Fag
Fagging was an archaic tradition in British public schools, where younger pupils (fags) acted as servants to senior boys. Fagging involved harsh discipline, constant humiliation and, invariably, various forms of corporal punishment. The system often led to sexual abuse by the older boys. The tradition slowly disappeared during the 1970s and 1980s.
Falkland Islands, Battle of
After defeat at the Battle of Coronel on 1 November, the Royal Navy sent a large force to destroy the victorious German squadron under the command of Admiral Maximilian von Spee. His squadron consisted of two armoured cruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, the light cruisers Nürnberg, Dresden and Leipzig and three auxiliaries. The British squadron was much larger: the battlecruisers Invincible and Inflexible, the armoured cruisers Caernarvon, Cornwall and Kent, the armed merchant cruiser Macedonia and the light cruisers Bristol and Glasgow. On December 8 1914, von Spee attacked the British supply base at Port Stanley in the Falklands, but the British ships were lying in wait and when von Spee realized he was out-gunned, he made a dash for it. All except Dresden and the auxiliary Seydlitz were hunted down and sunk. Von Spee went down with his ship, the Scharnhorst.
Fenian
Is shorthand for the Fenian Brotherhood and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which were committed to freedom from British rule and the establishment of an independent Irish Republic. The term originated in 1848 and was coined by Gaelic scholar John Francis O’Mahoney. The word derives from Fene, an Old Irish name for a tribe of ancient Irish people.
Field Punishment
Field Punishment was introduced in 1881 following the abolition of flogging and was a common punishment during the Great War. Field Punishment Number One consisted of the convicted man being placed in fetters and handcuffs and attached to a fixed object, such as a gun wheel, for up to two hours per day and was issued by the British Army on over 60,000 occasions during the Great War. In Field Punishment Number Two, the prisoner was again placed in fetters and handcuffs but was not attached to a fixed object and was therefore still able to march with his unit.
Fix
Fix is a make of Greek beer. The Fix brewery in Athens was founded in 1864 by the Fuchs family, who had moved to Greece from Bavaria.
Flammenwerfer
The Flammenwerfer was developed by German scientist Richard Fiedler. A portable version, the kleine Flammenwerfer, or Kleif, could be operated by two men. The German army adopted the Kleif in 1906, and by 1912 the Guard Reserve Pioneer Regiment boasted its own regiment of Flammenwerfer troops. The weapon was first used at Verdun on 26 February 1915. The French managed to capture a Kleif, which their weapons researchers promptly disassembled. At the Battle of Hooge, six Kleif operators attacked British forces on the night of 29/30 July 1915. The Germans were able to capture several trenches, but the effectiveness of the Flammenwerfer was more psychological than tangible. The Allies soon developed their own versions of the weapon.
HMS Formidable
HMS Formidable was a pre-Dreadnought battleship sunk by two torpedoes from a German submarine 20 miles off Start Point at 2.20 a.m. on 1 January 1915. The first torpedo hit the number-one boiler port side; a second explosion caused the ship to list heavily to starboard. Huge waves 30 feet high lashed the stricken ship with strong winds, rain and hail, sinking it in less than two hours. Captain Loxley, his second-in-command, Commander Ballard, and the signaller stayed at their posts throughout, sending flares and rockets off at regular intervals. When the ship gave a tremendous lurch, the captain shouted, ‘Lads, this is the last, all hands for themselves, and may God bless you and guide you to safety.’ He then walked to the forebridge, lit a cigarette and, with his terrier, Bruce, on duty at his side, waited for the end, in true Royal Navy tradition.
In a storm that followed the sinking of HMS Formidable, a life raft containing bodies was blown along the coast to Lyme Regis. The cellar of the Pilot Boat, a pub in the port, was used as a mortuary. When the bodies had been laid out on the stone floor, the landlord’s dog, a half-collie called Lassie went down to the cellar and began to lick the face of one of the victims, Able Seaman John Cowan, who eventually moved. He was taken to hospital and made a full recovery. The story was told far and wide and in 1938 Eric Knight wrote ‘Lassie Come Home’, the inspiration for the Hollywood ‘Lassie’ movies.
Frostbite
Frostbite is a medical condition in which damage is caused to skin and other tissues due to freezing. At or below 0°C (32°F), blood vessels close to the skin start to constrict, and blood cannot reach the extremities. It can also be caused by exposure to high winds. The lack of blood eventually leads to the freezing and death of skin tissue in the affected areas.
Gangrene
This is a life-threatening condition that arises when body tissue dies. It may be caused by injury or infection, or occur in people suffering from poor blood circulation.
Geophone
The geophone was invented by Professor Jean Perrin of the Sorbonne in 1915 and was a device used to detect enemy tunnelling. It consisted of two discs with mica membranes holding mercury and attached to a stethoscope. By placing the discs on the floor or walls of a tunnel, sounds were magnified two and a half times; a skilled listener could estimate how far away and how deep the German tunnels were, giving warning of the enemy’s activity, or enabling counter-mines to be dug.
Gewehr 98 Mauser rifle
The Mauser G98 was a bolt-action rifle which fired cartridges from a five-round magazine and was German standard issue from 1898 to 1935.
Golok
‘Golok’ (‘gulok’ in the Philippines) is a term applied to a variety of machetes found throughout the Malay archipelago, used both as an agricultural tool and a weapon. The word is of Indonesian origin but is also used in Malaysia where the word is also often used for the longer and broader parang.
W. G. Grace
William Gilbert ‘W. G.’ Grace was an English amateur cricketer who is recognized as the most significant pioneer of the game and one of its greatest players. He played for forty-four seasons from 1865 to 1908.
Green spot ammunition
Snipers rely on their skill, the quality of their rifle and its sight, but also on their ammunition. The first 5,000 rounds out of a new mould are packaged with a green spot so that they can be used by snipers, as the balls of later rounds suffer from minor deteriorations in the ball-mould through wear.
Hackles
The hackles are the long, fine feathers which are found on the backs of certain types of domestic chicken. They are often brightly coloured, especially on roosters, and are often used as fly lures. In military parlance, the hackle is a clipped feather plume that is attached to a military headdress. In the British Army the hackle is worn by some infantry regiments, especially those designated as fusilier regiments and those with Scottish and Northern Irish origins. The colour of the hackle varies from regiment to regiment. The Lancashire Fusiliers wear primrose yellow; the Royal Fusiliers, white; the Royal Northumberlands, red over white; and the Royal Welch, white.
Hansom cab
A hansom cab is a kind of horse-drawn carriage designed in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York. ‘Cab’ is an abbreviation of ‘cabriolet’ (carriage). Hansom cabs were light enough to be pulled by a single horse and agile enough to be steered through the crowded streets of nineteenth-century London.
Havercakes
A havercake is an oatcake, a type of flatbread, made from oatmeal, and sometimes flour, cooked on a griddle or baked in an oven. In Lancashire and Yorkshire, oatcake was a staple of the diet up to the Great War, and the regional name comes from hafr, the Old Germanic word for ‘oats’. The word is perpetuated in the nickname ‘Havercake Lads’ for the 33rd Regiment of Foot (the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, West Riding) and also in the term ‘haversack’.
Howitzers
A howitzer is an artillery weapon. Typically, they have relatively short barrels, fire relatively small missiles and at relatively h
igh trajectories. Howitzers sit between ‘guns’ – longer barrel, larger missiles and flatter trajectories, and ‘mortars’ – even higher angles of ascent and descent.
HMS Inflexible
Built in 1907, HMS Inflexible was an Invincible-class battlecruiser of the Royal Navy. She and her sister ship, HMS Invincible, sank the German armoured cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau during the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
Jack Johnson
‘Jack Johnson’ was Great War slang for the large shells used by the German artillery (also called black boxes). They emitted thick black smoke and punched a big hole wherever they landed, or in whatever they hit, thus the use of the name of America’s famous black heavyweight boxer Jack Johnson, who was world champion from 1908 to 1915.
Jack Tar
‘Jack Tar’ is a traditional term for seamen of the Merchant or Royal Navy. Its origin is not certain, but there are several suggestions:
Before the invention of waterproof fabrics, seamen were known to ‘tar’ their clothes before departing on voyages in order to make them waterproof.
Seamen would often plait their long hair into a ponytail and smear it with high-grade tar to prevent it getting snared in the ship’s rigging.
In the age of wooden ships, hemp ropes were soaked in tar to prevent them rotting.
Jaeger
‘Jaeger’ means ‘hunter’ in German and was used by the Landgrave of Hesse when he formed an elite infantry unit in the Hessian Army. The word is used to describe elite light infantry, especially skirmishers, scouts, sharpshooters and couriers.
Junkers
Meaning ‘Young Lord’, Junkers is a term to describe the members of the landed nobility of Prussia. After 1871 they were the most powerful part of the German military, political and diplomatic establishment. They controlled the Prussian Army and their influence was widespread in the north-eastern half of Germany: Brandenburg, Pomerania, Silesia, West Prussia, East Prussia and Posen.
Kabalak
The kabalak was the headgear worn by Turkish soldiers in the Great War. It came in various forms, sometimes with an internal frame with khaki-coloured cloth material wound around it and sometimes made from heavy canvas. They were conical in shape, like a pith helmet. Officers’ kabalaks often had a spike on top like a German pickelhaube, and an Ottoman crescent cap badge at the front.
Kepi
The kepi was, and still is, the most common cap of the French Army. In 1914 they were worn in battle, but were replaced by the Adrian helmet in 1915. However, they were still worn away from the battlefield and on ceremonial occasions.
King’s shilling
The ‘King’s shilling’ refers to the shilling given in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to men who agreed to serve in the army or navy. To ‘take the King’s shilling’ is still in use informally (to take the Queen’s shilling).
Knur and Spell
Knur and Spell is an ancient Pennine folk game, akin to the southern English games of trap-ball and probably an ancestor of golf. Often associated with gambling, it was very popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in the fields around moorland pubs. The object is to hit a ‘potty’ (knur), sometimes a small piece of heartwood or a small pottery ball, as far as possible with a long, flexible club. The longest hit takes the prize. Distances of several hundred yards could be achieved. The game and its name are thought to be Norse in origin.
Kukri
The kukri is a Nepalese knife similar to a machete, a weapon used by Gurkha regiments throughout the world.
Lant trough
A lant trough is a receptacle for collecting human urine. Fermented human urine (lant) was used for various purposes from as early as Roman times. The Romans used it as a cleaning agent for stained clothes and even as a whitener for teeth. The emperor Nero imposed a highly lucrative tax on the urine industry. In nineteenth-century Lancashire, lant was used in the tanning and woollen industries as a cleanser for the removal of natural oils in the production of leather and wool.
Laverbread
Laverbread is made from laver (seaweed), which is boiled then minced or pureed. It can then be eaten as it is or rolled in oatmeal for frying. Laverbread is traditionally eaten fried with bacon and cockles as part of a Welsh breakfast.
Lee-Enfield rifle
The Lee-Enfield rifle was the main infantry weapon used by the military forces of the British Army from the early twentieth century until 1957.
Lee-Metford rifle
The British Army’s Lee-Metford service rifle replaced the Martini-Henry rifle in 1888. It had a bolt-action and a ten-round magazine with a seven-groove rifled barrel designed by William Ellis Metford. It was replaced by the Lee-Enfield in 1913.
Lewis gun
The Lewis gun, a light machine gun, was developed in the United States in 1911. It was far lighter than the Vickers machine gun and in 1915 the British Army ordered it for use on the Western Front. The Lewis could be made much more quickly than the Vickers and, although too heavy for efficient portable use, it became the standard support weapon for the British infantry.
Long johns
Long johns are thermal underwear (long legged and long armed), usually made of cotton. There are various explanations about the name and their origin, but they can be traced back to as early as the seventeenth century.
Lyddite shell
Shells filled with Lyddite (solidified picric acid named after Lydd in Kent where it was first tested) were the first British generation of modern ‘high explosive’ shells.
Maconochie’s and Moir Wilson British Army rations
These were just two of the many manufacturers of Great War army rations. Maconochie’s, an Irish stew produced in Fraserburgh and Stornoway in Scotland, was the most popular. Soldiers got a weekly ration of 12oz dried ‘bully’ beef, 1lb 4ozs bread or flour, 4oz bacon, 3oz cheese, plus sugar, tea, jam, salt, pepper and mustard when available. As in the navy, a ‘tot’ (half-a-gill/70 mls) of rum was issued daily; double before a battle. Ten thousand copies of the Daily Mail were also sent to the Front every day.
Mad minute
This was a pre-Great War term used by British Army riflemen during training at the Hythe School of Musketry to describe scoring a minimum of fifteen hits on a 12-inch round target at 300 yards within one minute using a bolt-action rifle (usually a Lee-Enfield or Lee-Metford). It was not uncommon during the Great War for riflemen to exceed this score. Many could average more than thirty shots. The record, set in 1914 by Serjeant Instructor Alfred Snoxhall, was thirty-eight hits. During the Battle of Mons, there were numerous German accounts of coming up against what they believed was machine-gun fire when in fact it was squads of riflemen firing at this rate.
Mackeson
First brewed in 1907, Mackeson is a milk stout containing lactose, a sugar derived from milk. Thought to be highly nutritious, milk stout was recommended to nursing mothers and distributed to geriatric patients in many British hospitals until the 1970s.
Marne, 1st Battle of
The 1st Battle of the Marne was fought between 5 and 12 September 1914 and resulted in an Allied victory against the German Army. The battle effectively ended the month-long German offensive that opened the war and had reached the outskirts of Paris. The counter-attack of six French field armies and one British army along the Marne River forced the German Imperial Army to abandon its push on Paris and retreat north-east, setting the stage for four years of trench warfare on the Western Front. The 1st Battle of the Marne was an immense strategic victory for the Allies, wrecking Germany’s bid for a swift victory over France and forcing it into a protracted two-front war. The Allied armies were over a million-strong and faced a German force of over a million and a half.
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