The Darkness and the Thunder

by Stewart Binns

  Shillelagh

  A shillelagh (Irish: sail éille) is a wooden walking stick or cudgel, made from a large knotty stick with a large knob at the top.

  Slit trench

  A slit trench is a shallow trench, usually dug as a temporary defensive position or in an emergency.

  Slitting mill

  A slitting mill was a mill designed to transform bars of iron into rods, for the manufacture of nails. The bars were heated then rolled between water-powered rollers.

  Slouch hat

  A slouch hat was first introduced by the Australian Army in 1885. A wide-brimmed khaki hat, it is worn with a chinstrap and with one brim turned up. A similar hat is also worn by Ghurkha regiments and by the US military.

  Snotties

  ‘Snotties’ is British naval slang for the most junior officers (midshipmen).

  Sobranie

  The Sobranie cigarette was created in London in 1879. It was a luxury brand developed by the Redstone family. Known as ‘Black Russians’ they became very fashionable.

  ‘Sosban Fach’

  Written in the Welsh language, Sosban fach, which means ‘little saucepan’, is an old Welsh folk song. It has become closely associated with Llanelli’s tin-plating industry, the town’s famous rugby team, Welsh rugby as a whole and Welsh national identity.

  Standard Dress army caps

  British Soldiers wore a British Army SD (Service Dress) woollen serge cap (the same material as their SD uniforms) at the outbreak of the Great War. Soon after they started digging trenches it was found to be impractical because of its stiff peak and wired top, so a ‘soft’ trench cap was issued early in 1915 that could be stuffed in the pocket when not in use.

  Stanley heading machine

  The Stanley heading machine was a tunnel-boring rig with two cutting blades that was used in tunnelling work in the UK, particularly in the construction of the London Underground system, powered by generators on the surface and built by Stanley Brothers Engineering in Nuneaton.

  Stew an’ ’ard

  Stew an’ ’ard is a traditional dish of North-east Lancashire, especially in Burnley, Nelson, Colne and Barnoldswick (‘Barlick’). ‘Hard’, the staple of the dish, are oatcakes made from oatmeal, yeast, sugar, salt and water, made into a pancake batter, then cooked each side on a ‘girdle’ (griddle) pan, cooled and either used, soft, immediately, or dried to preserve them, leading them to be called ‘hard’. The ‘stew’ would usually be mutton, occasionally chicken, rarely, beef. The stew would either be poured on to the ‘hard’ cakes, or they would be used to dunk into it.

  Stop-tap

  ‘Stop-tap’ is an archaic expression for pub closing-time.

  Subaltern

  A subaltern is a junior officer in the British Army. It referred to the rank of Second Lieutenant, the most junior officer rank.

  Submarine

  Numerous experimental military submarines had been developed over many years, but they first made a significant impact in the Great War. At the outbreak of the war, Germany had twenty submarines available whereas the Royal Navy had seventy-four, although of varied quality. Submarines increased in number and quality during the war and German boats were particularly effective against North Atlantic shipping, sinking more than 5,000 Allied ships.

  Suffragettes

  Suffragette is the term used to describe members of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s political movements that campaigned for the right of women to vote – the female suffrage movement. Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst were prominent British suffragettes. Suffragettes engaged in a range of protest activities, some passive, some more violent. They chained themselves to railings, poured chemicals into letter boxes and broke windows of prominent buildings. Many were imprisoned and force-fed after going on hunger strike.

  Swedish Drill

  Swedish Drill was a series of callisthenic exercises for military training, usually undertaken with a rifle, designed to increase strength, suppleness and stamina. The exercises were based on the pioneering work of Swedish physical educationalist Pehr Henrik Ling.

  Sweet Caporals

  Although British soldiers in the Great War thought that Sweet Caporals were French cigarettes, they were in fact produced by the American Tobacco Company, which also produced the Pall Mall and Mecca brands. Caporals were issued to French soldiers, were made from dark tobacco and had a particularly pungent flavour and smell.

  Tackler

  A ‘Tackler’ was the name given to a supervisor in a Lancashire textile factory. He was responsible for the good working order of a number of power looms and the weavers who worked them. The name derived from the essential part of his job, which was to ‘tackle’ – repair – any mechanical problems.

  Telescopic sight

  Experiments to provide rifle-shooters with optically enhanced aiming began in the early seventeenth century. In the nineteenth century, sights were developed in New York by Morgan James, based on designs by John R. Chapman (the Chapman–James sight). In 1880, August Fiedler, forestry commissioner of Austrian Prince Heinrich Reuss developed a refracting sight and versions were soon in use in the German and Austrian armies.

  The Aldis Telescopic Sight was developed by Arthur Cyril Webb Aldis. He and his brother, Hugh Lancelot, owned Aldis Brothers Ltd, which was located in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, and was a maker of lenses and other photographic equipment. The company was bought by the Rank organization after the Second World War, and concentrated then on making slide projectors and episcopes.

  Tilley lamp

  The Tilley lamp is named after John Tilley, a manufacturer of kerosene pressure lamps. The lamp became so popular during the Great War that its name became synonymous with all kerosene lamps.

  Tommy Atkins

  ‘Tommy Atkins’, often just ‘Tommy’, is a generic term for a common soldier in the British Army. It is particularly associated with the Great War. One of the many theories about its origin is that the name was chosen by the Duke of Wellington because he was moved by the bravery of a soldier at the Battle of Boxtel during the Flanders campaign in 1794. After a fierce engagement, the duke saw the best man-at-arms in the regiment, Private Thomas Atkins, terribly wounded. The private said, ‘It’s all right, sir. It’s all in a day’s work,’ and died shortly after.

  Trench fever

  Trench fever is a debilitating disease transmitted by body lice. It infected all armies in the Great War; from 1915 to 1918 between a fifth and a third of all British troops reported had the disease at some stage.

  Trepanning

  This is a surgical operation in which a hole is drilled or scraped into the human skull, exposing brain matter, often used to relieve pressure beneath the surface. A circular section of the skull would be removed using an instrument called a trephine.

  Typhoid

  Typhoid is a common worldwide bacterial disease transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the faeces of an infected person which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica. The disease has been given various names, such as gastric fever and enteric fever.

  Uhlans

  Uhlans were originally Polish light cavalry who carried lances, sabres and pistols, but lancer regiments in the Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies. also later adopted the title. There were twenty-six Uhlan regiments in the German Army in 1914. German hussar, dragoon and cuirassier regiments also carried lances in 1914, so there was a tendency among their French and British opponents to describe all German cavalry as Uhlans. After seeing mounted action at the beginning of the Great War, the Uhlan regiments were then either dismounted to serve as ‘cavalry rifles’ in the trenches of the Western Front or transferred to the Eastern Front, where more primitive conditions meant that the horse cavalry still had a useful role to play. All the German Uhlan regiments were eventually disbanded in 1918–19.

  Under-fettler

  An under-fettler is a junior ‘fettler’ or cleaner. It is a Lancashire name used in a number of contexts a
nd trades. The verb to ‘fettle’ variously means to fix, sort or clean; it is also used in the sense of ‘sorting someone out’.

  Vickers gun

  In 1912 the British Army adopted the Vickers as its standard machine gun. Produced by the Vickers Company, it was a modified version of the Maxim machine gun. The Vickers used a 250-round fabric-belt magazine and was regarded as a highly reliable weapon. It could fire over 600 rounds per minute and had a range of 4,500 yards. Being water-cooled, it could fire continuously for long periods.

  Voluntary Aid Detachment

  This organization was founded in 1909 with the help of the Red Cross and the Order of St John. By the summer of 1914, there were over 2,500 Voluntary Aid Detachments in Britain. Each individual volunteer was called a detachment, or simply a VAD. Of the 74,000 VADs in 1914, two thirds were made up of women and girls.

  At the outbreak of the Great War, VADs offered to help the war effort, but the British Red Cross was reluctant to allow civilian women a role in overseas hospitals and the military authorities would not accept VADs at the front line. However, they gradually earned the right to play a direct role through their enthusiasm and courage and as a result of the shortage of trained nurses.

  During the four years of war, 38,000 VADs served in hospitals and as ambulance drivers and cooks. Many were decorated for distinguished service, and famous VADs included Enid Bagnold, Mary Borden, Vera Britten, Agatha Christie and Violet Jessop.

  Wachtmeister

  A Wachtmeister is a non-commissioned officer, originally assigned to guard duties.

  Webley revolver

  The Webley Mk V was standard issue at the start of the Great War but there were many more Mk IV revolvers in service in 1914, as the initial order for 20,000 Mk V revolvers had not been completed by the time the war began.

  From May 1915 to the end of the war, the Webley Mk VI was the standard sidearm for British and Commonwealth troops, being issued to officers, airmen, naval crews, boarding parties, machine-gun teams and tank crews. The Mk VI was a very reliable and hardy weapon and well suited to the mud and adverse conditions of trench warfare. Several accessories were developed for it, such as a bayonet, and a stock which allowed the revolver to be converted into a carbine (short-barrelled rifle).

  ‘Welch’ (spelling)

  The spelling of ‘Welsh’ as ‘Welch’ is a much-cherished historical peculiarity in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. When the Regiment was given its Welsh designation in 1702, the spelling ‘Welch’ was in common use and it became a regimental tradition. That is, until 2006, when the Royal Welch Fusiliers merged with other Welsh regiments to form the ‘Welsh Regiment’.

  Whizz-bang

  A ‘whizz-bang’ was the name given to the noise made by shells from German 3-inch field guns. The shells fired from light artillery travelled faster than the speed of sound, so the ‘whizz’ of the shell was heard before the ‘bang’ made by the gun itself. Thus, there was almost no warning of an incoming attack.

  ‘Willie’ Woodbines

  Woodbine is a brand of English cigarette first made in England in 1888 by W. D. & H. O. Wills. Strong and unfiltered, Woodbines were very popular with soldiers during the Great War.

  ‘Wipers’

  The name of the Belgian town of Ypres was difficult to pronounce for the many thousands of British soldiers who were billeted there or passed through, so it very soon became universally known as Wipers.

  Wonk

  ‘Wonk’ has several meanings, including referring to an expert, or someone who has an excessive interest in detail or trivia. However, in British naval slang, a wonk is either an incompetent sailor, or, more usually, a junior cadet, who, in the past, performed menial duties for more senior officers, usually midshipmen.

  Ypres, 2nd Battle of

  The 2nd Battle of Ypres was the only major attack launched by the German forces on the Western Front in 1915, their High Command preferring to concentrate on the Eastern Front. Begun in April, the battle concluded in failure for the Germans in May. As a consequence, the Germans gave up their attempts to take the town, choosing instead to demolish it through constant bombardment, reducing it to rubble.

  The 2nd Battle of Ypres is generally remembered as marking the first use of gas on the Western Front. Over 5,000 canisters of chlorine gas were released at sunrise on 22 April against French Algerian and territorial division troops. A pall of greenish-yellow gas rolled across from the German front lines to the French positions. The impact was devastating. The terrified Allied troops fled towards Ypres. Ten thousand men, half of whom died of asphyxiation within ten minutes of the attack, were affected. Those who survived were temporarily blinded and suffered awful bouts of coughing. Two thousand were captured as prisoners of war. The two advancing Germans corps, wearing primitive respirators, paced warily through a clear 7-kilometre gap in the Allied lines. After advancing two miles, they were stopped by General Horace Smith-Dorrien’s counter-offensive.

  The Germans released a second batch of chlorine gas on 24 April, this time directed against Canadian troops situated north-east of Ypres. Once more, the Germans gained ground against the unprotected Canadian troops. The advancing German infantry sustained heavy losses from the defending Canadians, who were relieved by British reinforcements on 3 May. During this time the Canadians had suffered 5,975 casualties, including 1,000 fatalities. Fighting renewed around Ypres on 8 May and continued until the 13th, and then again on 24–5 May, with repeated use of gas attacks. However, the Allied lines held and a shortage of supplies and manpower led the Germans to call off the offensive.

  Losses during the 2nd Battle of Ypres are estimated at 69,000 Allied troops (59,000 British and empire; 10,000 French and empire), against 35,000 German; the difference was caused by the German’s use of chlorine gas. Although this was condemned by the Allies as barbaric, they soon developed their own form of gas warfare, with the British using gas at Loos at the end of September 1915, where, tragically, the prevailing wind changed and blew the gas back into the British trenches.

  Zeppelin

  A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the twentieth century. On 19 January 1915 two German Imperial Navy Zeppelin airships, the L3 and L4, took off from Fuhlsbüttel in Germany. Both airships carried 30 hours’ worth of fuel, 8 bombs and 25 incendiary devices. They crossed the coast north of Great Yarmouth, Zeppelin L3 curving south-east towards Great Yarmouth and Zeppelin L4 north-west towards Kings Lynn. Zeppelin L3 found Great Yarmouth and dropped its bombs, killing Samuel Alfred Smith, the first British civilian to be killed by aerial bombardment. L4 followed a route over the coastal villages until it finally came to Kings Lynn, bombing as it went. Fourteen-year-old Percy Goate and twenty-six-year-old Alice Gazely were killed.

  Zouave

  Zouave is a term of Arabic/Berber origin and was given to the infantry regiments of the French Army serving in North Africa. Zouave’s wore distinctive uniforms, which included short, open-fronted jackets, baggy trousers (serouel) and often sashes and oriental headgear.

  Genealogies

  The Family of Winston Spencer-Churchill

  Grandparents

  Paternal

  John Winston Spencer-Churchill

  (7th Duke of Marlborough) 1822–1883

  Lady Frances Vane 1822–1899

  Maternal

  Leonard Jerome 1817–1891

  Clarissa Hall 1825–1895

  Parents

  Lord Randolph Churchill 1849–1895

  Lady Randolph Churchill

  (née Jennie Jerome) 1854–1921

  Brother

  John Strange (‘Jack’) Spencer-Churchill 1880–1947

  Children

  Diana 1909–1963

  Randolph 1911–1968

  Sarah 1914–1982

  Marigold 1918–1921

  Mary 1922–2014

  The family of the Dukes of Atholl

  5th Du
ke

  John Murray

  (second son of the 4th Duke; never married) 1778–1846

  Siblings

  Lady Amelia Sophia Murray 1780–1849

  James Murray, 1st Baron Glenlyon 1782–1837

  6th Duke

  George Augustus Frederick John Murray

  (eldest son of James Murray, 1st Baron Glenlyon) 1814–1897

  Spouse

  Anne Home-Drummond 1814–1864

  7th Duke

  John James Hugh Henry Stewart-Murray

  (only son of 6th Duke) 1840–1917

  Spouse

  Louisa Moncrieffe 1844–1902