{"id":1419,"date":"2015-01-13T23:00:43","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T23:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-249197-772718.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=1419"},"modified":"2015-01-13T23:00:43","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T23:00:43","slug":"13-1-1915-what-is-going-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/13-1-1915-what-is-going-on\/","title":{"rendered":"I never had the slightest idea of what was going on"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n <\/a>\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n
<\/div>\r\n \r\n \r\n <\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

13th January 1915<\/h3>\n

The narrative on the blog has become much narrower since the war went to ground at the end of November. I haven’t written\u00a0much 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\u00a0the world from Frank’s perspective.<\/p>\n

I feel\u00a0that once\u00a0the soldiers\u00a0dug\u00a0themselves\u00a0into the ground they ceased to be part of a fighting brigade and became small parts in a larger\u00a0war 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\u00a0the platoon became\u00a0the defining relationship between fighting\u00a0men in the trenches.<\/p>\n

C.O.Lilly’s recollections describe this shift in perspective perfectly.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in notes at the end of the typed document:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Dorsets were relieved by the Bedfords and moved back into billets in Dranoutre.<\/p>\n

Three Dorset men were killed today, all privates: W J Mitchell, from Bermondsey, Stephen McCarthy, from Finsbury, and Frederick Thaxter from Thornton Heath,\u00a0just to the south of\u00a0Brixton.\u00a0London supplied the Dorsets with an awful lot of men.<\/p>\n

There’s no mention of these casualties in the diary.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  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\u00a0much 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, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"I never had the slightest idea of what is going on http:\/\/wp.me\/p4Wjz3-mT #dorsets #ww1 #100yearsagotoday #LivesOfWW1","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[63,8,233,277],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Wjz3-mT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1152,"url":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/24-11-1914-baaah\/","url_meta":{"origin":1419,"position":0},"title":"Baaah!","author":"ellimondo","date":"24th November 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u00a08pm. The going was very slow. It had started to rain during the day and thaw out the ice. This made the ground both\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Great War"","block_context":{"text":"The Great War","link":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/category\/the-great-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1003,"url":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/3-11-1914-bosky-kids\/","url_meta":{"origin":1419,"position":1},"title":"If it wasn’t for those bosky kids","author":"ellimondo","date":"3rd November 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 3rd November 1914 The Dorsets spent\u00a0the day being shelled in the woods, but\u00a0at 4pm\u00a0were gathered together and ordered to relieve the 2nd Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, who had\u00a0scratched out some very basic trenches in the recent fighting. The History of the Dorsetshire Regiment 1914-1919 lists them as the 1st\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Great War"","block_context":{"text":"The Great War","link":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/category\/the-great-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Map of the Messines front","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/i-012.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/i-012.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/i-012.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":426,"url":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/24-08-14-nobody-calls-me-cecil\/","url_meta":{"origin":1419,"position":2},"title":"Nobody calls me Cecil","author":"ellimondo","date":"25th August 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 24th August \u2013 The Battle of Mons By daybreak troops from the 3rd Division were trickling back through the Dorsets\u2019 lines. The Battalion HQ had received orders at 2am that they were to fall back south to P\u00e2turages once they were relieved by a 13th Brigade unit. This started\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Great War"","block_context":{"text":"The Great War","link":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/category\/the-great-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1550,"url":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/6-2-1915-bomb-boy-duck\/","url_meta":{"origin":1419,"position":3},"title":"Bomb boy duck","author":"ellimondo","date":"6th February 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"6th February 1915 While Gleichen inspected his\u00a0transport on\u00a0this rainy Saturday, the brigade continued to learn the art of \"bombing\". A new grenade became available to the British troops in February 1915; the No. 2 grenade. This was a variant on the much disliked No. 1 grenade, originally designed for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Great War"","block_context":{"text":"The Great War","link":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/category\/the-great-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":564,"url":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/9-09-14-abandoned-battery-hill-189\/","url_meta":{"origin":1419,"position":4},"title":"The abandoned battery on Hill 189","author":"ellimondo","date":"9th September 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"9th September 1914 In 1914 the commander of a battalion had access to a remarkable arsenal of technology to help them locate and fight the enemy. They had machine gun sections, long and short range artillery, plane spotters, telephones, metalled roads, railway lines, motorcycle dispatch riders and engineers. These were\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Great War"","block_context":{"text":"The Great War","link":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/category\/the-great-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1364,"url":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/2-1-1915-how-many-bombs-would-a-bomb-chucker-chuck\/","url_meta":{"origin":1419,"position":5},"title":"How many bombs would a bomb chucker chuck?","author":"ellimondo","date":"2nd January 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"2nd January 1915 Firstly, a\u00a0big\u00a0thank 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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Great War"","block_context":{"text":"The Great War","link":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/category\/the-great-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1419"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1426,"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1419\/revisions\/1426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frankcrawshaw.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}