It was another peaceful day in Bailleul for the Dorsets. The COs of 15th Brigade got together and agreed a plan for improving trenches when they returned to the front line. The schedule was agreed for each battalion to spend three days in the trenches and three days in reserve. The recently joined territorial regiment, the 1/6th Battalion Cheshires, was to operate as a working party only.
Firstly, a big thank you to Stephen Potter for sending me a copy of Charles Lilly’s recollection of the first six months of the war. It’s short and lacking in finer details, having been written well after the end of the war (past the 1930s as far as I can make out – although it’s not dated), but it’s very opinionated and honest about his naivety as a young subaltern in 1914. He gives an insight into some of my ideas about the truth behind the official records of the Dorsets’ early months in World War One. I will return to him very soon and explore whether or not he was Frank’s direct platoon commander and we’ll also hear about what he thought of his superiors.
Another wet and windy day greeted the Dorsets as they lined up with the Royal Engineers for training in revetting and bomb throwing. Revetting refers to work reinforcing and developing trenches. This involved digging features like firesteps, dug outs and communication trenches and strengthening walls.
The British Army was scrambling to provide its troops with the requisite weaponry to fight in trenches. Bomb throwing was a vital skill. But first the British Army had to produce a bomb worth throwing. Gleichen explains about how far the Germans were ahead that winter:
Soon came the period of hand grenades, in which he had six to one the best of us in numbers; and then in rifle grenade ditto ditto; and then in trench mortars, flare-lights, searchlights, and rockets — wherein we followed him feebly and at a great distance; for where he sent up 100 (say) light balls at night, we could only afford five or six; and other things in proportion.
The official British hand grenade in 1914 was the No 1 grenade but it was pretty rubbish and even modifications to the unwieldy wooden handle didn’t make it any popular. The Germans could apparently bat them away using a wooden plank.
The Royal Engineers were beginning to make their own bombs out of jam tins. I’m guessing this is what they were showing the Dorsets how to use.
It wasn’t until 1915 that a decent hand grenade became available to Commonwealth troops: the Mark 5 Mills Bomb. It remained the iconic British grenade up until the 1980s. My Action Man never went anywhere without a belt-load of them. I worked in a building in Twickenham that made the detonators for them and I believe that a factory up the road in Richmond (which was later converted into Richmond ice rink) was where they made the actual grenade body. This article gives you a lot more information about the Belgians who worked there.
The development of the British grenade is explored in detail in this article on the Western Front Association website.
Later in the day Bols, and the Brigade Major at the time (possibly Griffiths), rode to Dranôutre and then onto Wulverghem to see the trenches they were going to take over from 14th Brigade. The sectors they saw, C and D, were “very wet, some undercut, parapet not thick enough and communication trenches impossible”. The Dorsets are in for a treat.
Frank’s year began with a visit from the business end of a hypodermic needle.
Any men who hadn’t previously volunteered to be inoculated against enteric fever, which is more commonly known as typhoid, were now duty bound to receive the jab. This usually resulted in suffering from some side effects, such as fever, stomach upset and vomiting. All of which promised a lovely start to 1915 for the Dorsets.
I finally have access to the 15th Brigade’s war diary again. The one for August until December stopped at the end of September. Perhaps a visit to the Public Records Office would reveal the missing pages.
Another welcome return is Lieutenant-Colonel Louis Bols who reappears from convalescence to command the 15th Brigade in Gleichen’s absence, replacing Lieutenant-Colonel Griffiths of the Bedfords. If you haven’t read about his adventures at Givenchy then I recommend you do so now. I haven’t been able to find out anything else about his injuries but if he had been shot then he recovered remarkably quickly.
It appears that the two men had an interview with General Sir Smith-Dorrien, Second Army, and General Morland, 5th Division. The 15th Brigade’s diary doesn’t go into any more detail about what was said and neither does the 5th Division’s.
Field Service Postcard – franked 1 Jan 15
Message reads: “I am quite well. Letter follows at first opportunity. I have received no letter form you lately.”
Signed Frank and dated 31-12-14*
As 1914 came to a close, the Dorsets remained in billets for another day.
The weather had put paid to any major campaigning in France and Belgium. For now, the fighting nations waited, licked their numerous wounds, and worked hard at keeping their enemies on constant tenterhooks.
Most of Britain’s professional army lay buried in makeshift graves, openly rotting in sodden fields, churned into the sticky Belgian mud, crushed by demolished buildings in French villages, interred in miserable camps in Germany or crippled by horrific injuries in British hospitals. The BEF was finished as a professional force but it was by no means defeated.
1915 promised to be a year for new armies, a new way of fighting war and new methods of killing on an ever larger scale. Thousands of volunteers, now known as Kitchener’s Army, were currently learning how to fight an industrial war but they were a long way from realising how victory might be achieved. Indeed, they were still a long way from being ready to fight. For now the tattered remnants of Britain’s professional army continued to do its duty.
For a war that was supposed to be over by Christmas, it looked very much like it was just getting started.
* I’ve added this postcard on the 2nd Jan – I missed as I’d been away and left my transcript behind.
The Dorsets remained in billets for the day.
The 5th Division’s diary writes that men were “repairing damage done by storm”. There’s no other mention of this storm in the other diaries. In the Telegraph, however, much of the paper is given over to covering the storm which affected the South East of England on Monday 28th December 1914. Much damage was done to property, including Southend Pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world, which was “breached in three places”. Winds reached almost 40 miles an hour and, in typically English aggrandisement, the storm is described as “very nearly a gale”.
I wonder if this is the same storm that had toppled over precarious sandbags and parapets in Belgium.
There’s an interesting advertisement in the Telegraph today. You could now book tickets to sail to America on January 16th from Liverpool on the RMS Lusitania.