Sam’s lovely evening: a nice girl, fish and chips… what more could an 18-year-old Gallipoli/Somme veteran ask for?

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… A pretty glum spell for the Allies all round. On the Western Front British and Australian troops made some headway in the Battle Of Bullecourt – at Lens (May 10), Bullecourt itself and Roeux (12-13) – but against strong German counterattacks and sustaining heavy losses.

    The French had a similar grinding time further south with the Second Battle Of The Aisne drawing to a close amid German attacks from Vauxaillon to Craonne (May 7-13), with only small advances achieved at the Vauclerc Plateau (9) and Saucy (10). Worse, the wave of mutinies really picked up speed, apparently in protest against the attacks plotted by General Nivelle costing so many lives for so little gained – during May 54 French Divisions experienced mutinies of various sizes and 20,000 men deserted.

    Down in northern Italy the 10th Battle Of The Isonzo began (May 10-June 8; after a five-month break since number 9). Encouraged by Nivelle, the Italian commanders attacked Austro-Hungarian forces along a 40-kilometre front aiming to take Trieste. At first, progress was made.

    But in Macedonia/Salonika the Monastir Offensive momentum from 1916 dissipated entirely as the British lost the Battle Of Lake Doiran (April 22-May 9; casualties 12,000 to the Bulgarians’ 2,000), and a combined Russian/French assault at Crna Bend was beaten back by German and Bulgarian forces (May 5-9).

[Memoir background: my father, Lance Corporal Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London,  under-age 2/1st Royal Fusiliers volunteer and Gallipoli veteran [Blogs September 20, 2015, to January 3, 2016] 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 such time as they severally became eligible for the trenches once more…]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, my father enjoyed one of those sweet diversionary occasions in the company of civilians that so eased his heart – despite the niggling guilt about his absence from the front line which always lurked inside him.

    Now that pleasant soirée continues, courtesy of his new pal Hackerman’s introduction to old family friend Miss Frost and the assemblage of lovely young women she happens to have gathered about her. Earlier, he enjoyed the curious thrill of meeting the Tsarina of Russia’s goddaughter** – Alexandrina Allen who lived across the road from Miss Frost. But here he’s moved on to another charmer… who gives him pause for thought:

‘After circulating – as prompted and introduced by Miss Frost – I rejoined my first ladyfriend and found pleasure in her account of her life in that affable town. She required only the occasional remark of me and I studied her simple black dress and saw what good taste could achieve with little effort evident. She appeared to wear no make-up, yet the fair hair, flawless complexion, and – what was rarer in those days – perfect white teeth, all contrasting with the black dress made a lovely picture.

     Comparably careless of toilet and wearing a much used khaki uniform, I behaved with a careful eye on a repeat invitation, wondering what sort of impression I was making on this cultured young wife. Completely relaxed and friendly, she gave me no cause for concern that she might be performing a be-good-to-our-soldiers service.

     At one point in the evening the question arose, “What shall we have for supper?”, to which all agreed there was only one sensible answer, “Fish and chips!” Then, overriding all other offers, my friend insisted that she and I would go shopping, and I found myself bustling through the dark streets arm in arm with this vivacious lady, calculating how many portions would be needed, and probably wondering how the heck I should pay for that lot.

     I need not have worried, I wasn’t even allowed to offer to buy the food. A wonderful evening, though later I thought of another married woman who had walked those streets arm in arm with a soldier, not her husband, and of the hasty opinion I had formed about that matter***…

     Like many another recollector, I seem to remember most easily and most clearly, the sweet moments of those long past days. How sincerely one hopes that all the good people who contributed to those joyous occasions continued to live for many years in perfect health and able to meet and contend with the trials which challenge all of us at certain times in our lives.

During a few spare hours one sunny afternoon, Hackerman and I wandered through the lovely Valley Gardens, sampled the healing waters from the “poor man’s tap” outside the Spa buildings and walked in the pine woods, enjoying for free some of the pleasures for which wealthy invalids and self-indulgent hypochondriacs paid fat fees.

     But thereafter, we walked no more across The Stray**** to the weekly little gatherings in Miss Frost’s basement, nor could we say goodbyes and thanks to the wonderfully friendly ladies there, because that night we were told to have everything packed ready to leave next morning on a long, route march.’

** For readers who didn’t see last week’s blog and are curious about this reference… in 1894 Alexandra Feodorovna, 1872-1918, later Empress Consort of Nicholas II, the last Emperor Of Russia; the “Tsaritsa”, not “Tsarina” as the British usually called her, stayed at the Cathcart House hotel across the road from Miss Frost’s home. While 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) and asked their parents, Christopher and Emma Allen, that they be named after herself and her then fiancé Nicholas, the then Tsarevich (heir to the Imperial throne). By the time Sam met Alexandrina Allen, the Emperor had been forced to abdicate (on March 15, 1917). In July, 1918, after a period of imprisonment, the Empress, her husband and her family were assassinated.

*** See Blog 134 January 29, 2017. My father, ever the young puritan because of church and Boy Scout influences, is recalling the way he’d dropped a girlfriend he’d “walked out” with in Harrogate simply because he saw her sister, who was married to a soldier away at the front, on the arm of another. He describes his embarrassment here: ‘…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.’ A hint of how Sam pulled off the considerable feat of remaining a virgin throughout the war!

 **** The Stray: 220 acres of grassy parkland around the south side of the town centre, conserved by Act of Parliament since 1788 and to this day.

Where that long march leads the 2/7th Essex we’ll get to in July. This break in the 100-years-ago-this-week (more or less) blog narrative comes about because, although my father wrote a very long book – about 600 paper pages – he didn’t write enough about 1917 to divvy up into substantial chunks week by week for a year.

    Clearly that’s because he and his fellow underagers were essentially marking time until they passed 19 and became eligible to return to the battlefield. And, in fact, the Army even took a little longer than they might have to get Sam back to the Western Front – 19 on July 6, he lingered in England until December before they shipped him out to France again.

    So for the next few weeks I’ll be looking back to his childhood and teens, taking a thematic approach, but with each blog drawing together elements of the growing up which made him the young man, the young soldier, you meet in most of these blogs and in the Memoir as a whole.

All the best – FSS

Next week: The Making Of Foot Solider Sam, 1900-1904: a little boy sees his family fall from considerable wealth into bleak poverty…

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

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… 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.