply had nothing better to do. He could
speak French, which might come in useful sometimes, and he could stay with the
wagon if the driver wanted to go off somewhere.
What he, a young
man of maybe 20, was doing at the base I didn’t know and I don’t recall ever
asking him. Eric Brays was his name; five feet nine, well-built and fit, his
face wore a moustache and a smile. He belonged to the Honourable Artillery
Company, a London Territorial Army unit with its own long traditions and
barracks in the City Road; it generally recruited from the sons of City
merchants and businessmen. Eric never said anything offensive nor argued about
anything. He came along for the ride.
I introduced him
to Marie-Louise as a chap who spoke perfect French, so they conversed in her
language. Afterwards, she told me he spoke a Southern patois. He explained
that, to improve the French he learned in school, his father had sent him to
live with a farming family in Southern France, so he spoke as they did.
Eric was sometimes
a bit of a joker, though, and one of his little amusements almost landed us in
trouble. The market stood in a square with streets on all four sides. A very
fine building, its roof and walls to a great extent comprised large, glass
windows, so you could see in and out.
 |
| The newish covered market – Les Halles – Le Havre, 2016, snapped by Phil Sutcliffe on the Somme100 trip. Probably not so grand as the building where my father, Sam, bought treats for the troops (and had his Cockney rhyming contretemps) but still a nice, aromatic place to shop for your groceries. |
One day, when I’d
finished my buying, I and the two girls from the fruit and vegetable stall
wandered away and stood talking in the middle of the market. Some joking was
going on – slightly naughty, I expect – and Eric got into a discussion with one
of the girls as to the meaning of an expression much used by Tommies, namely,
“Wormwood Scrubs**”. Eric tried to explain about Cockney rhyming slang: so,
Scrubs – bubs – breasts.
You can imagine
the girl’s eventual understanding and laughter; she said, “Ah, these then!”
signifying with her hands, “These Wormwood Scrubs!” More laughter.
Well, would you
believe that leaning out of her window on the far side of the street watching
us was a licensed prostitute? Marie-Louise told me the full story later.
This woman
complained to the licensing authority that the greengrocer’s girls were trying
to take away her trade, steal her customers. Apparently, the law allowed her to
make the complaint and claim some compensation. I explained to Marie-Louise the
nature of the events so misinterpreted by the prostitute, and she undertook to
go to the Town Hall and clear it up. She said I needn’t worry about it and
wouldn’t have to attend court, as might have been the case. In due course,
someone somewhere did put it right, or told the woman she was making a
frivolous complaint.’
** Wormwood Scrubs is a
men’s prison completed in 1891 and still in operation. Among its notable
inmates over the years have been Lord Alfred Douglas (writer and Oscar Wilde’s
“Bosie”), Horatio Bottomley (the John Bull
magazine publisher/Army recruiter/MP/fraudster whose oratory helped persuade my
father to enlist in 1914, see Chapter 4 of Sam’s Memoir), Basil Bunting (poet, imprisoned for conscientious
objection in WW1), Michael Tippett (composer, likewise in WW2), and
rock’n’rollers Keith Richards (Rolling Stones) and Pete Doherty (Libertines).
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: In the first
of two retrospectives around Remembrance Day, the blog steps aside from Sam’s
Army catering interlude to recall key moments of his experiences in the front
line at Gallipoli. The following week, on Remembrance Day itself, we’ll return
to the Somme, July 1, 1916, and beyond.
* 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 to the 1919
Peace parade.
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