Tag: 5th division

A shot in the arm

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1st January 1915

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.

Storm in a tea cup

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30th December 1914

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.

All quiet on the Western Front

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28th December 1914

Today the Dorsets’ diary is empty of any information other than saying it’s been quiet. 5th Division’s diary records that Sector B experienced shellfire and heavy musketry in the evening, a claim which is borne out by the Bedfords’ diary entry.

A Dorsetshire man died today, according to the CWGC, but there’s no mention of this in the war diary. 38 year old William George Richbell had only arrived nine weeks previously. He was a Special Reservist with the 3rd Battalion who had been rushed into active service with the 1st Battalion as a reinforcement on the 23rd October, joining his new comrades outside Neuve Chapelle on the 27th October.

In 1911 William was a beer house keeper (having taken over from his father Thomas) who ran The Bell in Walton on the Hill. By 1914 he was listed as a general labourer in his service papers. He left behind a young wife and son, Florence and William. This former beer house is now a pub (having got its wine and spirit license in 1950) and it possibly retains a military connection today, through its alternative name of “The Rat”, perhaps so-called because it was frequented by members of the Royal Artillery in World War Two (according to the pub’s website).

Like many of the Dorsets’ rank and file, William Richbell had been recruited outside of the county. Some counties were too sparsely populated to feed a regiment’s constant need for new soldiers so they tended to recruit men from larger urban areas; London being a popular location for the Dorsets.

Cat amongst the turkeys

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27th December 1914

The Dorset patrols came back from their night time assignations and reported that everything was very quiet.

Later on that day, at 5.25pm the Dorsets submitted their daily report to the 15th Brigade HQ, saying that the situation as unchanged but they had experienced fairly heavy shellfire during the day. There were no casualties.

The 5th Division diary confirms enemy shellfire landing in Sector B and also in Neuve Église.

At home the nation’s ability to be distracted from the war was epitomised by the lead story in page 3 of the Telegraph where the photo is that of a woman dressed as a cat who is collecting money for the Belgian refugee fund. Pauline Prim is “the first lady who has ever impersonated a cat or any other animal upon the stage”. The Telegraph attributes her feline performance to her husband’s acting abilities and explains that “it was probably though watching her husband’s rehearsals that she was, in a very short time, able to represent a cat in the most lifelike manner.” Thank goodness for men says the Telegraph. Roll on votes for women I say. We also learn that posting amusing cat pictures is not just an internet phenomena.

Another phenomena we think is just a modern one, is that of shopping madness at Christmas, especially when it came to buying turkeys. Here women did rule the (poultry) roost. If they weren’t driving hard bargains in London’s street market (“where the poor buy”), they were accompanying their loved ones on leave to Smithfield, Billingsgate and Leadenhall markets, to choose a bird for the Christmas table. Turkeys were very expensive when compared to beef and pork at this time; over double the price per pound, especially French ones  – Italian ones being in “far inferior condition”. Turkeys, then as now, were being gobbled up.

Not so Stille Nacht

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26th December 1914

The Dorsets enjoyed, if that was possible, another quiet day with no shelling. Strangely both the Bedfords’ and the 5th Division’s diaries record that Sector B was shelled.

The Dorsets’ diary also mentions in the margin that the G.O.C. 2nd Corps visited the fire trenches – this was General Sir Smith-Dorrien, although he was now technically G.O.C Second Army.  The BEF had just been split in two armies for better control over the growing number of troops in Belgium and France. First Army was commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Douglas Haig, Second Army by Smith-Dorrien. It could be argued that the BEF now ceased to exist, but the term continued to be used when referring to British troops in Belgium and France through the rest of the war.

Could Smith-Dorrien’s visit have really silenced the Dorsets when it came to talking about fraternisation with the enemy? He had issued a sharp order on 5th December warning his troops:

Friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices, however tempting and amusing they may be, are absolutely prohibited.

This, coupled with his criticism of the 15th Brigade, could have certainly put the Dorsets under pressure to appear blameless at this time. Or perhaps my imagination is now running away with me. Amaretto and nocturnal babies does that to the best of us.

At 8pm singing could be heard coming from the German trenches. The Dorsets’ diary inexplicably adds a comment that the trenches were strongly held. Perhaps this was a sufficient amount of men to give a particular range to the choral performance.