The squat pen(cil) rests; snug as a gun.

Envelope addressed to Miss M Crawshaw, 29 Strethleven Rd etc franked APO 17(?) Sep 14 and London 25 Sep 14 passed by Censor 137

Letter dated 17.8.14 – written in pencil

Dear Till,

Just a few lines in answer to your welcome letter which I thought was never coming and I was very pleased to hear from you. Glad to hear that Aunt got my P Card and that they are all getting on alright and I hope that Uncle Matt sticks his job at the Post Office for Aunt will be much happier. You say you haven’t heard from Tom yet, well you can take it from me that he is alright thats what we have heard, that we have beaten the Germans quite easily as sea. I wish we could say that out here. Well Till mate I am getting on alright up to yet and still in the pink, we have had a rough time of it just lately and I have got a terrible cold. The weather out here has been lovely up to this last week and its been raining night and day and we have got properly drenched. I hope it clears off, for it is proper miserable.

Now Till dear I want you to send me out a parcel of cake and chocolate and also a pair of socks, for our rations are very small and we get them when we can now and then they are very small, so I trust you will do your very best and send me out a parcel now and again, and I will make it right when I come back well I hope too. We haven’t had any pay for seven weeks now and there isn’t any chance of getting any so we can’t buy any and we don’t get much chance either, so I hope you will do you best and send it out soon not a fancy bit of stuff just a bit of you know the sort mate, be sure to do it up strong or else it will get busted up.

Pleased to hear about Doris, I should love to see her for its such a long time since she saw her Biddy give her my love and I hope to see her soon as she left that school. Am surprised to hear about the old man getting married again, but I expected to see that come off and he is getting young again, have you seen her, who told you about it, good old mother (????thises) is that what she said you wasn’t to see Doris you tell Mrs C to what a bit don’t bolt her food, Ginger can please herself who she goes and sees, she must be nearly fourteen now and I expect Aunt has fits what with having to get Mother up so early as that, how does she manage to get up so early as that.

Now Till I hope you are getting on alright at Stewarts and that you are still merry and bright. Don’t forget to send out the Sunday paper every week all of it and don’t leave out the sporting part me old dear. Now I don’t think there is any more news just now, except you can tell Aunt and all off them at home that I am in the pink and I should like a few lines from one of them at home. Now I must conclude trusting to hear from you soon.

I remain

Your loving Brother
Frank xxxx

17th September 1914

Frank’s not feeling too great today and neither am I, so I am going to revisit the contents of this letter throughout the rest of the week. Tomorrow we’ll look at what’s been happening in the war at sea.


 

The Dorsets joined the rest of the 15th Brigade and began to dig trenches along the main road between Soissons to the north west and Sermoise in the east.

All along the Aisne the two opposing sides began to dig in. The British were totally unprepared for this new type of warfare and, having also left a lot of equipment on the retreat from Mons, were forced to scour local farms and businesses for tools.

The Jury is out

 

16th September 1914

The Dorsets remained at Jury for the day. This was their first full day off duty since leaving Belfast on the 14th August. I’m leaving them alone for some well earned rest.

In the meantime, here’s some statistics from the last 4 weeks of fighting:

1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment 14/08/14 – 16/09/14
Miles marched 330
War Establishment battalion strength 1007 (including 30 officers)*
Deaths (according to CWCG) 57
Deaths (according to war diary) 24
Missing / POWs 99*
Wounded 138
Reinforcements 277
Estimated Battalion strength at 16/09/14 990

*These figures are very slippery. I don’t have a proper starting figure. Only a note by Bols on 9/08/14 that the Battalion was at War Establishment strength. Missing / POWs figure should be lower as many of these had sadly probably died in the field.


In other news the weather was cold and showery; the perfect time to write a letter perhaps?

A locality of great interest

 

15th September 1914

The Dorsets returned to their sunken road at 4am. I’ve had a think about the location of this road overnight. I’m guessing they were using it as a pre-dug trench. It must have run north to south to protect the troops from shellfire coming in from the east. Gleichen mentions that the Dorsets were “pushed on to help the 12th, and filled a gap in their line on the hill above the village front at the eastern end.” So I think it was either the little lane called Petit Chivres or Rue du Moulin de Laffaux, probably the former as it’s pushed further ahead than the actual village. It appears on Google maps to be heavily hedged and run beneath the surface of the surrounding fields. All the other nearby roads run along the surface of the land.

Rolt’s farm is mentioned by Gleichen over the next few days so I’ve located that on the map from his small drawing in his book. I’ve also located the farm at La Biza again as it remained the 15th Brigade’s HQ. I’m going to assume that the Dorsets’ diary refers to this location when it mentions La Bezaie farm.

An hour later, at 5am, the Dorsets received a message that the Chivres spur was about to be attacked again in a joint operation between the 15th and 13th Brigades. The Dorsets remained under the care of the 14th Brigade as reserve battalion.

By 1pm the news came back that the attack had broken down. General Stuart Peter Rolt, Commander of the 14th Brigade, ordered the Dorsets to join the best of the 215th Brigade in Missy. At 2pm they moved to “Rolt’s Farm” and then spread out. Frank’s A Company was ordered to occupy a small green hill 600 feet east of the farm, while C Company was to remain in support. The hill is visible on Google Maps if you turn on view terrain. A Company immediately caught the attention of a German machine gun. Several men were hit.

The remaining Companies were ordered to move south down the little stream that ran past a mill. They dug themselves into the bank.

At about 3pm the Dorsets were surprised by Gleichen and Brigade Major Weatherby leaping through the hedges coming the other way followed by an angry swarm of German bullets.

We must have offered very sporting targets to the Germans on the hill, for we ran all the way, and—I speak for myself—we got extremely hot.

The Dorsets received orders at 5pm to move towards Missy and entrench the line south of La Biza down to the railway. I’ve had a look for this railway to see if there are any marks left in the ground, but it’s long gone, although the land is scored with what could be old trenches. I’m assuming the railway line ran where the D925 road now passes the bottom of the village.

CBR line through Missy-sur-Aisne in 1927
The CBR line shown here running through Missy-sur-Aisne in 1927

It’s not clear how far the Dorsets got in digging their new line. At 9pm the order came for them to retire south of the Aisne. They crossed a new pontoon bridge which had appeared next to where Johnston’s rafts were the day before. The enemy’s search lights played over the water as they crossed but they were not seen and retired to the billets in the relative safety of Jury.

The Dorsets’ war diary records 1 killed with 21 wounded and 4 missing. The CWGC reports 8 dead from this area of operations. Some of Frank’s close friends must have been included in this grim harvest.


Missy was “a locality of great interest” according to Sir John French.

“On the 15th my impression of the previous day, namely, that the enemy was making a firm stand in his actual position, was confirmed also by an intercepted German wireless message. It seemed probable that we had the whole of the German 1st Army in front of us.”

The 5th Division was still waiting for heavy artillery to come up and support the exposed troops on the northern banks. The Germans were one step ahead. The increase of “Black Marias” and other monstrous shells indicated that the large siege guns had finished smashing Belgian forts and were now ominously sited on the heights about the Aisne. Faced with an entire army and their massed artillery, there was only one option left to the men of the BEF. To dig. Dig in and entrench or face annihilation.

A bottle of Harvey sauce and a ham-bone

 

12th September 1914

By morning, the wet weather had turned the roads into a quagmire. The going was slow. The Dorsets’ war diary reports many halts, as does the Cheshires’, “Weather again very bad. Roads a sea of mud”.

The diary reports of “heavy gunfire” on their right. While the Cheshires report “a very big battle was going on to the North West along the River Aisne this day.” They were approaching the next big river crossing in their advance north. They’d made it over the Marne without too much of a fuss, but would the Aisne treat them so kindly?

The whole brigade stopped in a farm called Ferme de l’Épitaphe. Gleichen describes it as being “a huge farm standing by itself in a vast and dreary plain of ploughed fields”. There is still a farm along that road surrounded by fields, so I’ve placed them there for the night on the map. It was a tight squeeze. At one point 14th Brigade turned up but they were sent back to “Chrisy”. I think Gleichen means Chacrise, a couple of miles back down the road. The Dorsets and Norfolks were also sent back to billet in Nampteuil-Sous-Muret a mile away.

Gleichen, ever the gastronome,  laments a lack of food and is made even less happier by eating late and also having to share dinner with some gunnery officers. He turns to the contents of their mess basket, “which consisted only of Harvey sauce, knives and forks, an old ham-bone, sweet biscuits, and jam”. Delicious.


If you fancy a drop o’ Harvey’s on your ham-bone then here’s a recipe from Foods of England. It sounds a bit like Worcestershire sauce to me. It was later renamed Lazenby’s (with a great strap line – The World’s Appetiser).

Image of an advert for Harvey's sauce
Harvey’s sauce (later named Lazenby’s Sauce) – image from Foods of England

Dissolve six anchovies in a pint of strong vinegar, and then add to them three table-spoonfuls of India soy, and three table-spoonfuls of mushroom catchup, two heads of garlic bruised small, and a quarter of an ounce of cayenne. Add sufficient cochineal powder to colour the mixture red. Let all these ingredients infuse in the vinegar for a fortnight, shaking it every day, and then strain and bottle it for use.

Everything of the smallest value stolen

 

11th September 1914

The Dorsets didn’t leave until 9:25am because they were waiting for supplies, which were late. They marched throughout the day without any sign of the enemy, apart from what damage they had left behind in retreat. The rain continued to fall as the 15th Brigade climbed up to a plateau between the Marne and the Aisne. News came back from the front that the Germans were demoralised. Whether they were remained to be seen, but the Germans were certainly withdrawing along the line facing the BEF.

Once “very comfortable” billets were finally found in Saint-Rémy-Blanzy, Gleichen took up his headquarters in the Curé’s house and reports that “his poor little rooms had been ransacked, drawers and tables upset and their contents littered over the floor, and everything of the smallest value stolen by the Germans.”