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Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… Once
in a while ultra-peripheral political events suggest the way the WW1 winds were
blowing even more than the latest news from the Front. This week it was the
breaking off of diplomatic relations by the latest in a long sequence of nations
who, during the course of the summer, had thereby placed their bets on the
outcome – namely, Peru (October 5) and Uruguay (7). The Kaiser’s secretary
probably didn’t even bother to tell him, but presumably these gestures told the
Allies “We were right behind you all along, no, really!”
Still,
on the Western Front the conflict continued as deadly as ever. Within the Third
Battle Of Ypres campaign, (July 31-November 10), the Battle Of Polygon Wood
reached its denouement after eight days when the British Army resisted German
counterattacks around the Menin Road (October 1 and 3). The immediate follow-up
to this success for General Plumer’s “bite-and-hold” stratagem was the one day
Battle Of Broodseinde (4); British and Anzac troops hit the Gheluvelt plateau
along an eight-mile front and achieved their objectives before nightfall, a
terrible “bonus” being that their artillery caught a mass of German troops
gathered to launch their own attack (casualties: British 12,000, Anzac 8,200,
German uncertain but heavy).
Further
south, after a period of progress around Verdun, the French Army came under
pressure throughout the week – at Beaumont, near Reims, too – but held their
lines.
Meanwhile,
in Latvia and elsewhere, the Russian Army proved it was not yet in any state of
absolute collapse, beating back a German attack east of Riga (October 7) and
getting the better of them at Czernovitz, western Ukraine (6). Incidentally,
down in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) they defeated Ottoman troops at Nereman, 50
miles north of Mosul (3).
Otherwise,
Allied momentum was diversely sustained by the Romanian Army driving back
German/Austro-Hungarian forces in Bukovina, some miles north of their own
frontier (October 3), the Italians resisting Austrian counterattacks on the
Bainsizza plateau (1) and around Mount St Gabriel (2 and 3), and British and
Belgian advances across the vast territory of German East Africa throughout the
week.
The
pocket histories also show that more and more bombing by planes – a very
weapon, of course – occurring across Europe: German raids on London and Dunkirk
and Oersel Island in the Baltic off Riga (all October 1); British and French
sorties against several towns on the Rhine (1), plus Metz, Cambrai, in occupied
northeast France, and Courtrai, Belgium (2).
[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, along with a bunch of other under-age
Tommies until such time as they severally became eligible for the trenches again… An interesting year ensued – four months of blizzards, a
meningitis scare, special training in various northern locations, and then, around
his 19th birthday on July 6, a few summer weeks stomping around Yorkshire on a
route march… which in due course led him to hospital again, to recover from
some lurking effects of trench warfare and prepare him for more. However, I’ve had
to break off from the this-week-100-years-ago excerpts from his Memoir because
my father didn’t write enough about his year “out” to provide 52 blog excerpts.
So, through to late October, before he returns to France and the Front from
December onwards, I’m revisiting his previous accounts of historic battles as
seen by an ordinary front-line Tommy – Gallipoli concluded last week, so now
it’s five weeks of edited episodes from the Somme, April-late September, 1916,
when he was 17-18…]
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
After my father’s 2/1st Royal Fusiliers
Battalion’s second evacuation from Gallipoli (Suvla Bay mid-December, V Beach
January 6), they returned to Egypt and spent more than three months recovering
– though it was called “training” – in a fairly pleasant location between the
Nile and the Sahara.
During
that time the 200 remnants of the original thousand-man Battalion who’d sailed
away from Gallipoli grew to about 250 as some of the campaign’s sick and
wounded rejoined them. Writing about this restorative period, Sam stressed how
Gallipoli had brought these men together – “bonded” would be the modern word –
in a way that transcended all natural and inevitable personal differences. The
result – highly relevant to their upcoming first weeks in France – was that,
without much discussion, they determined to stay together and become the
battle-hardened core of a Battalion refreshed by reinforcement back to full
strength.
Accordingly,
throughout their Egyptian sojourn they worked relentlessly to impress the top
brass with their fitness, discipline and capabilities.
But
these excerpts begin with milder observations as Sam sees France for the first
time (their troopship SS Transylvania sailed from Alexandria on April 17, and
docked in Marseilles on the 24th):
‘How lovely France looked when we anchored off Marseilles,
the shore lined with the white, usually flat-roofed buildings I’d found so
attractive when viewing other Mediterranean towns from the sea. Close up they
usually didn’t look quite so white, nor did the air around them always carry
aromas as pure as sea breezes, but I preferred the illusion to the reality
until proved wrong.
A three-day rail
journey followed. I found it delightful. No hurry about it, evidently. We would
be shunted into a siding for food and natural relief and, if the streets of a
village or town were adjacent, we’d take a stroll. A wave or shout would fetch
us back to the train in a moment – we were good boys, still chasing that
soldierly perfection which would win for us reinstatement as a Battalion.
The beautiful
greenness… I couldn’t describe the pleasure it gave me. Grass, green acres of
it. Trees – copses, woods, forests of the lovely things. Until I saw all this
beauty I didn’t know I’d been missing it. And another kind of vision on show to
us could stir a young man’s pulse to extra activity – the sight of a European girl
with white and pink complexion, brunette and blonde, as opposed to sallow or
dark tan with near-black hair.
At the time all
these differences aroused thrills of appreciation in me. So when, on one
occasion, I inadvertently stepped from the train almost into the arms of a
girl, words failed me. When she indicated she would like a tunic button for a
souvenir (one of the few words we both understood) I cut one off with my
jackknife pronto – in exchange for a kiss.
During the night,
when our train paused in a big, well-lit station, local people brought along
big jugs of red wine from which they filled our mess tins. No charge! Living it
up, indeed, and we quickly became a joyful crowd. Although we had to sleep
sitting up in crowded compartments, no one complained; who knew what pleasures
the morrow might yield?’
Initially, the pleasures of the massive British
Army encampment outside Rouen, Normandy, where they arrived on April 27/8:
‘Each day we were marched off to an intensive training
ground where we had our first experience of a battle course. With fixed
bayonets we would charge forward, jump a ditch, climb a wall, then see ahead a
line of hanging sacks which represented men. We had to stab them with our
bayonets, the while we emitted blood-curdling yells calculated to scare the
enemy stiff before we skewered him. Instructors lined the course, swearing at
us, urging us lazy bastards to scream and stab. The whole thing was like some
horrible, mad orgy and they soon had us behaving like the lunatics they appeared
to have become.
Our frantic
performance did have a purpose, of course, however daft it looked. One day, the
Sergeant who put us through our paces marched us into some lovely woods, had us
sit down, and made a pretty little speech – it almost brought maidenly blushes
to our cheeks. We had, he said, passed the battle course with distinction and
he was sorry he had only just been told, before the morning session, we weren’t
“rookies” straight out from Britain, but veterans of the Gallipoli campaign.’
Thus acknowledged – a hopeful sign, surely –
they returned to drilling under their own officers with a view to winning the
approval of the General who would decide their fate. They did a march-past after
which Major Booth (beloved Battalion CO in Gallipoli though aliased by my
father – his real name was Harry Nathan, later a Lord and Government Minister
post-WW2) read out a message from the General saying their form would have done
credit to the Grenadier Guards.
Serious-minded
Sam’s idea of a celebration is to visit the wondrous Rouen cathedral. His
companion, Haines, goes along with him, but then suggests some less formal
recreation:
‘He suggested having a drink and we entered a place which,
from its appearance, I took to be the kind of estaminet where a glass of wine
or beer could be had cheaply.
Inside, though, I
saw no bar, only some marble-topped tables and chairs. Then, unprompted, an
electric bell rang loudly – it shook me, being so unexpected – a door opened
and in marched a line of eight or so women dressed in gowns of various colours.
Facing us, they threw open these gowns and stood there, obviously inviting
inspection and selection. None of them was young, some as old, I judged, as my
mother. I hope I didn’t show the revulsion I felt. I expected my companion to
get out with me right away, but instead he pointed to one woman. She stepped
forward and he departed with her.
I was in a
dilemma, but made it clear by my actions that I wasn’t interested and the women
marched out – all except one. By now I felt scared and ordered wine to
propitiate whichever invisible person ran the establishment. It meant spending
a couple of scarce francs, but provided time in which to think. I remember
pouring myself a glass from the bottle, pushing it towards the woman and making
signs that she should help herself… and when she had drunk that, insisting she
had another glass. Some time passed, the awkward situation becoming ever more
distressing for me. Relief came with the reappearance of Haines. I stood up,
waved farewell, and was outside the place in a second.…
From cathedral to
brothel, from beauty to horror, from procreation to recreation… And from
prostitution, commercial copulation, battle, murder, and sudden death, Good
Lord deliver us.’
Thus, as often in the course of his war, my
father adhered to the chaste and chivalric teachings of his revered spirit of Mr
Frusher, the vicar/choirmaster/Scoutmaster/piano teacher who mentored him, his
brother Ted and their pals back in Edmonton before the war. Well, his “celebration”
may have misfired, but it soon turned out to be premature as well:
‘With all present, we were surprised not to see our popular
Major out in front(1). 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…’
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.
… 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…
I was foolish
enough to allow today to be fouled up by speculations as to what tomorrow might
bring forth… the impending dispersal of
the old crowd soured most of my waking moments at the time… That most of them
felt similarly afflicted showed clearly in their faces.’
(1) In his biography of Lord Nathan, Strong For Service, author H Montgomery Hyde
reports the probable explanation for the Major’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.
After the malcontented waiting, Sam’s orders to
transfer came so suddenly he didn’t even have time to say goodbye to brother
Ted. A couple of trains –concluding with open trucks – took him to where his
new Battalion, the Kensingtons, were resting within earshot of the front line.
As far as I can work out – my father maintained discretion about place names,
even writing 50 years after the event – this village was Souastre, 7.5
kilometres west of Hébuterne
where the Kensingtons did their front-line fighting at the time, opposite the
German-occupied village of Gommecourt:
‘After detraining, we marched until we reached a quite
pleasant-looking village, the first I had been able to see at close quarters.
Far in the distance, I could hear the rumble and thud so familiar a few months
earlier. Once more, the belly-tightening tension resumed its grip and I was all
set to face and deal with personal risks to the limit of my physical ability.’
Sam fell to wandering and exploring, as was
always his wont, even in quiet spells on the battlefield. And he always loved
to find signs of normal life, as this village still manifested, “real”
non-military people somehow going about their business:
‘Just the sight of females, from time to time, made the
place seem homely. Not that any attractive girls lived there, though many must
have graced the place before filthy war and rape, or the risk of it, drove them
elsewhere… I still retain a mental picture of a youngish woman behind whom I
walked a while as she drove three cows along a lane: her hair coarse and
matted, she wore a man’s cap, an old, dark-blue, military tunic much too big
for her, a knee-length skirt of mud-coated, dark cloth – below which her thick
calves were clothed in British Army long pants, with grey Army socks and heavy,
Army boots on her feet. A boy such as I was then could feel sympathy not
untinged with amusement, but I imagined she would remain totally safe from the
lustful cravings of even the most sex-deprived old soldiers. That apart, she
was a good‘un just to be in that place so near to the front line, at risk from
long-range enemy guns, trying to keep the little farm going while her men were
away.
Despite his bitterness at the old Battalion’s
demise, Sam was soon chatting away with his new Kensington comrades, finding
out what was going on back home – given he couldn’t get permission to go and
see for himself. No diminution of his disillusionment ensues:
‘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.
It seemed that,
during our sojourn in the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, changes had taken
place in England. The original voluntary-service fervour had quickly expired
and heavy casualties on the Western Front had to be made up by the only means
now available, namely, compulsory service.
These men, my new
comrades, proved more than willing to shed a new light on the behaviour of some
civilians in the dear old homeland. Setbacks on land and sea had brought
realism to the fore. In the early days of the war, natural optimism, faith in
the unbeatable British Navy and our world-beating Army, plus much official
propaganda, had encouraged those who intended to keep clear of personal
involvement in the nasty business to believe that Britain would surely smash
the Kaiser’s forces.
Many at home
already earned more money than they had in peacetime, and they intended hanging
on to their jobs come what may. Should call-up papers pop through their letter
boxes they could appeal to tribunals. Deferment of their conscription to armed
service might be arranged if, perhaps, their employers could prove their work
important to the national effort. Who, would you guess, comprised the
membership of those tribunals? Local bigwigs. If an appellant was by way of
being acquainted with a member, ’twas said he might secure deferment almost
forever.
So the next best
ploy was to change jobs and get work in one of the new armaments or ammunition
factories being built at a great rate. These places paid well, perhaps two or
three times more than in peacetime factories, because of the urgent need to
speed up production. They employed many women too and one conscript told me
bullets and shells were not the only products of some folks’ work on the night
shift.’
Then Sam encountered a philosophical
conundrum he’d never considered before… and reached an interesting conclusion
for a Gallipoli veteran now about to fight on the Western Front:
‘… some prominent people concerned with improving the status
of working-class people had promoted the idea that, if a man had religious
convictions strong enough to forbid him taking part in warfare, he should be
allowed to state them before a special tribunal, the members of which might
decide that he should do “national work” other than join the armed services(2).
As World War I
progressed the numbers of men who held or adopted these strong pacifist beliefs
increased, and some men thus avoided all the risks and sufferings to which most
were exposed. I heard that if the tribunal disbelieved the heart-rending yarn
you spun, if you still refused to take up arms you would be imprisoned, or put
to work in agriculture, or something of that sort. In any case, you avoided all
the pains and hazards of the battlefield – that had its attractions. Some of
these “conchies”, as the “conscientious objectors” were contemptuously called,
were politicians, and some later achieved high positions, after the prejudice
against “war dodger” types had subsided.
And yet… here too
was a concession which appeared to indicate that one fence separating The
Workers from the rest had been demolished – in part, the “conscience clause”
entailed an admission from on high that the dwellers in the terraced side
streets were capable of thought, able to form, maintain and explain a
conviction reached after study and evaluation.’
(2) The right to
conscientious objection had been recognised in the UK since the 18th century,
but only for Quakers, says Wikipedia; it became a general right in March, 1916,
after the Government introduced conscription. The same Military Service
Tribunals that heard appeals against conscription on all other grounds decided
on conscientious objectors’ appeals (which comprised about 2 per cent of the
750,000 cases the tribunals heard 1916-18). In all, 11,500 appeals on grounds
of conscience were upheld during World War I, while 6,000 appellants were
refused, conscripted, then, potentially, jailed if they refused to obey orders.
Mooching around and observing everything as
usual, Sam soon found good things to say about his new Battalion, even in areas
where they made the 2/1st look bad by comparison (remembering he was with the
2/1st from September, 1914, when they, men and officers, were nearly all
Territorial novices in civvies):
‘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....
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.’
Hereabouts, his Kensingtons Captain told him he
wouldn’t be required as a Signaller, they’d got enough already, so he’d serve
as a plain infantry Lance Corporal. Sam had no objection to that, but he took
the opportunity to request demotion to Private:
‘I wanted no rank, no responsibility except to myself. Rank
entailed being careful, steady, a good example, even though a Lance Corporal
was everybody’s lackey, often jeered at by the Privates and ordered around by
Corporals and Sergeants. I longed to lose that stripe and be a carefree
nothing’
Unsurprisingly, he was refused, adding to the
frustration which he reckoned led to him reframing his public persona during
this short spell before the action began again:
‘… with pleasant fellows in my platoon, on the whole, and a
new mood now upon me – occasioned by living among strangers – I could behave in
a relaxed manner, laugh without restraint at even the corniest joke, and make a
few cheeky comments about people around me (usually taken in good part). The
underlying bitterness remained in me, though, and stoked up the fire of
reckless humour which ruled out thoughts of a serious nature and ensured that
nobody would wish to attempt serious conversation with me – while roughly the
opposite of my style in the old Battalion, this resulted in a sort of coarse
popularity which pleased me. Consequently, I quickly earned for myself a
soubriquet I liked, to wit, The Pisstaker.’
But, of course, the move towards the
battlefield came soon enough, thrusting all extraneous considerations into the
background:
‘Came the day for us to pack up and move forward…(3) and now my gut-gripping tension
increased, although I believed, or hoped, I remained outwardly the flippant ass
they liked. For some kilometres our drum-and-fife band led us on with tunes
which had probably cheered up our soldiery in the days of Good Queen Bess.
Anyway, the rhythm of the drums kept our feet moving in unison – most useful in
that it saved us from tripping each other up.
When the band
stepped aside we marched on awhile in silence, save for the crunch of boots on
gravel road. Soon we entered the ghost of a village(4) and halted.’
(3) Probably May 21. The Kensingtons’ War Diary for that day notes
the Kensingtons relieving the 1/8th Middlesex on the right of the Gommecourt
front line. It records that my father’s Company A, under Major CC Dickens
(grandson of the immortal Charles), reached their front-line trench at 11.15pm,
–“after dark” as Sam recalled (whereas WD reports the other three companies
arrived in daylight).
(4) Probably Sailly-au-Bois, 4.6 kilometres southeast of Souastre.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Somme Rewind 2 of 5: Sam’s first
experience of the Western Front… the Battalion enter the trenches on a pitch-black
night, then take a day-time artillery bombardment… Sam starts to get used to it
until he leads an advanced-trenching detail into No Man’s Land at night…
“machine-gun bullets spattered around me…”
* 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.
