Sam meets the Tsarina of Russia’s goddaughter! In Harrogate! What the… ?

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All proceeds to the British Red Cross

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… The twin campaigns of Arras (led by the British) and the Aisne (led by the French) proceeded towards unsatisfactory conclusions for the Allies.

    The British had to call off their attack at the Third Battle Of The Scarpe (May 3-4) because of heavy casualties although, supporting Australian troops, they did make early headway in the Battle Of Bullecourt (May 3-17), breaking through the Hindenburg Line at Quéant. The French did take Craonne (4) and Chemin Des Dames, Moisy Farm and Laffaux Mill (5), then repulsed German counterattacks (6/7). But the cost of this plan set out by General Robert Nivelle continued to prove so high that the mutinies begun the previous week carried on spreading through their forces.

    Hectic action in other theatres saw: artillery battles on the Trentino and Julian fronts (May 6); an Allied Spring Offensive in Salonika (5-15) including a French/Italian artillery bombardment of Bulgarian and German positions in the Second Battle Of Cerna Bend (5-9; Macedonia), and French/Greek troops taking Bulgarian trenches on the Lyumnitsa river (5); the Turkish Army recapture of Mush from the faltering Russians (April 30; Armenia); a British victory over the Turks at the Gorge of Shatt-el-Adhaim (April 30; north of Baghdad, then Mesopotamia).

    At sea German mines and submarines continued to take their toll of naval and other ships, one major casualty being the SS Transylvania, sunk by two torpedoes in the Gulf of Genoa en route from Marseille to Alexandria with the loss of more than 400 soldiers and crew (my father had a connection with this ship: from April 17-25ish, 1916, she carried the post-Gallipoli remnants of his 2/1st Battalion Royal Fusiliers to Marseille and the Western Front after four months of rest and training in Egypt).

[Memoir background: my father, under-age 2/1st Royal Fusiliers volunteer and Gallipoli veteran [Blogs 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 May 15 to September 25, 2016)… until officialdom spotted his age – 18 on July 6, 1916, legally too young for the battlefield – and told him he could take a break from the fighting until he was 19. He did so, though with an enduring sense of guilt. By December, 1916, 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 training/marking time – and In Sam’s case dicing with meningitis and other battle-fatigue enhanced ailments – until they severally became eligible for the trenches once more…]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, Sam had the interesting experience of getting to know his three Cambridge University student comrades a lot better. Although he was only 18 and left school at 14, he found an equilibrium in their relationship because he could tell these highly educated and monied novice officer types a good deal about the battlefield realities he’d learned at Gallipoli and the Somme, especially what the Tommies needed from their leaders in times of extreme stress.

    Now he enjoys another of those sweet diversions from the war world which he loved so much, when civilian civility offered him the chance to set aside everything he’d been through – and would certainly return to at some unspecified time after his 19th birthday…

‘There followed a short period during which I spent less of my spare time with McIntyre and more with a bloke called Hackerman. Different in many ways to dear old Mac, this fellow waxed enthusiastic about quite small ventures; completely self-confident it seemed, he walked with a bit of a swagger, his feet somewhat splayed – sort of thrown upwards and smacked down as he energetically advanced. He had a true, egg-shaped head with small chin and mouth, large, bulging eyes, and wide forehead. He attracted my interest when one day he insisted on showing me a note an aunt had enclosed with her regular letter to him. It comprised an introduction to a Miss Frost, one of auntie’s friends, who lived in Harrogate.

     For some reason unknown to me, Hackerman thought that, if I accompanied him when he called with his letter of introduction, the preliminaries would be accomplished more easily. Much would depend, I guessed, on the age and temperament of Miss Frost — one was conditioned by romantic stories for a meeting with a ravishing beauty, owner of an immense fortune…

     Reality produced an old maid with a modest job, but some remarkably convivial friends. Prepared by the aunt for Hackerman’s call, Miss Frost conducted us to a basement room where a group of men and women much younger than she, though certainly no more vivacious, had gathered to bid welcome to this soldier sponsored by a London friend.

     A complete stranger myself, I was invited to join in the drinks and getting-to-know-each-other routine, and found this surprisingly easy among young women bent on giving two young soldiers a good time (in the most innocent sense of the phrase). One young woman, with whom I found myself particularly at ease, told me she was married; her husband was abroad in the Forces and she found these meetings with her friends helpful and enjoyable.

     This basement room, comfortably if plainly furnished, seemed to gain something in degrees of informality merely by being below ground level. A touch of the nightclubs maybe. Looking upwards through its one window, one could see part of a large building on the opposite side of the street. “That,” said my new acquaintance, “belongs to Alexandrina’s family. She’s that lovely girl over there.” She pointed to a gorgeous brunette. The building, it transpired, was a hotel, its clientele very much upper-crust, for the Tsarina of Russia** had stayed there and, at Alexandrina’s christening, had agreed to become one of the child’s godparents.

     This faint link with royalty caused no reserve or restraint and Alexandrina proved to be a happy soul – and generous with the several wines and spirits obviously donated by her dad..’

** Alexandra Feodorovna, 1872-1918, Empress Consort of Nicholas II, the last Emperor Of Russia; the “Tsaritsa”, not “Tsarina” as the British usually called her, it seems, was Queen Victoria’s granddaughter and Kaiser Wilhelm II’s cousin; the hotel my father refers to was the Cathcart House, then owned by the Allen family, and still standing today, but converted into flats. It bears a plaque saying Empress Alexandra stayed there in 1894 – she travelled alias Baroness Startenburg, seeking a cure for her sciatica from Harrogate’s famous spa. She became godmother to the owners’ twin children (because she took their birth during her visit as a lucky omen) — she further asked their parents, Christopher and Emma Allen, that they be named after herself and Nicholas, the then Tsarevich (heir to the Imperial throne), to whom she was engaged. She stayed in touch with the children – the girl seems to have been spelt “Alix”, because the Tsaritsa was still Princess Alix of Hesse at the time – and regularly sent them gifts, right up to their 21st birthdays in 1915. The Tsaritsa was Rasputin’s chief supporter at court. A combination of Army personnel demoralised by military failure on the Eastern Front (and starvation) plus civilian revolutionaries forcedd her husband to abdicate on March 15, 1917. Her cousin King George V refused her permission to flee to Great Britain and, after a period of imprisonment, in July, 1918, she, her husband and her family were murdered, probably on the orders of Lenin.

All the best – FSS

Next week: Sam’s lovely evening continues – a nice girl for company, fish and chips… what more could an 18-year-old Gallipoli/Somme veteran on a break from the Front ask for? But then comes the order to muster and the Battalion hits the road once more.

* 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.

Sam discovers, after weeks of training, the new super-rifle doesn’t work! Still, he enjoys some high-life highbrow socialising with his Cambridge student comrades…

For details of how to buy Sam’s full Memoir* in paperback or e-book & excerpted Gallipoli & Somme episode mini-e-books & reader reviews see right-hand column

All proceeds to the British Red Cross

For AUDIO excerpts click Here  Join Foot Soldier Sam on Facebook Here

Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… German destroyers raided Dunkirk (April 25) and Ramsgate (26), but they seemed like oddly risky nuisance operations compared to the real action unfolding as ever on the Western Front.

    The Allied offensive response to the completed German retreat to the Hindenburg Line continued with the second phase of The Battle Of Arras (April 9-May 4). The British Army instigated The Second Battle Of The Scarpe (April 23-4) which gained ground on a nine-mile front from Croiselles to Gavrelle and held it against strong German counterattacks. And they launched The Battle Of Arieux (28-9) as a supporting action, north of Monchy-le-Preux, to help the French to the south – but it was Canadian troops who took Arieux itself.

    However, the French Army’s grand attack, The Second Battle Of The Aisne (April 16-May 9), masterminded by Général Robert Nivelle, had already gone very wrong and the only successes noted for this week 100 years ago amounted to beating off German counterattacks at Hurtebise Farm on the notorious Chemin Des Dames (April 25-6). In fact, the calamitous effect of the failure on morale began to emerge with the first of several French Army mutinies on April 29, the same day as Verdun hero Général Philippe Pétain’s promotion to Chief Of French General Staff (not replacing Nivelle quite yet).

    Elsewhere, a British onslaught on the Bulgarian Army still occupying part of Macedonia began west of Lake Doiran (April 22-May 8) – the initial infantry attack, following a huge artillery bombardment (April 24-5), was quickly pushed back and fighting continued with the two sides in their original positions. And down in Mesopotamia, the British Samarrah Offensive (March 13-April 23) finally reached its titular objective 60 miles north of Baghdad, but at terrible cost: British and Allied casualties 18,000 (plus 37,000 ill!), Ottoman 15,000).

[Memoir background: 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 spotted his age – 18 on July 6, 1916, legally too young for the battlefield – and told him he could take a break from the fighting until his 19th birthday. He did so, though with an enduring sense of guilt. By December, 1916, 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 training/marking time until they severally became eligible for the trenches once more…]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, Sam, his pal Mac and their three highly educated upper-bracket mates, all chosen to become instructors in the Army’s new super-rifle, concluded the training they’d begun in (probably, my father never named it) Cramlington, Northumberland, with a further move to Clipstone Ranges, near Mansfield, where they passed as first-class shots.

    Now they rejoin the Essex Regiment in Harrogate – and find all their earnest endeavours reduced to farce and futility as it emerges that what they’ve been doing is part of a colossal cock-up by… well, who would ever know?

‘And so back to the Battalion in Harrogate, the five of us, McIntyre, Metriam, Naylor, Rutven and me, ready and willing to shake its foundations with our recently acquired expertise on the master-weapon which should hasten the end of the war — or rather, as it turned out, on the most rejectable weapon ever devised. Sad to say, the rifle was never generally issued.

     The reason given for all the waste of time and money? Its magazine had a fault which caused it to jam if loaded with ten rounds of ammunition. That was why, at Clipstone, we had not been put through the 15-rounds-a-minute test** — the damn thing couldn’t do it.

     So now they told us… and, after all that intensive effort, we never made use of our special training. We five had one long discussion about the matter, expressed our opinions of the brass-hatted barstewards above, then forgot all about it.’

Still, their return to no more than routine activities has its compensations for Sam, who grew up poor – often hungry – and left school at 14, but approached people and life in general with boundless curiosity. He jumped at the chance to socialise with his bright, posh fellow sufferers in the super-rifle fiasco:

‘The three Cambridge wallahs opened my eyes to a style of Army living superior to my crude style in all respects. They had a room in an empty house taken over by the military, whereas Mac and I pigged it on mattresses on the floor of a school hall. On rising, we folded our blankets and rolled up the straw-filled bags — that is, our mattresses. Had we added anything to this simple, if dirty, sleeping apparatus we would have been carpeted for breaking regulations. Not so our three pals, men obviously destined for greater work than the hoi polloi.

     Nonetheless, during the short period they remained with our mob I enjoyed several lush evenings with them, sprawling on their easy chairs or reclining on their camp beds, drinking their whiskey, brandy, or common wallop, and eating such luxurious titbits as they so kindly shared with me. In return, I suppose, I talked about my experiences on two Fronts, though only when they encouraged me to do so. Generally, they chatted about small everyday matters, but often, in quiet periods, they studied books or pamphlets while I read a newspaper or magazine. I had appreciated from the start that they had their roots and main interests in a world of which I knew little. But they were good fellows, generous without patronising me.

     I hoped I was of some use to them with my descriptions of life under active-service conditions – chats about the types of men encountered, their reactions to the varied situations all face in front-line warfare and good leadership’s importance to the maintenance of controlled behaviour. A shaky officer in charge was more demoralising than a heavy bombardment… The boss must remain firm and confident outwardly, no matter how windy he felt… Talking on these lines appeared to help these new members of the Poor Bloody Infantry, who were obviously “officer material” – horrible expression…’

** My father trained in rapid fire – 15 shots a minute, each one properly aimed not just blazed away – back in Malta, spring 1915, before Gallipoli, and wrote his account of the extraordinary deft work it required on the old Lee Enfield: ‘Normally you loaded five bullets in the magazine, but for rapid fire you inserted 10… and fired them, then dealt with five more, all in the space of 60 seconds’ (see Blog 49, June 14, 2015).

All the best – FSS

Next week: Sam wanders into another new Harrogate social scene – including the Tsarina of Russia’s goddaughter!

* 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.