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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… With
the Western Front hibernating bar the odd raid and artillery eruption, the
German air force brought British civilians into the action more than usual –
though on a relatively tiny scale, of course – with Zeppelin raids on
Hartlepool and Yarmouth resulting in four deaths while costing two airships
shot down by British fighter planes (November 27), and a rather strange
first-ever daylight raid on London by just one German plane, causing 10
injuries (28). Further, off Devon, a German U-boat attacked the Brixham fishing
fleet.
Despite
the weather, the Eastern Front growled along with the Russian and German Armies
battling on in Galicia and Bukovina to no conclusive effect. But the main
European action occurred further south.
The
Battle Of Bucharest (November 27-December 6) focussed all the forces gathered
by Romania’s entry into the war on the Allied side through the ultimately
failed Battle Of Transylvania (August 27-November 26). The more peripheral
participants, Russia and Bulgaria (for the Central Powers) both had their
successes during the week – the Russians in the Carpathians defending the Jablonitsa
Pass. But the German, Austrian and Turkish Armies closed in on the Romanian
capital via the Battle Of The Argeş (December 1-3) where the troops assembled around said river totalled
325,000 and the Romanians suffered a crucial defeat – although better
remembered (perhaps like on of Britain’s “glorious failures”, the Charge Of The
Light Brigade) seems to be the Prunaru Charge wherein the 5,000-strong 2nd
Roşiori Cavalry launched
a counterattack in the Teleorman river valley only for German machine guns to
mow them down so ruthlessly that just 134 survived.
Elsewhere, steady
Serbian-French-Russian-British advances continued in Macedonia (the Monastir
Offensive, September 12-December 11) and yet another branch of the
overstretched yet always combative Russian Army drove Turkish forces back in
Persia (November 27 onwards).
Meanwhile, my father, under-age 2/1st Royal Fusiliers volunteer and Gallipoli
veteran Corporal Sam Sutcliffe from
Edmonton, north London, had fought on the Somme Front with the Kensingtons
Battalion from mid-May to September, at Hébuterne/Gommecourt then around Leuze
Wood and Morval (FootSoldierSam’s
Blogs dated May 15 to September 25, 2016). About
September 30 he was told his age – he was 18 on July 6 – had been officially
noticed, he was 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, temporary move into a Quartermaster’s catering scam. But now the
Army’s next plan for him, as usual, catches him on the hop…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, a new arrival at Harfleur camp gave
my father worrying news about his older brother and former 2/1st comrade Ted –
last heard of somewhere on the Somme about to charge out into No Man’s Land to
rescue a wounded Sergeant.
But in
other respects Sam had started to enjoy his life in the mundane, peaceful world
of unofficial Army catering – his old Fusiliers comrade Archie Barker’s canteen
(profits to the Captain Quartermaster) which offered tasty extras like
tinned-salmon sandwiches and apple turnovers the Tommies gladly purchased for a
franc or two.
Despite
comprehensive inexperience in this field, Sam had really taken to his main task
as wholesale purchaser of supplies via daily horse-and-cart trips to the market
and shops of nearby Le Havre – abetted and advised by grocer’s daughter
Marie-Louise Bodlet, who soon became his firm friend (platonic, for she was
married and my father, perhaps remarkably, remained a sexual innocent until
after WW1). Now though, this new life starts to turn sour on him:
‘In the canteen, I found one new development rather
disquieting. After all, I had initiated this system of buying goods in the town
from the French civilian dealers in hopes that it would establish itself
permanently. I have mentioned those apple fritters as one great success with
the troops. Well, another baker called at the canteen when I was out, offered
Barker a lower price for them, and he accepted. When I sampled one of the first
delivery, I didn’t think it matched the taste or quality my friend in Le Havre
supplied. I said so, but Barker didn’t like this, he was the boss and he
decided, so… nothing I could do about it.
One or two other
points of friction arose, but knowing only too well the fragile nature of my
job there, I didn’t press my arguments. Nevertheless, the old friendly
atmosphere faded. The basic reason may have been Barker’s fears for his own
position. A fit man, in his thirties, he should have been up at the Front.
Naturally, he’d do everything possible to retain that job at the base, away
from all the horror and agony.
So when, one day,
it was decided I should return to England – for other duties, not on leave – I
was mentally prepared for another move. No doubt I was delighted too, inwardly,
although in part sorry to leave this life bearing so little resemblance to that
of a soldier… the congenial relationship with Marie-Louise and her mother, the
market people who knew me, the chummy drivers. In England this would be
exchanged for who-knew-what?
The crossing from Le Havre to Southampton took much longer
than the Dover-Calais ferry**, about eight hours. Then I boarded a train to
London where I had to report to the HQ of our old Royal Fusiliers Battalion at
the Bloomsbury depot where I had enlisted*** – a circle nicely completed.
In charge there, I
found an officer, Lieutenant Hudson, who had been with us back then, in autumn,
1914, and a Sergeant I didn’t know, an oldish chap, soldiering on in a quiet
number. I gathered the Lieutenant had not left London during all that time.
That’s what the Sergeant implied, though it may have been wrong. Anyway, during
the rest of my stay I saw little of the Lieutenant. “You’ll be billeted at home
and report here every morning at nine,” the Sergeant told me.
Another nice
change. I couldn’t help constantly thinking back to the dirt, horror and
squalor I was now avoiding. I just drifted with events and, for the time being,
they treated me kindly.
My family was
delighted to have me back once more – and a letter from Ted had just arrived,
the first I’d heard of him since the worryingly uncertain story the Fusilier
told me at Harfleur. It turned out he had left the infantry, gone through
special training at Saint-Omer, and now operated with an obscure unit known as
a Field Survey Company****. They constructed observation posts from which they
photographed enemy artillery firing – smoke puffs by day, flashes by night –
and connections through landlines automatically registered these pictures from
four observer groups onto film at Brigade HQ. Calculations allowing for their
respective angles, distances and so on quickly pinpointed enemy positions;
orders to our artillery in the area followed at once, and thus they destroyed
many a Boche***** gun. War was indeed becoming something
of a science, even in those far-distant days.’
** Which my father had taken when
given a week’s home leave from the Somme in August, the first time he’d seen
his family since February 1, 1915.
*** In Handel Street, London WC1.
For the story of the day he enlisted see Blog posted on September 7, 2014.
**** Saint-Omer: a small canal-side
town, 30 miles south-east of Calais, close to the North Sea and the Belgian
border; the British Army established its “maps GHQ” there in 1915, forming
three Field Survey Companies of the Royal Engineers in 1916 with more soon
added; in early 1918 the Ordnance Survey, the British national mapping
authority, set up an overseas branch in Saint-Omer.
***** Boche: insulting French slang for
“German” not used much before World War I, nor since World War II; probably
abbreviated from archaic caboche,
literally a cabbage, figuratively something like “stupid head”.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam works out
with some wounded Tommy convalescents, obeys orders like a good boy, still
grapples with the emotional conflicts between post-front-line guilt and the
joys of not being shot at for a while.
* 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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