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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… New
British Prime Minister Lloyd George had no sooner appointed his coalition
Ministers (December 11), than the Central Powers alliance wrote to all the
Entente Allies’ Governments saying they were ready to negotiate peace. It seems
no immediate reply was forthcoming, although one French politician is said to
have looked at the Central Powers’ terms and declared that the message was
“Heads I win, tails you lose”.
Over
on the battlefield, the Western Front hadn’t shut up shop for winter. Heavy
artillery exchanges on the Somme (December 11-13) suggested a resumption of
business as usual at the first glimmering of spring, while at Verdun a French
bombardment developed into a major attack (15) gaining two miles, remarkable in
trench warfare context, and including the capture of Vasherauville, Poivre
Hill, Louvemont and Les Chambrettes.
The
Russian Army, so overstretched in its efforts for the Alliance, still contested
the Eastern Front in fighting around Tarnopol and Stanislau (December 12,
Bukovina – around the Romania-Ukraine border). However, with the Romanians,
they rallied briefly against the German onslaught north of Bucharest before
retreating again (12-15).
The
Allied offensive in Macedonia hit renewed resistance from the Bulgarian invaders
around Monastir (December 12-14), but further south the British defeated them
on the River Struma (15). A terrible incident of little strategic importance
saw the old Italian trainer battleship Regina
Margherita sunk off Valona, Albania – mines laid by a German U-boat killed
675 men (December 11).
Much
further south, on the Tigris, a British force advanced to within a few
kilometres of Kut (December 13), the riverside stronghold they’d lost nine
months earlier.
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 – 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 certainly did – though not without a sense
of guilt. He left the Front for the British base camp at Harfleur and a temporary
move into a Quartermaster’s catering scam (which introduced him to his future métier,
as a market trader). Then the Army caught him on the hop again: shipped him
back to Blighty, for a few weeks based at his old 2/1st HQ near King’s Cross
station – living at home the while…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, back in London, Sam settled into
yessir-nosirring the rather creaky Royal Fusiliers Sergeant manning the old
depot with a view to sustaining his quiet life post Gallipoli and The Somme
until his 19th birthday (or beyond it, he didn’t mind if the Army failed to
notice) – despite continuing unease with thoughts of his recent comrades still
out there on the Western Front “where life was cheap, death and injury occurrences
of every day”.
He
even had a job of sorts. A group of a dozen now recovered wounded soldiers were
attached to the place for, well, unspecified purposes, so the Sergeant asked
Sam to out them through a little light drill on the very parade ground at the
Foundlings Hospital (now Coram’s Fields children’s playground) where he had
squarebashed through his first weeks as an innocent recruit in September, 1914
– though this casual time-passing did lead Sam to terrible news of some of his
former Royal Fusiliers officers:
‘On the Monday morning, I gathered my small group together
and told them what was proposed, and that they would have to report to the
depot until new orders came through for them. I gave them to understand that I
was no pushing, ambitious Corporal, no Field Marshal’s baton in my knapsack;
that, in fact, I was determined to lose the stripes I had on my arm at the
moment*.
They understood
perfectly and promised they’d give me their support in case we were watched at
any time. We’d put on a smart, little drill show for a short period in the
morning, take a couple of hours for lunch, then provide another small show in
the afternoon, marching round and round and stamping our feet, then back to the
depot, sign off, and go home.
This we did,
observed or not. My suggestion that we strip off tunics and caps for half an
hour and do a spot of physical training went down well too. So we established a
neat, little routine. I guess the Sergeant had to resume dusting round the depot
himself, for I don’t think he had much else to do. In truth, I believe we took
pleasure in this brief daily return to working, however lightly, on our old
Foundlings pitch. People would stop by the huge wrought-iron gates and gaze
through… and what were their thoughts? I trust they didn’t gloomily conclude we
were the last remaining members of the Great British Army.
I had several
enjoyable chats with these fellows and heard with interest and sympathy of
their experiences in action. Once, I mentioned to them our young Signals
officer, Lieutenant Wickinson, who joined us on the edge of the desert in Egypt
and took charge of our section – I’d spent several amiable off-duty hours with
him, discussing what the work should be the next day… “Oh yes, I knew him,”
said one. “I’m sorry to have to tell you that I saw him killed. He was ahead of
me walking along a road in an advanced situation – there one moment and gone
the next, a direct hit by a shell, he just vanished.”
Another chap gave
me news of the rather elderly man, Captain Boden**, who’d been my Company
officer in the original Battalion from the time we landed in Malta. He’d joined
another Regiment after we were disbanded in Rouen and, very shortly after
reaching the front line, he too was killed. I also learned that dear old Major
Booth, of whom I’ve said so much – a comparatively young man really, of course –
had been wounded in the head; it was assumed that he too had died***. None of
these sad items set me deeply longing to go back out there where living was
really dangerous.
Our routine at the
Foundlings continued, quite happily, for some time. One by one, though, members
of my temporary Platoon left. They received their orders and, I understood,
headed back in the general direction of France. Sorry, in several respects, to
see my little army’s disintegration, I still felt eager to discover what next
would come my way – given I remained a few months too young for the Western
Front.
When my own
marching orders did come, they sent me northwards. I collected a railway
warrant, said my goodbyes at home once more, hoisted the kitbag on my shoulder
and caught a train from Kings Cross – having first taken the precaution of
removing one of my stripes. Thus, to my own satisfaction at least, I reduced
myself to the rank of Lance Corporal – than which one cannot get much lower.’
* Sam detested being in a position to order men around. On
the Somme, he’d tried to persuade the RSM not to promote him, then nearly gone
up on a charge for not adding his second stripe as instructed (see Blog for
June 19, 2016). Hence the unofficial, but effective, self-demotion in the final
paragraph here.
** Captain Boden joined my father’s H Company in the 2/1st
on their voyage to Malta (see Blog for February 22, 2015).
***“Major Booth”, you may recall, being my father’s alias
for Major Harry Nathan; more of these events much later.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: And so to
Harrogate for Sam – where he and other underagers find themselves allocated to
the much reviled “Lost Division” who, according to the scandal sheets, had
never yet served their turn at the Front. They believe the slanderous rumour
and feel degraded… except that Harrogate turns out to be rather nice.
* 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.
