by E. W. Hermon
My very best love to you all dearie mine,
Ever your Robert.
THE WAR DIARY for ‘C’ Squadron records that in the afternoon of the 7th there was a rugby match against the 32nd Regiment of Infantry of the French army.
8th October 1915 – Haillicourt
I got your letter & the bed pump, sounds funny but isn’t really, no ulterior meaning.
There has been some very heavy gunning this afternoon & we can’t make out here if we are advancing or if the Boche is trying to regain Loos. I can’t help thinking that if he does try it he will have a pretty warm time as having once taken it our fellows won’t give it up without giving some very hard knocks first. I am hoping however that it is all the other way & that we are giving them a bit of a poke.
I went over & saw ‘A’ Squadron today & the old men of ‘C’ who were there all begged me to get them back to ‘C’ again, but I am afraid that it is impossible as I doubt their squadron officer doing much to help it out. He is not very amenable to such transactions.
This is a rotten letter dearie I am afraid but all the lads are talking & the men are having an issue of rum & the window is open & talk about Magpies!! We are hoping against hope that we are going to be left in peace here but one never knows, but if it is to be an advance, well it doesn’t matter what we have to stick.
Best love old darling.
9th October 1915 – Haillicourt
Today we had a ceremonial parade while the Corps Commander2 congratulated the Div. in general & the infantry in particular on the very fine work that they have accomplished. Rather boring, but nevertheless well deserved by the latter.
For all there has been in the papers you might not have thought that there was such a Div. in France but it is a fact that out of all the troops that were engaged it is the only Div. that reached its objective, consolidated it and held it for four days. I could tell you several other tales but they are best left till we meet again. You don’t always read the truth in the papers by any means.
The Huns attacked us last night near the ‘Quarries’ and also just W. of Loos & took it in the neck. It was a very heavy and strongly pushed attack and they paid the price alright, but got no front seats in our trenches I am glad to say. The French caught three of their battalions in close formation and turned their guns on them and the French gunner is pretty hot stuff when he is pushed. I hear they lost a fearful lot of men & a good job too. Old Boyd told me there was only one thing to do with a Hun & that was to kill him & then look for another & kill him too, & there is no doubt that it is right.
One can’t take chances with them. Only one of the many instances one hears of, a boy in one of our Battalions was just running up to take a Maxim gun when the officer in charge jumped up & put his hands up. The boy at once lowered his revolver, whereupon the Hun shot him, only however to be immediately bayoneted, I am glad to say. They play every low trick that one can imagine & it isn’t safe to trust them even tho’ one can see them. The boy wasn’t killed tho’ he lost an eye, the bullet going into his eye slantwise.
Sunday 10th October 1915 – Haillicourt
I went to church this morning at 10 a.m. We had a Communion Service instead of the ordinary service. It took place in an empty room in the mine buildings here where there was a large water tank that was hissing away like anything, nearly drowning the Padre’s voice. There wasn’t a chair & only a tiny table in the corner for an altar. The room was packed & one could only just find standing room. It really was one of the most impressive services one ever attended. There was only one Padre & so while he was going the round of the front line, the others standing behind sang hymns, without music and sang most awfully well too.
‘A’ Squadron is now close here & is in fact in the same Corps as we are. It is most amusing to hear the comments of my crowd on ‘A’. At present the men in ‘A’ are offering ‘100 francs’ to anyone who will transfer, and there are no takers at present.
Lass dear, there was a shade of failure in a way,3 in that tho’ we broke the Germans we didn’t actually penetrate their line, nor did we reach the objective that we set out to gain. That we very nearly did you can judge from the fact that we intercepted a frantic wireless message to Berlin to the fact that ‘the British have broken through’ so you see things were very close indeed. We failed undoubtedly in the full realization of our intentions & tho’ the success was greater than Neuve Chapelle it wasn’t the crushing blow it might have been.
Had we had the same number of troops composed of the troops we knew in the old Aldershot days we should have smashed them without a shadow of a doubt, but the new officer hasn’t the training and consequently the leading is inferior to what it used to be. The men are quite magnificent but the best troops in the world must be led. It is the same of course for both sides, but they being on the defensive have the easier task with partially trained troops. It is quite another matter attacking. The attack gets split up and then it wants leading. You get men of various units intermingling. If you get a good officer who knows what is wanted he will at once reorganize these men and lead them on. Especially in village fighting this is the case & Loos came right in the centre of the attack.
One large body of troops dashed on & nothing could stop them & instead of consolidating as they should, on reaching certain predetermined trenches they carried on over them, absolutely mad with success, with the result they got thrown back and confused & then became a little unsteady. Other troops had then to be thrown in, who were wanted for other jobs & the sting was then out of the advance & we had to be content to hold what we had.
It is quite wrong that we lost Hohenzollern because a whole brigade had surrendered. There was no such incident on the whole front. We never had the whole of the Hohenzollern Redoubt at any time & were only hanging by our eyelids at times. At one time we held both sides of it & they had the middle which they never lost & eventually we were bombed out, but this was a long way on our left, & we had no part in that portion of the attack.
You say you don’t know how I find time to write you so long letters but the war is [like] this: both sides look at one another from behind a continuous line of sandbag breastworks varying from as little as 30 yards and even less apart, up to as much as 500 yards, according to the ground. Each side has barbed wire entanglements in the front and in places they are as much as 8 metres wide and even more at special points. Now the supporting troops of both sides are in second lines two or three hundred yards behind the front lines and live in dugouts etc. The reserves live in the villages behind this & then the towns etc., further behind still, are occupied by still more troops to reinforce with.
Now one lives like this, the front line continually being shelled, practically no rifle shooting at all by day, except sniping. At night there is a varying amount of rifle shooting & all night Verey lights going off to light up the ground in between the trenches, neither side wishing to be surprised by the other. This looking at one another is the normal. Then comes a time of attack, the shelling grows by degrees more intense & continues in intensity until the appointed time for the attack. The opponents’ wire having been blown down by batteries specially told off for wire cutting, the infantry assault takes place.
Then comes the fight, lasts two or three days, the troops in front are relieved, and pass back to the towns in the rear where they refit, get drafts & rest, during which time they might as well be in barracks at Aldershot. For the most part one is just far enough back to be free of the shelling or very occasional shells wander over just to let one know that there is a war on. You can of course hear the guns plainly all day & all night & that reminds you of a war. The towns even 3 miles behind the front line are full of women & children, shops open & doing a roaring trade & in fact exactly the same as in peace manoeuvres.
Steve was standing talking to an old woman the other day when a shell just came over her house and went into the next garden. All she did was to roar with laughter and say ‘Allyman, souvenir. No bonne, no bonne’
! You would be awfully amused how the language is being corrupted by contact with Thomas Atkins. All the locals now say ‘Allyman’ & ‘No bonne’.
In this last attack when one of the Battalions of our Div. went over the parapet they took a football and kicked it in front of them right up to the Boche trench!! Shows the spirit of the men. Muriel’s story of the brigade surrendering is absolute tosh!!
I am most awfully glad dearie that you are going to have Addie for your days of trial, I wish I could be there to help & share in a mild way so far as I could in what has been largely my fault.
Well goodbye for the present dearie mine.
ON 11 OCTOBER the squadron moved yet again, to billets in the town of Noeux-les-Mines, which had to be made habitable as they had been left in an appalling condition by the exiting troops. From here Robert sent to Ethel translated extracts of two letters found on the bodies of two officers of the German General Staff, killed in a recent battle. The first read:
Please give instructions that a large number of proclamations be issued to the Russian soldiers. I rely upon the secret order of the Emperor William on this subject being executed. It is necessary to do everything possible to weaken the Russian Army, which is escaping from our grip and withdrawing to an unknown destination. Time is not far distant when our situation will become impossible & it is possible that we may be compelled to sign a peace treaty of which the terms will be dictated to us by our enemies.
Men who formerly had dreams of conquering the world no longer think today of taking London, Paris or Petrograd. This task will be reserved for our grandsons & not for the heroic German warriors who are now sacrificing their lives on the endless fields of Russia.
The second, taken from a letter written by a senior German NCO, read:
It is terrible. We have no more men. You know what it means. The Russians have guessed our plan in time & without accepting definite battle have retired to the depths of their country inflicting terrible losses on us in the course of their retreat. [Emperor] William has taken from Germany all that she can give & now you only see old men, women & children in the streets of German towns. We have no more reserves. Our losses are enormous & soon we shall no longer be in the position to make them good. There was a time when the Russians were short of munitions but this is no longer so.
THE ATTACK BY the British at Loos was renewed on the 13th with an assault against the Hohenzollern Redoubt, but bad weather and further heavy losses caused the offensive to be called off. Gas was again used in the attack, but this time the wind was blowing towards the enemy trenches and away from the British lines.
14th October 1915 – Noeux-les-Mines
Buxton had an afternoon off yesterday & spent it going round the cemetery. He tells me he came across poor old Freddie Wing’s grave & so I must go & see it I think, but cemeteries are such unsavoury spots these times.
Dearie mine, I do say ‘Your job is at home!’ I don’t in the least mind you munitioning but your first duty to your country is the efficient upbringing of your children to be useful members of society. Let the ‘spinsters with unmarriageable faces’ make the shells4 & the good-looking widows like Mog. I want you to look after ‘Ben’.
My love to you dearie mine. I shall begin numbering my letters, I think, now tho’ with my awful memory it may lead to even greater confusion!!!
15th October 1915 – No. 100 – Noeux-les-Mines
The air bed is top-hole old girl, & I have had some very comfortable nights on it indeed. Talking of the men wanting to come back to ‘C’ one of my new draft wrote down to the base last night to a friend advising him to come here whatever he did as ‘it was a very nice squadron’.
It is impossible to publish more in the papers than they do as we have a book of the German forces & when we take prisoners one can at once identify the regiment & formation that is in front of one & from that calculate the force opposed to you to a man. We knew exactly what we were up against in this last attack. We reckon the Boche lost 25,000 killed & wounded in his attack on Loos the other day & this in addition to anything he lost in the attack on the 25th. I quite agree with you that it is a pity that our misfortunes should not be equally clearly stated as the successes but you see the Boche knows exactly the extent of our successes & he may not always know the reverse & it is a pity to inform him.
It is most difficult under these conditions to get accurate news & in these last three days it has been very hard indeed to find out in what trenches we were. You see, in an attack the infantry go forward & take a trench, they disappear from sight into a trench 8 foot deep & until you get messages you don’t know where the devil they are & consequently in the first rush they carry on & take a lot that eventually they are unable to hold. Then when they gain a trench they at once endeavour to extend their gains to the flank & go bombing along it as far as they can, all out of sight & so in reality it takes some days sometimes to sift out of all the reports where they are. The official reports are not doctored; when mistakes occur it is due to inaccurate reports by Regiments or Brigades actually in the operations.
I am waiting very anxiously for Edward Grey’s statement which ought to be in tomorrow’s paper, but I think you will find we haven’t made so much of a mess in the Balkans as one is led to believe.5
I expect the Chugs will have grown an awful lot when I next see them & I am looking forward to seeing them soon. I am sorry you have got colds in the house. My men have got a sort of influenza cold too.
Best love old girl.
16th October 1915, 3.30 p.m. – No. 101 – Noeux-les-Mines
I am bound for a burying party tonight, a most unpleasant duty especially as all the bodies that we are likely to find were killed on the 25th Sept.
You were saying you wondered how so many could be buried, well they aren’t. They just lie until such time as opportunity offers, which in the case of an advance comes soon, but in the case of an attack that fails & is driven off such as the last German attack at Loos, there is nothing for it but to leave them. There is no armistice for the purpose as there used to be in the old days. There are Frenchmen lying out here now who have been dead since May 9th. They are alright now but you can’t move them & can only throw earth over them. However it is one of those jobs inseparable from war & must be taken as such.
There will be a good deal of spare lead tonight I expect as it is very close behind the trenches. However it’s all in the day’s work these times & the more one looks the less one likes it. It doesn’t do to think too much. If you are for it you’re for it, & if you ain’t you ain’t & there it is.
Best love my old dear.
17th October 1915 – No. 102 – Noeux-les-Mines
Well, I got back at 3 a.m. this morning alright after a very unpleasant night. Clearing a battlefield is not an amusement I can recommend except that it has the effect of making one perfectly callous to everything connected with life and death.
I cannot believe that this is the end of life. After what I saw last night I am convinced that the soul of man must be so to speak ‘detachable’. It is impossible that if there is a Divine will ruling all life, I cannot believe that that is the finish. The soul must leave the body & go elsewhere. I saw it last night as clearly as if it was written in capital letters. I buried 41 poor fellows including a subaltern officer.
My party consisted of ‘kilties’ with which should have been four officers but only three turned up & one of them got shot after we had been at it only about half an hour & so as they had neither maps, nor electric torches or compasses, had never been on the ground before & it was so dark one couldn’t see the ground you were standing on & had the above mentioned officers had all the articles required I doubt if they could have used them. We were working on a huge plain absolutely honeycombed with trenches, barbed wire etc. I had never been on the ground either before & it took me all my time but the result was on a par with our entry into Dartmouth.
I had to lead the party home across country 4500 yards & by the aid of
a good map & a compass we fetched up to the inch. I tried to launch my party off on their own when we were nearly back but they weren’t having it at any price & insisted on clinging to my coat tail until I had brought them back to a place they knew. We were really very lucky in only losing one out of the whole party as it was rather a lively evening and bullets were going by like wasps on a summer evening.
I don’t know how to express what I said earlier on except that I am convinced beyond shadow of doubt that there is a future life. Not that I ever doubted it for a moment, but it has been one of those things that without actually knowing one has believed in but I somehow feel now that it’s a snip. I can’t tell you what one saw, but the deaths occurred on the 25th which will give you some idea.
18th October 1915 – No. 103 – Noeux-les-Mines
I am becoming a regular Jack of all trades & am now back at the Bomb School again for a week. It got bust up just before the last attack and everything seems to have been lost & the whole show wants re-organizing. However the Guards Division came over here yesterday & asked if we would show them how to run a school & so I said if they would send their proposed staff over I would instruct them. Rather amusing that the Guards should come to a mere Yeoman for instruction.
I have found a gold mine. It is quite simple – you earn £40 a month & spend nothing. I should put old Bob’s money on deposit with the Bank of England. I am glad you will have a fire for me when I come home, as I like a fire & we have just about the biggest fug on in here now that you ever saw – or felt.
21st October 1915 – No. 105 There! – Noeux-les-Mines
After your rude remarks about my numbering I don’t think you deserve a letter at all.
As for the 100 it seemed so stupid after all this time to start at 1, so I split the difference and started at 100. Wasn’t the Observer good last Sunday, I thought it a really capital article, it is a downright good paper that?