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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… The
big switch of strategy came with Germany announcing a resumption of
“unrestricted” submarine warfare (February 1, 1917) – they’d generally limited
attacks to Naval and other armed ships since September, 1915, but now they said
everything in the war zone was fair game including hospital ships and,
crucially, neutral shipping.
This
followed the Allies’ rejection of the Kaiser’s peace proposals and is said to
have been predicated on the notion that sinking 600,000 tons of Allied vessels
a month would provoke a surrender before the USA could decide on declaring war.
Two days later, a U-boat sank the American-owned SS Housatonic off the Scilly Isles (all hands rescued by British boats,
courtesy of the German skipper’s help, towing the lifeboats towards safety) –
although President Wilson’s severing of diplomatic relations with Germany that
same day was probably a coincidence. Oddly, the first ever ship sunk by a
submarine, during the American Civil War in 1864, bore the same name.
On
the Western Front substantial, though more subtle shifts in strategy saw both
sides effectively testing the feasibility of action during that winter’s big
freeze. On the Ancre, the British resisted a German attack near Beaucourt
(January 31), then gained 500 yards in the same area (February 3). They also
conducted a small raid (February 4-5) to take some prisoners. On the Somme, the
Australians attacked on a larger scale around the Frégicourt-Le Transloy road,
taking a German trench via grenade bombardment (February 1 and 4; 300
casualties). Near Grandcourt and Gueudecourt, troops fought to and back with
the British taking 500 yards of German trenches (February 1-4) and further
southeast, in Lorraine, the French Army made a similar small advance.
Remarkably,
given a collapsing economy and extraordinary military overextension, the
Russian Army sustained its effort still, repelling repeated German attacks around
the Tirul swamp, near Kalutsem (January 30-February 4; Latvia) and south of Halicz
(February 1; now in Poland), while actually winning a battle for hill
fortifications near Jakobeny during their last-ditch defence of Romania
(January 30-31).
Down
in Mesopotamia, the British made modest progress too, moving closer to the
recapture of Kut on the Tigris, abandoned in April, 1916, after a siege.
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 his new outfit the Kensingtons
from mid-May to September (FootSoldierSam’s
Blogs dated May 15 to September 25, 2016)… Until
he was told his age – 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. So he did – not without a sense of guilt. Via Harfleur and London (briefly
living at home), he ended up posted to Harrogate, Yorkshire, and reallocated again,
this time to the Essex Regiment 2/7th Battalion along with a bunch of other under-age
Tommies training and making their own entertainment until they severally became
eligible for the trenches once more…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, after the blizzard of mid-January,
1917, set in for one of the longest winter freezes of modern times** –
experienced rather more uncomfortably on the Western Front of course – my
father and his new pal “Mac” McIntyre went out one evening looking for whatever
fun Harrogate might have to offer and discovered a toboggan run.
They
soon hit it off with two girls who had an enormous toboggan one of their dad’s
had made. But on their first plummet down the hill, helmsman Sam lost control
of the unwieldy beast and ran into a tree. Both girls suffered leg injuries in
the crash, both soldiers came through unhurt – and, full of apologies, took the
girls to their homes where they were surprised to receive warm welcomes. The
girls took to their beds to recover and the lads promised to visit them:
‘The crash laid the girls up for a good fortnight and,
duty-bound, Mac and I visited each one in turn twice a week. The sister of the
smaller girl took us up to her bedroom where we found her tucked up, professing
to be quite happy. I sat on the floor on one side of the fireplace, Mac on the
other, and we chatted for an hour or two. Unbelievably, the girl and her sister
seemed almost grateful to us for coming. We would bring one or two little gifts
of sweets or chocolates.
The other girl,
bigger and stronger, showed signs of recovery first, and our visits there – the
parents being present – didn’t last long. But we maintained our interest and
repeated our regrets. The dad reckoned his rather crude steering device had got
jammed slightly out of true by ice and snow picked up as the girls dragged it
along the streets and up the hill to the top of the run.
It was in the
natural order of things I guess that, when the girls were once more up and
about, we went for a walk with them. I recall one Sunday afternoon, striding
along briskly in the cold air, they guided us out of town to some rather
beautiful open country and, at one point, into a wood of wintry bare trees.
There a daft episode caused much amusement.
I found myself
carrying the smaller girl on my shoulders while the somewhat beefier Mac was
loaded with the other quite hefty wench – and a race down a wooded slope
started. My partner and I travelled some distance before we raced under a
low-hanging branch and, unable to duck sufficiently, she finished up with it
under her armpits and dangled there, while impetus carried me forward till I
fell. There was much laughter as I lowered her from her situation of suspense.
She was an
attractive little girl, very likeable, and for a while we became quite close
friends, while Mac, as often as he could, called at the home of the other girl.
But then, walking
in the town one afternoon, I was amazed to see my girl’s sister on the arm of a
soldier. I knew she was married and her husband serving in France. She saw me
as quickly as I saw her. An awkward moment, awkward enough to prevent me from
calling at their home any more***. So that brief acquaintanceship petered out.’
** It lasted for over
three months in England with several further heavy snows through to mid-April.
*** Sam’s girl lived with her sister so he knew he would have to face her regularly, hence his extreme embarrassment.
*** Sam’s girl lived with her sister so he knew he would have to face her regularly, hence his extreme embarrassment.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam and pals are
suddenly hit by one of the hazards of the age for soldiers living cheek by jowl
– an epidemic of “spotted fever” i.e. meningitis.
* 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.