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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… Germany’s
all-out submarine war claimed the French battleship Danton (March 19; torpedoed off Sardinia, 296 dead, 806 rescued)
and British hospital ship Asturias
(21; torpedoed off Start Point, Devon, “only” 43 dead because 1,000 wounded
previously taken ashore at Avonmouth). The U-boats seemed a real threat to the
successful trend of Allied actions on land.
On
the Western Front, it must have been difficult to determine the significance of
the Germans’ planned retreat to the Hindenburg Line. The Allies pursued them,
of course. But when they evacuated Boyelle and Boiry Becquerelle (March 19;
Pas-de-Calais), they left outposts whence they raided the advancing British
before slipping away at night (20-21); when the Australians attacked a little
further south at Noreuil (20), the Germans beat them back, causing heavy
casualties, and again at Croiselles the following day. Further, the French Army
suffered a substantial blow when they were beaten back across the Crozat Canal,
losing ground they wouldn’t regain for more than a year (22; the Canal
connected the Somme and the Oise).
On
the Eastern Front, though, the great concern remained that the Russian Army’s
prodigious efforts would collapse or be terminated by political decision as the
first few days of post-imperial government by the Duma (legislative assembly)
unfolded. It seems extraordinary to note that, unaffected by events at home, in
western Persia the Russians took back Qasr-i-Shirin (March 25) from the Turks
whom they’d effectively defeated in the region by then.
Elsewhere
in the Middle East, the Allies reached a new peak of aggression. The
British/Anzac Egyptian Expeditionary Force of 23,000 infantry and cavalry
prepared to invade Palestine from the south, Gaza the first target – although
their intelligence reported the Ottoman garrison as 2,000 strong when it was
twice that. By March 25 they were set to launch an attack. At the same time, in
Mesopotamia, the British/Indian Samarrah Offensive proceeded with the taking of
Fallujah(!) a major coup (19).
Meanwhile, my father, under-age 2/1st Royal Fusiliers volunteer and Gallipoli
veteran (FootSoldierSam’s Blogs dated September 20, 2015, to January 3, 2016) Lance
Corporal Sam Sutcliffe from
Edmonton, north London, had fought on the Somme Front with his second outfit the
Kensingtons (Blogs
dated May 15 to September 25, 2016)… until
officialdom told him they’d noticed his age – 18 on July 6, legally too young
for the battlefield – and that he could take a break from the fighting until
his 19th birthday. So he did, though not without an enduring sense of guilt. Via
Harfleur and London, he ended up posted to Harrogate, Yorkshire, and re-allocated
again, this time to the Essex Regiment 2/7th Battalion, along with a bunch of
other under-age Tommies for months of training until they severally became
eligible for the trenches once more…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, after weeks of struggle with the
threat of meningitis and actual German measles and what the doctor diagnosed as
general “war sickness”, Sam from isolation hospital to his Battalion, only to
find himself and his fellow underage veteran comrades treated as a strange kind
of outcast.
The
trouble was a whole weird story/myth around this Harrogate-based “Lost
Division” who’d been stigmatised, rightly or wrongly, because they hadn’t been
posted abroad at all during the first two years of the war. Before his illness,
Sam acknowledged he felt prejudice against them. Then, on his return, when he
tried to “really become one of them”, they rejected him.
This
uncomfortable situation only deteriorated because Sam’s Company Officer,
Captain Tarquin – the name probably an alias** – earned the contempt of all
with his “childish, short temper”, “avoiding eyes” and fondness for useless
spit and polish.
Still,
here Sam’s getting to know a few of his assorted comrades and other officers –
and finding the town does offer an impartial welcome to all Tommies:
‘I can’t remember anything about this Captain’s subalterns,
but the Company Sergeant Major was tall, round-shouldered, with a pale,
worry-ridden face, obviously overborne at all times by the bossy Captain. One
Sergeant stands out in memory as an efficient, well-trained NCO – young,
strikingly well-made, and full of good health, he contrasted greatly with those
of any rank in our Company. One wondered how it came about that such a gem
among so many duds remained on the home front, his qualities wasted.
However, the
Battalion rank and file boasted skills of a wide variety. A few were
professional entertainers. A song-and-dance man in my Platoon could put over,
unaccompanied, a really fine act. An opera singer had earned his living as a
top chorus man, said the knowledgeable. And then we had craftsmen of many
trades, including one painter of miniatures who could produce perfect little
scenic pictures or portraits on demand.
Notable on the
sporting side, Big Bonito, a heavyweight boxer, didn’t have to defend himself
against such puny amateurs as ventured to challenge him at Regimental tourneys.
He let most of them punch away at his huge trunk till exhaustion defeated them,
or else a swift unexpected flick of one of the otherwise lethargic Bonito’s
gloves persuaded them to remain where they’d finished up, on the canvas (if
there was one).
I saw the Colonel
several times: short, fat, red-faced, and, as far as I could tell, devoid of
any of the attributes leadership required. “He’s an ironmaster,” someone told
me. That may have been his major contribution towards victory, for we had no
opportunity to see his military talents in action against the Kaiser’s. His
brief speeches to the soldiery on social or sporting occasions were as
inspiring as my father’s used to be at half-time during a church soirée and
dance – and just as inaudible***.
The townspeople provided social and concert evenings which I
enjoyed. Of the many good turns on stages in local church halls, I recall two
sisters who sang duets in sweet harmony. Very much to the taste of the troops
were they, standing about six feet tall, swaying winningly to the music of a
then-popular number which went, “Ooooooh (very prolonged), it’s not the dance that brings the
delight/But the chance of a glance from those eyes so bright”****. Right up
your Tommy Atkins’s main street, as you will agree, and an opportunity for all
to join in with gusto, especially to participate in and prolong in falsetto
that opening, “Oooooooooh!” Great sports, those ladies, for when they realised
that burlesque, English-style, was the preferred mode, they played along,
prolonged the more, swayed and pivoted ever more gracefully, and earned immense
applause, encores, and, finally, lusty cheers.’
** My father usually
aliased friends and foes alike because, writing in the ’70s, he didn’t want to
cause distress of any kind to those still alive or their descendants.
*** See the childhood
section of my father’s Memoir – Sam’s father, Charles, was a shy man,
confidence much diminished by having presided over the ruin of the family
business in Manchester (when Sam was two years old) and, consequently, the least inspiring public speaker
imaginable.
**** Probably a song
called A Dream Of Delight by Horatio Nicholls and Mabel Manson, published 1916.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam’s suddenly
on the move again – further north with a small group of comrades for training
as instructors in how to use a revolutionary new rifle that’s going to change
the course of the war – no, really!
* 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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