Category: Other stories

I never had the slightest idea of what was going on

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13th January 1915

The narrative on the blog has become much narrower since the war went to ground at the end of November. I haven’t written much about what was going on in the wider field of operations. The reason for this is threefold. Firstly I am lazy. Secondly, I am short of time. And, thirdly, I wanted this story to show the world from Frank’s perspective.

I feel that once the soldiers dug themselves into the ground they ceased to be part of a fighting brigade and became small parts in a larger war machine. They became less aware of what was happening beyond the confines of their trench as time went on. Battalions became less important than the company and ultimately the platoon became the defining relationship between fighting men in the trenches.

C.O.Lilly’s recollections describe this shift in perspective perfectly.

I never had the slightest idea of what was going on, my whole life was confined to one small portion of the line and now I realise what an extraordinarily bad training trench warfare was, and is, to teach a soldier his trade.

And in notes at the end of the typed document:

I don’t think it can be denied that trench warfare is about the worst sort of campaigning to teach a young officer his job. He never has any idea of what is going on, except what he can see with his own eyes from his trench.

The Dorsets were relieved by the Bedfords and moved back into billets in Dranoutre.

Three Dorset men were killed today, all privates: W J Mitchell, from Bermondsey, Stephen McCarthy, from Finsbury, and Frederick Thaxter from Thornton Heath, just to the south of Brixton. London supplied the Dorsets with an awful lot of men.

There’s no mention of these casualties in the diary.

 

Sandbags and wet rags

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5th January 1915

German light guns shelled the Dorsets’ left hand trenches and claimed the life of one man: 18 year old William Richard Satchell, another territorial reinforcement from 3rd Battalion. Snipers also plagued the left hand side of Sector D throughout the day.

The 1/6 Cheshires brought up huge amounts of fascines (bundles of sticks), hurdles and sandbags and laid them into the sodden trenches in an attempt to try to keep the men dry. An incredible 4000 sandbags were placed on the 15th Brigade’s fire steps today.

William Satchell was born in 1897 in Portsmouth in Hampshire. His mother, Ada, had died of heart disease, aged just 36, in 1904 leaving the father, another William Richard, to fend for his five children. It looks like the children had been sent away by the time the 1911 census came around and I can’t find a definite lead to William Junior in the 1911 census reports.

There is a William Richard Satchell listed as an inmate of Portsmouth Infirmary, but his birth date is out by a couple of years and he’s also listed, rather cruelly, as an “imbecile by birth”. I’m not sure he would have been fit for military service in the Territorials but the term must have covered a wide range of ailments and disabilities. The infirmary seems to have have been part of the adjoining workhouse (now St Mary’s Hospital in Portsmouth). Had poverty, and therefore the workhouse, consumed the entire Satchell family? Perhaps his only escape was the army?

Time has dimmed our connection to the lives of many of these working class men who fought in the ranks of the Dorsets. It’s easy to pick out the lives of officers who are often mentioned by name and are easier to trace. But I think it’s important to remember the vast majority of the Dorsets were working class men, like Frank, who joined the army less for heroic derring-do and more likely because of economic necessity or social desperation.

Four Marks war memorial

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9th November 1914

It was yet another day in the line, similar to the previous day, except that the intermittent shelling took the first Dorset life since the 22nd October*; Henry Lovatt from Barnes in London. He was 19. Two other Dorset men were wounded.

The 11th Brigade counterattacked late in the evening along the eastern edge of the woods with disastrous results. The Germans had deployed barbed wire in front of their trenches, a new arrival on the scene. The newly arrived 2nd Battalion Argylle and Sutherland Highlanders lost 7 officers and 123 men in the ensuing mayhem.

The Dorsets might have been having the quietest time of all the units in Ploegsteert Wood but their fluid left flank continued to cause them problems. The French were in perpetual motion and it was hard for the Dorsets to predict their whereabouts on a daily basis.

I wandered down to a Remembrance Day event in our village today. I stood in the rain, rather appropriately, while a brand new war memorial was unveiled in a ceremony ably hosted by the Assistant Bishop of Winchester, John Dennis. As far as I can tell, being a newcomer, Four Marks was never really an established community beyond a cluster of colonial small holdings in between older villages like Medstead and Ropley. As a result many of the 29 men listed on its coal black sides were included on other, more distant, memorials.

Today we remembered them.

* See comments below. This is not accurate. Firstly apologies, I missed a death from the 6th November: Frederick James Allen – and, secondly, please note that I am filtering out men who died of wounds or away from the scene we’re describing. I will return to casualties in more detail, once this part of the project ends. I’ll leave this errata in as they are more interesting rather than simply editing out my original inaccuracies. Thanks to Stephen Potter for his comments.

Dorset’s finest and finings

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22nd October 1914

If the wheels had fallen off the Dorsets on the 13th October then the 21st October was when they were consigned to the knacker’s yard.

The Cheshires were out early at digging trenches when the Germans attacked Violaines at 5:50am. For some inexplicable reason the Cheshires had not set ample cover on their digging parties. As a result they, along with a Company (B) of Bedfords, were quickly overwhelmed “at the point of the bayonet”, according to the Cheshire’s war diary. Violaines fell quickly in the mirky dawn. The Cheshires lost 200 out of 600 men, the Bedfords lost about 40 men and 2 officers.

The survivors fell back onto the Rue Du Marais where we find the Dorsets. The Composite Company had been split into two. The first 3 platoons were sent to dig trenches just behind the Cheshires on a slight ridge. The remaining platoon was kept in reserve under C.S.M. Holloway on the Rue Du Marais.

Frank was probably with A Company, further back from Violaines, who had spent much of the night complaining to 13th Brigade about their position. They felt they were very exposed and that their position was untenable by day. Heavy firing from the easterly direction of Lorgnies had played on their nerves. The answer from the 13th Brigade was blunt. Trenches must be occupied.

The Dorsets could hear lots of cheering as the Germans overran the Cheshire’s lines but couldn’t see anything as visibility was only about 50 yards. As they prepared to fire on the enemy the sudden appearance of the retreating remnants of the Cheshires masked their fire. Therefore the Germans were able to direct enfilade fire on the Composite Company who quickly became overwhelmed like the Cheshires. A Company, a little further back, clung on for dear life.

Lieutenant C.H. Woodhouse had been sent forward in the early morning with a machine gun to find a position to sweep the road running north out of Violaines. He was also ordered, according to the History of the Dorsetshire Regiment 1914-1919, to direct the Cheshires back to a new trench dug alongside the Composite Company of the Dorsets. We have here another story that needs clarification. The History claims that he subsequently fired the machine gun but it “fired badly” and he sent it back. At this point, covering the gun’s withdrawal, he was last seen firing his revolver into the approaching enemy before disappearing from view. The Dorsets’ diary makes no reference of this. It says that

Lt Woodhouse was unable to reach position before German attack succeeded and was last seen firing his revolver. The gun and tripod was lost.

Is this another case of apochryphal stories emerging post battle to explain away mistakes? Whatever the truth, confusion reigned in the gloomy morning light. The men of the 5th Division were on their last legs. They had been fighting for 10 days and had suffered huge losses. Many of their senior officers were wounded, captured or dead. Their replacements were greenhorns. Morland, CO of the 5th Division, moved the Manchesters up in support and also ordered a reluctant Gleichen to release his reserves to plug the gaps and counterattack. What the 5th Division desperately needed was experienced leadership. All the recent changes had not helped the chain of command.

Gleichen is incredibly critical of the new CO of the 13th Brigade. Lieutenant-Colonel Arundel Martyn had got himself stuck during the counterattack in the afternoon and the absence of command had caused the counter attack to break down. But it did stop the German advance.

It was, however, sufficient to stop the Germans for the time being. One reason for the difficulty—as I afterwards heard—was that the officer temporarily commanding the 13th Brigade had, by some mischance, got stuck right in the firing line with his staff and signal section, and could not be got at, nor could he move himself or issue orders,—a useful though unhappy warning to Brigadiers.

One platoon of A Company, led by Lieutenant Shannon, remained in position until dusk so that contact was maintained with the KOSB on their left. The rest fell back to a crossroads named La Quinque Rue (and later anglicised to La Kinky Roo) but it is no longer on maps apart from a house name along the Lille Road. By 11am things began to quieten down.

5th Division HQ urged the 13th Brigade to regroup and retake the Rue Du Marais by rushing the enemy in the dark but Martyn saw the task as impossible. He called for a Staff Officer from Divisional HQ to discuss the situation. They came, saw the situation and a new plan was quickly devised.

The Dorsets were withdrawn into reserve along the Rue Béthune. They were now down to a skeleton crew. They had lost 7 men killed, 22 wounded and 101 missing. The CWGC records 24 deaths but two of those were probably from wounds inflicted earlier on.

I am happy to say that Lieutenant Charles Hall Woodhouse survived the war as a prisoner of war and collected an MC for his action on the 19th October 1914. That must have been when he returned to the battlefield of the 13th to collect bodies and wounded men. In 1921 he married Stella Fairlie in Blandford St Mary, spent the rest of his army career in the Dorsets, becoming Colonel of the Dorsetshire Regiment in 1946. He died in 1962. His family was, and remain, an important family in Blandford. They are the Hall Woodhouses, brewers of the rather excellent Badger beers.

Interestingly it appears that many of the Woodhouse boys were Dorsetshire Regiment men. Charles’ son, John “Jock” Woodhouse, also won an MC, this time in the Second World War, and he went onto be a prominent member of the SAS. He also created Panda Pops, which powered my wild childhood self in the Seventies.

The map is a copy of the one in the History but I am not sure the Cheshires were pushed as far south east as they are shown. And Google maps shows Violaines as it is today: much bigger than in 1914. It was all fields back then. I’m not entirely happy with my maps for battle situations and will address this when time is more freely available. Which at the moment it certainly ain’t. And so to bed.

Let’s camp here for the night

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3rd October 1914

The 15th Brigade rested during the day, concealing themselves from enemy spotter planes. At 6pm the Dorsets paraded and marched about 12 miles to Corcy in the West.

Portrait of Robert de Montesquiou by James McNeill Whistler
Robert de Montesquiou. “Arrangement in Black and Gold” by James McNeill Whistler

Gleichen spends the day in bed with a cold. He gets driven to Longpont where he finds lodgings in the château attached to the ruined abbey at Longpont with Comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac, “a courteous and frail old gentleman”. I’m not sure Gleichen would have stayed had he known the outlandish history of his host.

This old gentleman was almost certainly Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac. He is worth dwelling on for a little while. The archetypal dandy, he counted Proust among his friends and was “the world’s most laborious sayer of nothing” according to Gustave Kahn.

His wikipedia entry had me laughing out loud. It includes such chestnuts as “he reportedly once slept with the great actress Sarah Bernhardt, after which he vomited for twenty-four hours” and “his poetry has been called untranslatable, and was poorly received by critics at the time.”

In 1901, in what became known as the Moberly–Jourdain incident, two prominent British female academics claimed to have had supernatural experiences while walking near the Palace of Versailles. They reported having seen people from the 1790s, including Marie Antoinette. These “ghosts” were possibly Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac and his friends who frequently held parties in that area dressed in period costumes.