Category: The Great War

Baaah!

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24th November 1914

At 4pm the battalion marched via Lindenhoek to relieve the Easy Surreys in their trenches. The 14th Brigade diary records this taking place from 8pm. The going was very slow. It had started to rain during the day and thaw out the ice. This made the ground both slippery and muddy. The trenches were very close together at this point and rifle fire kept heads down.

Some of the Dorsets were assigned to a fatigue party to collect brushwood with which to line the trenches (with boards placed on top) and prevent men’s feet from becoming wet and frozen. Thus it reached midnight and still the Dorsets hadn’t relieved the East Surreys.

Their destination was Point 75, 1 mile south west of Wytschaete. This village became anglicised by British troops as Whitesheet. It’s also the first village I read about when I started researching Frank ages ago. I still can’t pronounce it.

The Telegraph today has an interesting report about the Gurkhas which regurgitates a similar story to the one Frank wrote in his letter home on the 16th November. This runs contrary to Gleichen’s story from the 30th October.

The first story about the Gurkhas was that they had come to an end of their ammunition and were fighting with the bayonet, but were driven back by superior numbers. But it turned out later that they lost very heavily from shell fire, and, the trenches being too deep for the little men, they could produce no effect with their rifles, and could see nothing.

In other news my incredibly talented Brother-in-Law and brand new daddy, Aled Lewis, has released this brilliant limited edition poster for his upcoming art show based around British comedy. He’s thrown the Kitchener’s sink at it.

It’s so good it’s worth selling your Speckled Jim for.

Post by Aled Lewis.

British to the Backbone

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PC to Miss Crawshaw, 29 Strathleven franked APO 24 No 15 still censor 137 – ‘No stamps available’ written on top of address side. Card dates 23-11-14

Dear Till

Many thanks for your welcome letter, and how glad I was to receive the parcel, which was very good of you and Aunt to send me out. Will Till I am getting on alright and still in the pink, it is getting terrible cold out here and I have had a heavy fall of snow.

Tell Mattie I would sooner be getting 18 pence and in the warm not much tell him. I have not heard from Tom yet. Jess dropped me a few lines and said she had heard from you. Well Till we are still in the thick of it but we are holding our own and even more.

Well Till Xmas will soon be here and I expect we shall have a cold time of it. Now I will conclude and will write a letter later on Love to all Bid.

23rd November 1914

The Dorsets moved HQ and A Company during the day due to shellfire. But there’s no indication in any records I can find today of where they were or where they moved to.

It seems to me that the fighting has died down a little bit and this is back up by reports in today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph, however unreliable as it has been in the past. Whether the quiet period is due to the freezing weather is hard to gauge. It’s certainly implied in the Telegraph. The ferocity of the recent fighting is undoubted, however. The casualty list runs over two pages today.

The postcard from Frank really doesn’t tell us anything, other than confirm the cold weather reported elsewhere. He has received a parcel from home but it doesn’t even say what was in it. I wonder if it was that cake promised by his Aunt Caroline. Whether it contained Bovril or not is debatable but I can’t resist quoting their fabulous advert copy from page 5 of the Daily Telegraph.

The duty of everyone, whether in the firing line or at home. is to keep fit. This is no time for cheap substitutes. Remember

It must be Bovril.

Bovril is British to the Backbone.

 

 

A General morale boost

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22nd November 1914

General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, commander of II Corps, visited the Dorsets at some point during the day. It’s mentioned in passing by the war diary and not at all by the History of the Dorsetshire Regiment 1914-1919. Whether there’s any significance in that omission is impossible for me to say.

According to the 14th Brigade’s war diary, Smith-Dorrien spoke to the Dorsets at 3pm. Exactly what he said is not recorded anywhere I can find at the moment. It appears that, looking at other units’ diaries, he was doing the rounds boosting morale up and down the line occupied by troops of II Corps giving, I suspect, the same speech over and over again.

The Dorsets remained in billets for another day. The weather was bitterly cold with a strong north wind and snow on the ground, according to the 14th Brigade’s dairy.

Woollens for your Walloon Warriors

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Field Service Post Card to Miss Crawshaw, 29 Strethleven Rd – One penny stamp franked Army Post Office 21 No 14

I am quite well. Letter follows at first opportunity. I have received no letter from you lately.

Signed Frank and dated 21-11-14

21st November 2014

Another one of those multiple choice postcards arrived in Brixton a century ago. Frank’s written another letter home to Mabel so keep your eyes peeled over the weekend.

The Dorsets remained in billets near Dranoutre having another day’s rest.

In the Telegraph the Special Correspondent (Central News) for Flanders makes an accurate prediction. After writing about the Allied line holding throughout Belgium he comments:

 Germany strategy will be hopeless bankrupt will be: “How long? At what cost?”

As things are, there is little doubt that the Allies have broken the back of the German attacks on the Western Frontier.

They also recommend sensible Christmas presents for loved ones fighting in France: good woollen underwear, gloves, shirts and socks and coats lined with fur or lambskin. Presumably they’re presents for officers.

Less wealthy folk will examine the vests that promise warmth and comfort, and such articles as thick rugs and sleeping bags.

Other ideas include vacuum flasks, little valises with knife and fork and spoon, collapsible cups and miniaturised smoking kit like pipes, lighters and tobacco holders. Bavarian china is definitely out of the question.

 

The tattered 15th

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20th November 1914

The Dorsets enjoyed a day of rest. The rest of the original 15th Brigade were spread over a wide area all the way up to Ypres. The Norfolks had also just joined the 14th Brigade and were now in Kemmel. The Bedfords were up by Hooge (now with the 13th Brigade) and the Cheshires were still with Gleichen’s 15th Brigade on the Menin Road up near Ypres. Both these battalions were down to half strength and less, having suffered large casualties in holding the line in front of Ypres; the main objective of the German attacks. Gleichen recalls:

both of our battalions, who by that time were reduced to 540 Bedfords and 220 Cheshires altogether (the Bedfords having started with 1100 and the Cheshires with 600 odd).

Image of Château Beukenhorst, Zillebeke
Château Beukenhorst, Zillebeke

Gleichen is holed up in yet another château. Beukenhorst Château later became known as Stirling Castle on British Army maps. He and the rest of 15th Brigade’s HQ narrowly avoided a shell which hit the kitchen just after breakfast. It’s good to know that he puts servants just above officer’s trousers.

Poor Conway, Weatherby’s servant, whom he had left behind, was the only casualty; his dead body was found, with both legs broken and an arm off, blown down a cellar passage at the back. The next most serious casualty was Moulton-Barrett’s new pair of breeches, arrived that morning from England, and driven full of holes like a sugar-sifter.

He’s not happy about the monotonous diet of bully beef and chocolate either until…

Help was, however, at hand; for our servants, Inskip and Stairs, who we thought had ignominiously run away, suddenly turned up with heaps of food. They had gone all the way to our cook’s waggon three miles the other side of Ypres for comestibles, and whilst we were d—ing their eyes for bolting, were trudging, heavily laden, along the road back to us—good youths.

Inskip and Stairs sound like a music hall double act. Perhaps they were.