Sam the “skilful creeper” obeys orders like a good boy… back in Blighty still grapples with post-front-line guilt versus the joys of not being shot at for a while.

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

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… the big news in Britain was political: infighting among the ruling coalition resulted in the long-standing Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith resigning (December 5) to be replaced by… well, for a few hours, the nominee was Conservative Bonar Law (actually PM in 1922-3), but further manoeuvring saw Liberal Lloyd George come out on top (6).

    A FootSoldierSam note on the grand historical developments here… Recalling ruminations in a Gallipoli trench, my father opined that “ordinary people generally thought the Prime Minister an adequate man, but nothing more”. And, as you may recollect if you read the Blog on July 24, 2016, Lloyd George didn’t quite know my father – that is, after 18 months without home leave, including Gallipoli and the Somme, Sam wrote to his father suggesting he appeal to the War Minister himself to give him a break… and this did indeed happen, in August, followed, to his even greater surprise, by the official “discovery” that he was still underage for the battlefield and his consequent temporary withdrawal therefrom.

    But back to major events… to and fro French-German combat continued around Verdun, and in the snows of the Eastern Front between the Russian and German Armies at Stanislau and Tarnopol (December 4, Galicia straddling the Ukraine-Poland border) and in Bukovina (8, Romania-Ukraine border).

    Despite persistent resistance from Romanian and Russian forces, the Germans took Bucharest (December 6) and the national Government decamped to Iași on the northeastern border.

    In Macedonia, the Monastir Offensive (September 12-December 11), successfully completed by Serbian and French troops took fighting east and north of that city, with the Bulgarians starting to hit back after a long period of defeat and retreat.

    This campaign, pressing north from Salonika, seems to have occurred regardless of Greek political turmoil – but this week saw something of a resolution with fighting in Athens between supporters of the elected Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos (1910-20 and 1928-33) and royalists. This saw Allied troops get embroiled in the uproar, landing and embarking again, before their potent support for Venizelos resolved the matter pro tem.

    And then down on the Red Sea, Ottoman Turks tried to retake the port of Yanbu (December 1-11) from the Arab rebels who had captured it five months earlier – but the attack was beaten back by Arab troops and a British contingent led by TE Lawrence and/or Field Marshall Edmund Allenby (previously CO of the Gommecourt sector of the Somme where my father’s Kensington’s Battalion was shot to pieces on July1).

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 which introduces him to his future métier, as a market trader. But the Army’s next plan for him, as usual, caught him on the hop: back to Blighty, his old 2/1st HQ near King’s Cross station and living at home – for a few weeks anyway.

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, Sam left the, to him, sweet live of buying food in Le Havre and selling it to the Tommies at Harfleur camp. And his arrival back home brought the good news that older brother Ted – whom he’d enlisted with – though last seen about to charge out into No Man’s Land to rescue a popular Sergeant, had survived and joined the Field Survey Company (spotters and mappers of enemy artillery).

    Now he gets stuck into into being at a loose end as energetically as he can:

‘Financially, living at home was all right, with a good subsistence allowance drawn weekly. My days soon settled down to an almost civilian routine.

     I took the bus from Edmonton every morning at about 8.15, arrived at the depot 10 or 15 minutes before the required time and did as the Sergeant requested. At first, the place was empty and all I did was dust the furniture, desk, bureau etc, in the big office upstairs, and perhaps sweep out the large drill hall once a week. Really, a matter of killing time.

     Then 10 or 12 men reported for duty, passing through on their way from hospital, I gathered. They had all suffered severe wounds and required treatment in England, but recovered and convalesced to the point of near-readiness for active service. However, for no reason that I knew of, there was no unseemly haste to put them back in the front line.

     The arrival of these chappies posed a problem for the old Sergeant, one he was not slow to unload. “Corporal,” he said to me, “commencing next Monday morning, I want you to put these men through some drill. They’ve been away from their units for a considerable time, so gentle reintroduction to parade-ground disciplines will be good for them and give them something interesting to be getting on with.”

     Having learnt that quiet acceptance of what the person in authority said at any particular moment best suited my case, I quietly obeyed. I probably reasoned that, if I behaved in an agreeable manner, the people running the depot might even become glad to have me around… There was probably no more skilful creeper around than I designed to be. I gave good service and hoped to please…

     Yet, all the time, I felt aware of an inner bewilderment. “I’m here,” I would think, “safe and comfortable in dear old England, whereas a certain amount of conceit, a need to appear heroic, could have landed me in a situation where life was cheap, death and injury occurrences of every day.”**

     And still I enjoyed this break from the wretched circumstances of a Tommy on the front line. I didn’t have to grind any axe, merely obey orders – albeit I knew this would not last forever: someone in a department of the War Office called “Records” kept tabs on my movements and, on a given day, would lift my card from the file, note my age and send an order through “channels” to the man in charge of wherever I happened to be that I should return once more to where the action was.

     But, meanwhile, if compliance could defer that regrettable moment I would try to be a good boy… No medals were ever struck for soldiers with ambitions as humble as mine; there again, you can’t enjoy wearing pretty medals if you’re kaput, hors de combat, disabled, call it what you will.

     Back to the Sergeant’s request that I should put my new comrades through a little smartening-up drill. “Well, Sarge,” I asked, “where shall I give them this drill?” “Where do you think? Round at the Foundlings, of course.” That big, open area in front of the Foundlings Hospital***. Back to the old times with a vengeance.’

** My father is referring to the decision suddenly presented to him on the Somme. The RSM, whom he much respected, said that his age had come to official notice (via his father, Sam knew) so he could leave the Front. Or the RSM could wangle it for him to stay with his comrades. Frazzled after being on the front line in Gallipoli and for most of the Somme campaign – “This war had got right up my nose,” he wrote at one point – he decided to take the loss of face with the RSM, and others, and told him: “If that order has come through, then it is the wish of my father that I should follow it and, as he’s done this for me, I’ll go along with whatever the order says must happen.” He remained deeply uneasy about it until his return to the Western Front in December, 1917. But, as he writes here, he also candidly preferred not being in constant danger of death from shot and shell.

*** Back in September-October 1914, when Sam joined the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers at 16 with brother Ted, then 18, they squarebashed around the Foundlings courtyard and also conducted their early pay parades there. Founded in 1741 by sea Captain Thomas Coram., the Foundling Hospital served as a children’s home dedicated to ‘education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children’. It was a plain brick building with two wings and a chapel, built around an open courtyard. Supporters included Handel and Hogarth. Now, the building is long gone (demolished 1926), but the courtyard and sheltered walkways remain, the grounds known as Coram’s Fields and, appropriately, used as a playground.

All the best – FSS

Next week: Sam leads his platoon of recovering wounded in a little light drill, extended lunches and early home – the dark cloud being that these men had seen several of his old 2/1st officers killed in action, apparently including the Battalion’s beloved CO in Gallipoli, Major Harry Nathan (later Lord Nathan in Attlee’s post-WW2 Labour Government). But then Sam’s ordered to move on…

* 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 – still under age after Gallipoli & Somme – sent back to Blighty… and good news of brother Ted!

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… 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.