Category: The Great War

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.

 

Up periscope

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12th January 1915

The clipped “situation unchanged” in the Dorsets’ diary sounds like a British Rail announcement and described, with economy, another day of monotony in the trenches.

The Dorsets’ Captain Partridge features in the 15th Brigade’s diary entry for today. He’s been busy with an unnamed Royal Artillery officer, sending intelligence back to Brigade HQ. Major General Thomas Morland’s report for the 5th Division bears this activity out the following day, with the line “observations from front trenches show the great value of powerful periscope binoculars.” Presumably Partridge was using something like this through which to observe the enemy lines:

Image showing Captain J C Scott, 2nd A & SH. using box periscope with binoculars. Rue de Bois, February 1915
Using box periscope with binoculars. Rue de Bois, February 1915. Captain J C Scott, 2nd A & SH. Image from Imperial War Museum website.

One Dorset man died today, according to the CWGC: His name was Francis James Harwood and he was 34. Intriguingly, he served under the surname of Westlake. He’s listed as having been killed in action in the medal rolls. There’s also evidence that he served with the Somerset Light Infantry, which makes some sense as he was born in Bridgewater, Somerset. Quite why he’d transferred to the Dorsets is a mystery. It requires more time, and I have run out of minutes in the day, so I will leave poor Francis James alone and return to him another time perhaps.

What a bastard

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Envelope – to Mrs Webster, 29 Strathleven Rd, franked 12 Ja 15  – censored by A Griffith
dated 11-1-15

Dear Aunt

Just a few lines hoping this finds you in the best of health. Well Aunt I am getting on as well as can be expected and still in the pink. We are getting on as well as can be expected and still dodging Jack Johnsons. The weather out here is terrible don’t talk about rain the country is absolutely flooded so you can guess what it is like.

I expect you have got over Xmas by now I see you had a full house, I wish I had been at home. Tom is getting plenty of leave, I wish I could get away for a few days, but I believe I am getting seven days before long, but it will be some time yet, but still lets hope it will be soon, and then we will have a good time together all of us, that’s providing all goes well out here.

Aunt have you received my two PC, well I expect you only got on, for I have [heard] that one lot of mail got burst (?burnt) and I expect your PC was in it. Please to hear that Uncle Matt is still on the knocker let’s hope he as the luck to keep it. Old Till’s Johnnie seems to be a knut tell her I have just received the Chocolate from him, and he said he had a good time at Brixton, said he nearly got (succled ?) on cold tea. Well Aunt I don’t think there is any more news at present, so will conclude hoping to hear for you soon, and also Uncle Matt.

I remain

Your affectionate Nephew

Bid xxx

11th January 1915

Let’s deal with the censor first. We meet a new officer in charge of Frank’s section, and I’m pretty sure this is Lieutenant Allix James William Griffith. He’s joined as a reinforcement from the 3rd Battalion. His father was the Venerable Reverend Henry Wager Griffith, who was an army pastor out in the Punjab, India, where Allix was born. He’s only 19, a pupil of Charterhouse and a typical Public School Boy product of the British Empire. I talk about officers being posh but this chap takes the Bath Oliver. He’s as posh as his almost-namesake, Alexander Armstrong, and comes from the same lineage too. This website lists him as a direct descendant of that old Norman bastard, William the Conqueror.

Griffith, sadly, didn’t survive the war. He was transferred to the 2nd Battalion and sent to the Middle East, after being wounded in St Elois later in 1915. He went missing in Mesopotamia on the 25th March 1917 and is commemorated on the Basra War Memorial in Iraq. He was one of the 1200 Allied men who were casualties in the battle of Jebel Hamlin, as the British tried to push the Turkish out of Iraq. The battle, fought largely unsupported by artillery against a well dug in enemy (surprise, surprise), was disastrous for the newly reconstituted 2nd Battalion Dorsets who lost nearly 220 out of 500 men in the action.

Frank’s letter to his Aunt Caroline is filled with his usual abundance of positivity, but there is one line that expressed his resignation about the situation he finds himself in: “that’s providing all goes well out here”.

He’s very complimentary about my Great Grandfather, Carl Robert Debnam, of whom the beer of Brixton seems to have got the better of. A “knut”, according to the ever-excellent Edwardian Promenade’s glossary, is “an idle upper-class man-about-town”. (My grandfather, Bob, wasn’t a man who could hold his beer and I don’t have hollow legs when it comes to ale either – although we both enjoyed a pint when he was alive). He’s also finally got the chocolate promised back in November.

The Dorsets hunkered down in their soggy trenches while the artillery on both sides played out a deadly game of cat and mouse. The landscape, once liberally dotted with farms and villages in November, was slowly being reduced to piles of rubble and heaps of mud as the two sides pounded any landmark that might offer advantage to the other side.

Wish you weren’t here

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10th January 1915

Regrettably, yet inevitably, the Dorsets left Dranoutre and relieved the Bedfords in Sector D during the late afternoon. The rain continued to fall.

The Bedfords had endured a fairly awful time in the trenches with continued rain causing the edges of the trenches to collapse, with murderous sniping (six killed on the 8th January), regular shelling, and an irritating mobile gun shelling them from various points along the Messines-Wytschaete Road (or at least west of Messines) causing several casualties. The 5th Division describes the gun as being a light gun. The Bedfords’ diary goes further and suggests it’s a “quick-firer (probably motor-gun)”. It was probably a standard FK96 7.7cm artillery piece attached to a horse-drawn carriage or motor vehicle. The troops couldn’t respond with small arms due to a bulge in the land between them and the road so it must have been extremely frustrating for all concerned.

The author of the Dorsets’ diary remains taciturn. I don’t think they were enjoying themselves.

Loaf letters

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9th January 1914

The fourth page of the 4th January letter to Mabel contained an extra letter Frank had written five days later on the 9th January. He then went onto write another letter to his Aunt. They are both included below.

On a fourth side another, more closely written letter dated 9-1-14 (he’d forgotten what year it was)

Dear Till,

I have received your last two letters and got the 2/6 alright. Now I am pleased to hear that you had no trouble getting the money, and now I want you to spend it on yourself and Aunt. I don’t want it and if I do I will let you know.

Tell Aunt I have not forgot her for am going to write to her next. We are lucky at time to strike a small town or village and then we are able to buy things and they don’t half charge 10d for a loaf so you can guess what it is like.

We are having some hard times for the country is absolutely flooded and mud in heaps so you can guess what the trenches are like.

I have just finished scraping mud off myself, wet through to the skin. That’s where it is, if only they would send me out some of Kitchener’s Army to relieve us it would be alright.

Now Till I have been out here 5 months and have not had chance of a good rest, which I can say I am in need of, for we have been on the go ever since we left Belfast. That’s where it is fellows at home won’t enlist and enjoying themselves and us out here putting up with the hardships of it, it will be a long time before this War is over!

Now I will pack up and will write soon. Remember me to all at home and I hope you enjoy yourself along of Dolly and Edie on Sunday.

Love to all at home

Bid
xxx

We get some more first hand descriptions of the conditions facing the men in Belgium that winter. The other interesting information is about money.

Firstly, Frank now has the postage money to send back the Princess Mary Christmas Gift Fund Box to his sister. I wonder if we’ll hear about it again in a later letter?

We’ve found out already that Frank has been incredibly generous and given over some of his pay to his sister. She’s already managed to get hold of it. quite how that was done is something I will come back to in a future post. He’s insistent that she spends it on herself and their Aunt Carrie. What a decent fellow.

We find out that the soldiers are being absolutely fleeced. The UK Cost of Living index was started in July 1914 and records that a loaf of white bread cost about 1 pence (1d). So to be charged 10d was daylight robbery, even if there was a war on. It’s very common to find soldiers complaining about the price of goods in their letters and diaries throughout the war. Local trades people knew that they had a captive client base and so prices naturally soared.

Frank is beginning to complain regularly about a lack of rest and the fact that there’s no sight of new recruits on the horizon. But it took an awfully long time to build a new army. Especially an army of amateurs. He’s right to complain about men dragging their heels in volunteering, but the fact was that the British Army didn’t have the resources to process to the sheer numbers of volunteers, let alone conscripts. Conscription was some way off in the UK.

Frank mentions his ex-girlfriend Dolly and also Edie, who appears in a letter from Frank back in June. Perhaps Dolly and Edie were sisters? We found out in the last letter that Mabel was going to meet them on Sunday, which would have been the 12th January 1915.

And now we have the letter Frank promised to write to his Aunt.

PC to Mrs (could be Miss) Webster, 29 Strathleven Rd etc, franked 11 January 15 – dated 09.01.14

Dear Aunt

I expect you are thinking that Bid has forgotten you, for not writing to you before now. Well Aunt I haven’t forgotten you and never will but have not had time to write you a letter lately which I have been going to do. Glad to hear that you had a good time Xmas and also hope you get rid of your cold. I am getting on as well as can be expected and still in the pink.

Tom is getting plenty of leave, I wish I was able to. Remember me to old Tango, tell her I hope to give her the Glad Eye before long and also Old Uncle. How is E Jim, has he started yet or is he still on the retired list? Glad to hear Uncle Mattie is still on the old knocker.

Now I think this is all the news for now Aunt, hoping this finds you in the best of health and still merry and bright. The weather out here is wicked, it’s pouring in torrance.

Love to all, Bid.

This letter is similar to many letters I wrote home from school when I had nothing to say. The first paragraph describes the act of writing a letter while writing a letter.

Frank then asks after Tango, Old Uncle, E Jim and Uncle Mattie. I only know who Uncle Mattie is out of this roll call. E Jim must have been ex-forces and old enough not to have to re-enlist but other than that I am no nearer identifying him.

Frank ends the letter with a creative bit of spelling but a sentence that sums up conditions for Frank and the rest of the Dorsets.

The Dorsets spent another day in Dranoutre in billets making up sandbags and hurdles and delivering them to the trenches, according to the 15th Brigade’s diary.