Sam and comrades assailed by the opening salvos of the Spring Offensive realise “This is it!” – and Sam gets gassed, a “dreadful, choking-burning sensation”…

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Dear all

A hundred years ago this week… All attention on the Eastern Front and what one German General called “the most comical war I have ever known”. It arose from Russian Foreign Commissar Leon Trotsky’s February 10 refusal to sign the draft peace treaty with the Central Powers which emerged from the Brest-Litovsk negotiations – on some point of principle about dealing with bourgeois regimes, he said Russia was no longer at war with them but… he wouldn’t put it on paper.

    So on February 17, Germany announced a resumption of hostilities which they followed up the next day with the start of Operation Faustschlag, aka the Eleven Days War. The Bolsheviks had won their revolution handily, but this serious display of military might soon brought them back to addressing the realities of international power relations. On February 19, they declared willingness to sign the peace treaty, all fine, no need to change a comma. The Germans considered their position… and meanwhile conducted this additional little war, hoovering up territory against feeble or non-existent opposition.

    A three-pronged offensive, deploying 53 Divisions, took Dvinsk, Latvia (February 18), Minsk, Belarus (21), Zhitomir, Ukraine and Dorpat, Estonia (24) and they weren’t stopping yet.

    Elsewhere, while minor actions continued on the Western Front and around the River Piave in Italy (where the Austrian invasion remained stalled), the most substantial development saw the British and New Zealand forces in Palestine take Jericho (February 19-21), the first step en route to occupation of the Jordan Valley.

[Memoir background: my father, Lance Corporal Signaller 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 real age – 18 on July 6, 1916, legally too young for the battlefield. So they told him he could take a break from the fighting until he turned 19. He took up the offer, 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. An interesting year ensued – four months of blizzards, a meningitis scare, special training in various northern locations, and then a few summer weeks stomping around Yorkshire on a route march… which in due course led him to hospital again, to recover from lurking effects of trench warfare’s privations and prepare for more of the same (he was 19 while in hospital). During that period, his Company Officer told him he’d been offered the chance to train for a commission, but Sam detested ordering men around – especially when death might be the outcome – so he refused; one immediate-post-war pension form suggests this defiance may have brought about his “reversion” to Private, but perhaps he actually requested it, given his feelings on the subject of rank. Come November/December, he enjoyed what turned out to be the final home leave of his military career – at the end of which he assured his family of his firm conviction that he would survive. In December/January 1917/8, he returned to France, unattached to any specific Battalion pro tem, and knocking about Brigade HQ, dogsbodying where he could – though he was soon out at the front line, just a few miles away… ]

FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS

Last week, the blog moved ahead of itself into March and the preliminaries of the British defence against the German Army’s long-anticipated Spring Offensive, simply because my father, Signaller Sam Sutcliffe, wrote so much about the nine days around that battle which had such a profound effect on him in so many ways, as you’ll see. On March 19, his Battalion, the 2/7th Essex, moved from Arras into the trenches near the village of Fampoux, about six kilometres outside town.

    We left him, probably on March 20 he reckoned, engaging in what he called “a strange prelude to a terrible battle”. The wild streak in his normally solid character broke to the surface again and, having snatched a Lewis gun from its rightful operators, he fought a duel with one of Von Richthofen’s Flying Circus which had annoyed him by zooming up and down low over the British trenches taking pictures with impunity. The upshot was he proved just as ineffective as the Lewis gun’s official proprietors in nailing the pesky Jerry – but the pilot missed him too with machine-gun fire and a hand-thrown bomb. At which, Sam, scuttled back to his own Battalion before anyone could think about disciplinary charges.

    Well, that incident could have proved deadly, but now the whole operation gets serious. On March 21, a Thursday, the Offensive began around St Quentin, about 75 kilometres southeast of Fampoux – the German plan to move their attack steadily northwards over the following week with Arras their final major objective. Of course, the “softening up” process would begin some while before each major onslaught. Sam and his Essex comrades are still in the support trench at this point:

‘One morning, shortly after my encounter with one of the “Flying Circus”, enemy artillery began to take tentative pots at scattered points in our lines. The firing gradually intensified until it became a searching bombardment by every type of enemy gun. All around us, shells of every calibre were bursting and busting up the landscape. This was to continue night and day until early on March the 28th(1).

     The initial shock, caused by the realisation that “This is it” as much as by the actual noise and destruction going on around me, soon settled into the state of high tension so familiar to me from earlier bombardments in times which seemed far away(2).

     Rare direct hits on our narrow trench brought forth the old cry, “Stretcher-bearers!”, and although these stalwart life-savers sometimes had to squeeze past us on their journeys of mercy, we gained no knowledge of the extent of our casualties – wounded or killed.

     No let-up throughout that night. We had no deep shelters, but a series of bolt-holes – each holding six or so men – provided fair cover for those whose turn it was to “rest” after doing their spells of “stand-to” duty. A direct hit by a shell would smash everything and probably everybody in the affected trench but, doubtless because of the narrowness of the support trenches, such tragedies remained infrequent at that stage.

     The perpetual roars, crashes and earth tremors became our norm, and we had to remain as alert as humanly possible in that hellish environment. Provisions arrived at long, irregular intervals, borne by very brave ration parties. All our instilled discipline was needed to enable us to stay put when every human instinct pressured one to break into a gallop in a rearward direction.

On the second day, our situation got worse; my lines being still intact, I received a message from Battalion HQ “for immediate attention of Company commander” instructing him to warn all ranks that one in five of all enemy shells now arriving contained poison gas; look-outs could identify them by the cloud of greenish-yellow vapour emitted, accompanied by only a small explosion.

     One look-out man occupied a raised position quite near to my Signal-station shelter, so I had to rely on him swinging his noisy bird-scarer rattle in good time should he spot a bursting gas shell nearby. Soon enough it happened, but instead of holding his breath, rattling, and then donning his gas mask, he protected himself first then sounded the alarm – by which time I and others had lungs full of the stuff. The dreadful, choking-burning sensation set in motion our much-practised routine; we stopped breathing, withdrew respirators from satchels, strapped them to chests, breathed out, clapped masks over faces, and resumed breathing air purified in its passage through canisters containing absorbent granules.

     Thereafter, for me, everything I ate or drank had about it a chemical foulness. Even the air I breathed smelled grossly tainted. We, of course, removed our respirators as soon as we deemed it safe; impossible, anyway, for those of us afflicted by the poisonous stuff to continue wearing the masks because our damaged lungs couldn’t suck enough oxygen through them(3).’

(1) Military Operations France And Belgium, 1918 March-April: Continuation Of The German Offensives (1937), published by IWM & Battery Press, says that, on January 21, 1918, General Erich Ludendorff, of the German High Command, decided the “Spring Offensive” should go ahead – this in anticipation of America becoming militarily active, which it did effectively during that spring (having declared war on April 6, 1917), and following Russia’s signing an armistice with Germany (on December 23, 1917, and renewed thereafter at the Brest-Litovsk negotiations, the Kaiser having supported Lenin’s Bolshevik Revolution for his own ends). The latter development freed 50 German Divisions to march from the Eastern to the Western Front; on March 21, 1918, at 4.40am Ludendorff launched Operation Michael (aka the Second Battle Of The Somme), the first of five great attacks comprising the “Spring Offensive”; http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_sommeII.html says that within five hours German artillery fired 1.1 million shells (including poison gas shells) from 6,500 guns and 3,500 mortars; their 17th Army, commanded by General Otto Von Below, veteran of successful World War I campaigns on the Eastern Front, in Macedonia and Italy, conducted the attack on the section of the Front east and south of Arras – viewed as distinct actions these included the First Battle Of Bapaume (24 kilometres south of Arras) March 24-25. A second phase of this attack, called Operation Mars, focussed on taking Arras, began on March 28.

(2) Meaning Gallipoli and the Somme.

(3) My father, tough as they come, lived to be 88, but his lungs always troubled him just from that one short inhalation of what he told me must have been mustard gas. During winters he regularly suffered bronchitis and latterly emphysema. More trivially perhaps, though it was frustrating for a music lover like him, he could never play wind instruments from then on – you may remember he took a flageolet into the Gallipoli battlefield, losing it in some Suvla Bay gully or other, and as a lad he’d always fancied taking up the trumpet. Still he did have a high old time on the piano and accordion at many a party and, during WW2, in his local north London Civil Defence concert party band.

All the best – FSS

Next week: The Spring Offensive bombardment begins; Sam’s Battalion moves into the front line; he and his Signaller pals get lucky, having a big bunker to work in – except when he’s out in blown-up trenches mending wires with “no one to witness my skilled workmanship and brave devotion to duty… or maybe my cringing, crawling and fumbling, take your choice”…

(1) 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.

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

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… 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…