Luxury! Although embittered, Gallipoli veteran Sam, 17, finds the Somme Front offers the cannonfodder unexpected benefits: steel helmets! gas masks!

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… around Verdun, the German Army built towards a renewed major onslaught with attacks at Avocourt Wood (May 18, repulsed the next day), Mort Homme (20, west slope taken on the 21st), and Hill 295 (20), although the French struck back by taking two quarries at Haudromont and trenches on the Esen Harcourt Road (21). At Vimy Ridge, British and German forces engaged in similar bloody to and fro over a massive mine crater (May 17 and 20).

    In northern Italy a huge battle began with an Austro-Hungarian artillery bombardment of Trentino (May 15) accompanied by an advance along a 50-kilometre front – its objective, to take Venice (the campaign is dubbed the Strafexpedition or the Battle Of Asiago). The first week’s news comprised reports of Italian retreats, at worst to within 30 kilometres of Vicenza, due west of Venice. A proper sense of this battle’s scale may be gathered from the casualty figures at its conclusion on June 10: Italian 140,000 (including 50,000 POWs), Austro-Hungarian 100,000 (including 15,000 missing and POWs).

    Further south, the many divisions of the Russian Army continued to steadily gain or defend territory: beating back the Turks south of Trebizond (May 21), occupying Serdasht (Persia, 21), Rowanduz (east of Mosul, Mesopotamia) and Khanaqin (northeast of Baghdad, both 15), and linking up with the lately much battered British Army on the Tigris (at Ali Gherbi, 18 and 20).

    Meanwhile, after their terrible winter in Gallipoli, and three months recovering in Egypt, my father Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London (still under-age at 17), his older brother Ted, 19, and their remaining comrades – the 250-ish 2/1st City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers who’d survived – had shipped to France in April. At the huge encampment outside Rouen, despite the “veteran” comrades dedicated efforts in training, the British Army carried out its long-standing threat to disband, rather than rebuild, the Battalion. Embittered, demoralised, and still without home leave since January, 1915, they were then scattered among various other outfits on what was soon to become notorious as the Somme Front…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, my father and a few other ex-2/1st comrades suddenly found themselves marched off to a railway station – Sam didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye to Ted, his older brother and fellow ex-Fusilier. After a lengthy, slow journey they joined a new Battalion and settled into their first French village, billeted in barns and out-houses amid the remnants of the local farms – while, just a mile or two away, the war rumbled.

    Still raging inwardly, Sam nonetheless took in his surroundings and circumstances with his usual alertness. Oddly, he found much to praise in comparison to the Army’s conduct of the Gallipoli campaign. In his Memoir, he recalls…

‘They’d transferred my small contingent to one of the Territorial mobs which had its Headquarters in the London area. Our lot, as you know, were based in Bloomsbury – this crowd came from the richest and most royal borough, whose name you have correctly guessed, though I won’t confirm it*. I encouraged any chap who cared to talk about the Regiment to do so, but they knew little about it because they turned out to be the first conscripted soldiers I had met…

None of the men who had come from the old Battalion in Rouen with me ended up in my new Platoon**. I even felt glad about that; a feeling of comradeship would have existed had any of them been with me, and I wanted no more of such attachments.

     But I soon recognised that this Battalion was run by men more skilled in caring for and providing for their rankers than any I had encountered earlier. A Quartermaster Sergeant, a Sergeant Cook, and some well-trained men worked miracles with the rations to produce meals of a quality I’d seldom experienced in front-line soldiering. They had several mobile field kitchens, comprising large boilers, food store boxes, fuel containers, fire boxes under boilers with tubular chimneys and so on, along with two-wheeled vehicles, usually pulled by mules, which allowed cooking to proceed while on the march. According to circumstances, they either stayed behind to work and caught up with us later, or moved with us in the column, or went ahead to our destination if our progress was slower than their wagons could achieve.

     Always, a substantial hot meal and good steaming tea arrived when needed – well, except when “enemy action” occasionally disrupted their praiseworthy efforts. The Quarter-bloke, a tall, strong, purposeful man, a tower of strength and efficiency, often achieved near-miracles under terrible difficulties. For men who, for hours, had endured exposure to rain, cold, shot and shell to unexpectedly be given a mess-tin full of hot stew or tea with bread was to restore our faith and hope and courage – the very knowledge that others thought about our discomfort, even misery, and had been kind enough to do something about it heartened us.

     None of the messing about with bits of rations here, no cooking puny portions in a mess-tin over a small spirit burner – often producing nothing worth eating. No going for days with nothing but hard biscuits, jam and a small allowance of water…

     Observing this, and other matters of organisation, I came to understand that, here in France, with the war obviously going to be a long one, the British Army conducted it rather on the lines of a business.

     The Medical Officer, strong and thorough – unlike old Number Nine, that long streak of misery from my old Battalion in Gallipoli – frequently talked to the men about both sanitation and medication. He inspected our quarters, checked up on latrines. Furthermore, I learned that he and his like had given much thought to addressing the health hazards of the Western Front’s static combat. For instance, until recently many men had become casualties with a complaint called “trench foot”***, caused by wet, cold feet receiving no care over long periods. Regular washing, careful drying, massage with mild oil and putting on clean, dry socks prevented this foot trouble and, when no major affray was in progress, men were sent to the rear in rota for this simple treatment, proven to be so effective that the Army had declared it a punishable breach of discipline to have trench feet (except in circumstances where the remedy could not possibly be applied, the authorities allowed).

My new Company occupied a barn, a big one. Strong bunks – wire netting over wood frames – filled all floor space, apart from a central area where tables and benches were set out. Imagine this, near the front line, such luxury! At Suvla Bay I never even had a cover over my hole-in-the-ground – except briefly when I worked with 88th Brigade HQ. And here… blankets two per man (dark, not laundry-fresh admittedly, but cosy). Plenty of water for all ranks; so different from the small, daily ration out East which had to suffice for drinking and all else… and I drank mine, so “all else” was a non-starter.

     Here I could remove boots, tunic and trousers at night, instead of wearing them continually except for brief louse-hunts. Up in the firing line, men told me, you might have to remain fully clothed for 10- to 14-day periods – but never for weeks on end.

     Most of the men in my new mob wore steel helmets, an item I had never seen before. All I had was an old cap from which I had removed the shape wire so that I could still wear it while sleeping. Stylish headgear – the soft top could be pulled to one side quite rakishly, suggesting I was no end of a devil – yet ineffective protection if a bullet or a piece of shrapnel came your way.

     Some of my new comrades had what were called gas masks too; in the previous year, since kindly German scientists had devised portable storage tanks deployable on the battlefield, poisonous gas had fearfully damaged many men. At the front, should the wind be blowing towards our men, the Germans would release clouds of the stuff. We knew nothing about it in the early days, I heard. Our men would be asphyxiated, hors de combat immediately, and often permanently afflicted. But these efficient gas masks worked well, if you got them on in time.

     At Gallipoli**** our hopeful protection had been a pad of cotton you had to piss on and then clamp over your nose and mouth. I never had to use it, thank goodness.’

* My father wouldn’t say anything further about which Battalion he and that handful of comrades transferred to – he had an instinctive reserve/discretion about names in many circumstances (and I have no other explanation for his reticence!). But as noted in last week’s blog, I’m all but certain his new “mob” was the 1/13th Battalion, the London Regiment (The Kensingtons). I’ll repeat that my major sources are 1) Alan MacDonald’s remarkably detailed Pro Patria Mori: The 56th (1st London) Division at Gommecourt, 1st July 1916, Iona Books 2008 http://www.gommecourt.co.uk/shop1.htm (NB I’ve tried in every way I can think of to find Alan to seek his permission to use quotes and to negotiate any fee required, but I failed; I will gladly do so retrospectively, or remove the quotes, if anyone can put me in touch with him) 2) the Kensingtons’ War Diary (WD) downloaded from the National Archives.

     As per last week’s deductions/opinings, I think he joined them at a village called Souastre (7.5 kilometres west of Hébuterne, the British Army’s front-line village opposite German-held Gommecourt) either on May 14 or possibly a little later – up to May 24 when the Kensingtons’ acquisition of 100 ex-Gallipoli ORs (other Ranks) from the 2/1st Royal Fusiliers concluded. Further deduction: Sam joined Company A (a Company comprised about 200 men).

     Brief Battalion history: formed in August, 1914, the Kensingtons sailed to Le Havre that November and fought on the Western Front in northern France thereafter (notably, suffering 195 deaths at the May 9, 1915, Battle Of Aubers Ridge) – see Private Eric Kennington’s famous painting of the Battalion at Laventie in 1915 http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zgmq7ty. During the early part of 1916, they were stationed at Citerne, then moved onto Doullens, Magnicourt-sur-Canche and Lignereul, training, playing football against other Battalions, or simply waiting for whatever might happen next. On April 10 they moved into the front line at Dainville. Not insignificantly, on April 19 they received an allocation of musical instruments – and decided they’d better form a band. Relieved on April 24, they returned to Lignereul, undergoing further training sessions until they marched to Souastre on May 6 (where my father joined them, as above).

** A British WW1 Platoon comprised about 50 men, at four per Company.

*** Trench foot: the bacterial and fungal infections associated with it can lead to necrosis (cells dying) and gangrene (death and rotting of tissue); if not treated early, the outcome may be amputation or death.

**** Neither side used poisonous gas in Gallipoli, although both made some preparations to do so; the first use of gas in warfare is reckoned to have been by the French Army in August, 1914 – in the form of tear-gas grenades. The first use of chlorine was by the German Army at Ypres in April, 1915, the first by the British at Loos that September; phosgene and mustard gas were introduced later; gas casualties in the war totalled 1,250,000 including 91,000 fatalities (though that count probably included only those who died 1914-18) – source http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/poison_gas_and_world_war_one.htm

All the best – FSS

Next week: Sam longs to lose his illustrious Lance Jack rank, earns a new nickname – the Pisstaker – and, on his first sojourn in a front-line trench since Gallipoli, acquires a strange new companion…

The fate of Sam’s Gallipoli veteran Battalion is decided – or How To Demoralise A Bunch Of Battle-Hardened Young Volunteers Without Really Trying…

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 British Red Cross

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

Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… while skirmishes continued around Ypres and Albert, Verdun remained the hub of heavy fighting, even though it had quickly become as bogged down there as on the rest of the Western Front. The French and German Armies contested Hill 304 for days with a modest German advance the only movement as artillery beat them back from the summit (May 3-7).

    During the week, three German airships were destroyed on consecutive days (May 3-5) in diverse locales: Norway (after raiding Scotland), the Schleswig coast (straddling current German-Danish border), and Salonika (Greece).

    In British Isles news, the first three Irish rebel leaders from the defeated April uprising were executed (May 3). And that same day, Parliament heard the introduction of the Military Service Bill which would remove married men’s exemption from conscription.

    Further South, the Allies had a successful week in various locations with the French taking back Florina (Macedonia) from the Bulgarians (May 2), the Russians defeating Ottoman forces in Persia at Srmil (5), Serin el Kerind (6) and Oasr-i-Shirin (7), and South African (7, Kidoa-Irangi) and Belgian (3, Shanzugu) troops developing their pincer campaign to invade German East Africa.

    Meanwhile, after four terrible winter months in Gallipoli, and three more restful months in Egypt, my father, Lance Corporal Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London (still under-age at 17), his older brother Ted, 19, and their mates – the 250-ish 2/1st City Of London Battalion Royal Fusiliers comrades who’d survived Gallipoli – had arrived in Rouen, France. There they encamped prior to Western front deployment. Their all-consuming objective was to save the Battalion from disbandment, as threatened by the powers-that-be, via their performance in training. This they’d been told, could ensure that they would form the veteran core of a fully reinforced 2/1st…

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, they trained with crazed devotion and seemed to do very well in their decisive parade before the General on whose judgement their future depended. But then, my father writes…

‘Days passed, and our enthusiastic hopes for the old Battalion sagged; no news came of the new men who were to fill out our shrunken ranks and make up the full-strength unit we could help to train and improve.

     Came a day when everybody – without exception! – was ordered to parade. With all present, we were surprised not to see our popular Major out in front*. Instead, his adjutant stood there. I had not seen him since the occasion of his appearance at Gallipoli, walking out in the open when we were all in holes or trenches – when one of his arms was bandaged and supported by a sling and he looked ill. Today, he looked fit physically, but his face was pale.

     He quickly told us that, in spite of all our endeavours and successes, it had been decided that our numbers were too small for making up with reinforcements. Groups of us would be sent to various Battalions in the two Territorial Divisions on the Front in France. He said much more. One could see tears on his face. But no comment came from the ranks, no response whatsoever. Had the Major done the execution job, some men would have said a few words, heartfelt if not exactly polite. However, the adjutant’s emotion was wasted on us; when we dispersed we were quite a different set of men to those hearty mugs who had, for weeks, tried so hard to please.

I had one desire now and that was to somehow get a leave pass. To spend a few days in England before going into action. I, and many others, went around voicing this desire and also letting it be known that, because of the scurvy treatment we had received, the Army could get stuffed. Dangerous conduct this, but our outraged feelings needed some outlet, the more so since it became known that a new Battalion bearing our title** was already in existence in England.

     One of our men, Brotherton, did get compassionate leave for family reasons. But, before he’d left France, he ended up in hospital with serious injuries; travelling on the cheap to the Channel coast, he boarded a goods train and climbed into a small cabin on the roof of the wagon. But the train took the wrong line, one where a tunnel wasn’t high enough, and the wagon was smashed, Brotherton with it. He survived, but it seemed odd that the only ranker I’d known to be granted leave failed to reach home.

This is no tale of a God-fearing patriotic boy facing death and achieving glory for beloved king and country. After Gallipoli, the survivor members of our Battalion had felt some kind of joy-in-comradeship bond, but we’d backed a loser and that was that. Henceforth, we owed allegiance to no one, every man for himself and devil take the hindmost.

     I spent much of my spare time in a Church Army hut, where the mother and daughter who ran the concern provided home-made wads (buns, rock-cakes, and the like) and cups of good tea cheap, and always had time for a chat. They never rushed about trying to work up more business, that was not the object of the venture; wisely, the organisers of the overseas church missions to the troops realised many men would value a quiet place where letters could be read and written, or books borrowed and read, without interruption from hale and hearty religious fellows, who meant no harm, but could be nuisances. Mum protected her daughter from physical contact with the licentious soldiery, but permitted friendly conversation across the counter as part of the service.

     In camp, though, where were the smiles and cheery greetings which had become customary during our recent combined effort to impress the top brass? Gone missing, replaced by faces registering all the wrong emotions, such as scorn, sadness and defiance.

     Family men must have felt additional anxiety at times, after having survived some risky situations and come now so near to home, yet apparently still to be denied a short period with their loved ones before going into battle alongside strange comrades, men about whom they knew nothing. They did understand that no definite undertaking had been given as to permission to visit home being granted after a specified period abroad, but this did appear to be an opportune moment for a kindly gesture from above… Our Battalion disbanded, no training programme to be interrupted, still some days to be passed in idleness while our individual fates were decided.

     These matters occupied almost all our thoughts and conversations. We became monomaniacs on this subject of leave. Battles, logistics, advances, retreats – those things concerned others; we were single-track thinkers who just wished to go home for a while.

     At least, during our period of uncertainty, the opportunity had been taken to ensure we were fully equipped, so when our transfers to new Battalions came through we would make no demands upon them, beyond normal requirements of food and ammunition.

     I was foolish enough to allow today to be fouled up by speculations as to what tomorrow might bring forth, but I ought to have enjoyed that spell at the huge Army base near Rouen. The weather compared unfavourably with Egypt, but we did have a sort of roof over our heads – albeit canvas – a luxury after the Gallipoli experience. In addition, our circular bell tents had strong, sectional wooden floors.

     We took our meals in large huts, the food plentiful, nourishing, and of a higher standard than our Battalion caterers had ever produced. So I could appreciate the camp organisation was in the hands of men skilled in providing for the needs of large numbers. Conscientious men maintained efficient sanitation – on the buckets and night-soil-carts basis – using the unskilled labour freely available to the best advantage. A large incinerator dealt with all combustible waste. If many rounds of live ammunition found their way into the furnace, the consequent explosive cracks served to remind us all that, not far away, there was a war going on.

     But the impending dispersal of the old crowd soured most of my waking moments at the time. Even though, in my estimation, the dispositions of these men ranged from more than decent to anonymous to detestable, they had been my companions for the last 20 months. That most of them felt similarly afflicted showed clearly in their faces. A generally held opinion developed that the sooner the chop came the better – since, apparently, none of us in the ranks were going to see our homes and families before they dispatched us to join some strange Battalion up in the front-line trenches.’

* The Major: previously much mentioned, this was courageous front-line leader Harry Nathan who’d seen them through Gallipoli, they felt. He merited a biography, Strong For Service, by H Montgomery Hyde, because he later became a Labour MP then peer and served in Attlee’s post WWII Cabinet. Hyde reports the probable explanation for Nathan’s absence from this event: he “was granted a month’s leave” shortly after the Battalion landed in Marseilles and returned in June, 1916, to find remnants of his Battalion merged into a Reserve Corps (in the 29th Division of the 8th Army; "Reserve" didn’t mean non-combatant) under General Hubert Gough’s command on the left of the Somme front – see forthcoming episodes for Sam’s account of what happened.

** One online reference suggests that the Royal Fusiliers may have renamed the 3/1st Battalion the 2/1st, when the original 2/1st disbanded in Rouen (May, 1916).

All the best – FSS

Next week: Sam transfers to a new “mob”, moves to a village within earshot of the front line and feels the old battlefield tensions gathering – but still enjoys the fundamental decency of a farmer’s daughter still going about her daily work…