by E. W. Hermon
However, the rain stopped soon after we got to the place of parade & it cheered up & the sun shone & was quite nice. D.H. recognized me alright & I rode along with him while he passed my Battalion & he was most complimentary & very pleased with their turnout.
Dearie mine I very much doubt if I get home for some time now. Today they have put all C.O.s & staff officers on the ordinary leave roster, & not supernumerary to it as they used to be. The consequence is that I come a long way down the list now & I fear the 17th is dead off. I’m awfully sorry as I had so looked forward to getting home again & seeing old Bobbo. I don’t know that it is hopeless, but if it’s to count as one of the Battalion allotment, then I must take my turn with the rest.
Darling mine there’s a prayer in the little book I should like you to teach the kids. It’s one that starts about ‘the sentry on watch this night, those who command that they etc.’ There are a couple of lines in the middle that you might eliminate.
I would love to think that the kids were saying it, or had said it when I go round the front lines at midnight & it appeals to me awfully as I see so much of the sentry & know what he has to go through, with no protection against the weather bar what he can put on his body. He wants all the help one can give him. Well my love, good night.
24th December 1916 – No. 49 – Fort Rompu
There’s a special dispensation leave going now of a fortnight for all C.O.s who specially require it & who have been in the country 2 years & as I’m nearly that, I think there is a very good chance that something can be done but don’t set too much store by it.
Tonight we are all going to have our Xmas dinner in the town & tomorrow we spend most of the day with the men. I’ve managed to get hold of a big room where I can get the whole Battalion in & we have got two nice pigs killed & hope to give them a fairly decent dinner & tea & concert. I’ve been having a very quiet time lately & am now back in reserve for a bit.
26th December 1916 – No. 50 answering 59 – Fort Rompu
We had quite a nice Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve for the officers & we all went into the town to a little place where a certain lady of the name of ‘Lucienne’ provides for hungry officers. It’s wonderful how these women carry on, it was only a short time ago when every window in her house was smashed by a shell; since I came to these parts.
The table was very nicely decorated & by the menu card you will see that we didn’t do so badly in the food line & when you consider that it is exactly 4700 yards from the Boche front line & easily within field gun range it is marvellous. We had a most cheery evening & I thoroughly enjoyed it. We all had to sing or do something so I read them your poem ‘If’.12 The only crab was a 4-mile walk home at 1 a.m.!! We were very lucky to be out of the front line for Xmas.
Christmas Day, I started by going to early service at 7.30 a.m. Then I took the Battalion to Church at 10.30. We had got a big room where we could get about——men in at a time and by having two sittings we got the whole Battalion in for their dinner. Then we gave them tea there and a concert to follow & finished the day at 8 p.m. thoroughly worn out as we all waited at the two dinners.
I must stop now old dear. The pudding & galantine & a parcel from Bassingtons has just arrived. Very many thanks.
My love to you all my darlings.
30th December 1916 – No. 53 answering 60 & 61 – trenches, Bois Grenier Sector
The worst has occurred. An edict has gone forth tonight that no one is to go on leave until he has done twelve months in the country or since last leave. That rather busts our little holiday doesn’t it, but you must cheer up old dear, it may be rescinded before long & I have great doubts whether the blooming old war will last half the time.
It was rather odd you sending the cutting about the virus because tonight we got a brochure on the subject of setting about the rats. The virus, however, is not to be used as I fancy they are not absolutely certain about its action. You see we are living under conditions that folk don’t know much about really & there are so many odd complaints that have arisen that they don’t want everyone suffering from Liverpool Virus as well & until it was discovered exactly how it got on with present conditions. I must say I shouldn’t care to risk it.
I’ve just lit the stove in my bedroom & as it is about ten times too big for the room I’m nearly roasting! They are instituting a leave for tired C.O.s who have been two years in the country so I may get tired shortly! The Brigadier tells me today that Temple goes on leave at once. My poor Adjutant should have gone yesterday only got a note to say he was to prosecute on a General Court Martial on the 3rd & the edict arrived tonight.
The heat has reached such a pitch now that one of my candles has had a serious relapse & fallen on the floor.
As you will have gathered old dear, we were at Church together Xmas morning alright. I should so have loved to have seen the Chugs’ Xmas Tree. The old stick13 is very well known. Heaps of fellows say to me ‘I saw the stick coming & I knew it couldn’t be anyone but you!’
Both last night & this morning it rained like Hades & I shall be jolly glad when the spring weather comes, but I believe the wet is preferable to frost. It doesn’t knock the men about so much.
1st January 1917 – trenches, Bois Grenier Sector
I’ve got several nice letters from you these last few days old dear, but am feeling too seedy to answer them now. Perhaps I’m going to have three weeks leave to try & pull round. There’s nothing radically wrong with me dearie, but I just can’t get well again. Temperature about 96 & doesn’t seem to go up. My love to you old dear & will write you a better letter as soon as I can.
3rd January 1917, 2.30 p.m. – trenches, Bois Grenier Sector
First & foremost I’m coming home in a day or two for three weeks. I’m rather knocked out just at present so I hope you will have plenty of beef tea etc. Just to put me on my legs once more. You needn’t worry old dear as I’m quite alright really & only want a bit of nursing.
My love to you old dear.
4th January 1917 – 2nd letter – No. 55 answering 62–67 – Bois Grenier Field Hospital
I feel an awful beast old dear, that I have written you so seldom lately & with the mails being as uncertain as they have been, it makes news seem further off than ever for you. I’m just beginning to sit up & take nourishment & most thoroughly enjoyed a poached egg I had for tea. Buckin just asked me what I would have for dinner & I said ‘a really nice fried sole’. He said he was very sorry he couldn’t do that but if I had spoken a little sooner he could have managed a kipper!!
My darling if you could only see my hospital! It would make your hair curl. The Temperance Hotel was the very essence of hygiene compared to it. When I got back from the hospital yesterday the mattress looked so filthy that I couldn’t lie down on it even with my fur coat on until Buckin had got some of our own damp-resisting, smell-obscuring, G/S [General Service] blankets on it!! Yesterday things were so very miserable here that I decided to go into the Officers’ Rest House but to my horror after driving some way I found myself landed at a C.C.S.14 which wasn’t at all what I was after, so I flatly declined to leave the Ambulance & after taking a dish of soup off the C.C.S. told them they could just take me back where they found me so I came back & crept into bed again.
I’m awfully glad the Chugs enjoyed their Xmas. I wish I could have been there – it’s a rotten life, this. Well old dear, so long. I wonder if this or I will get home first.
6th January 1917 – No. 56 – Officers’ Rest House, La Motte
I have now come to the officers’ rest house as I wasn’t fit enough to go back to the trenches. This is a lovely place & is run rather as an officers’ residential hotel & Club, only everything is free!! I had the swell room of the château last night & was most comfy indeed. I don’t feel like writing somehow, when one expects a car to come & fetch one off any day or hour.
Undated, postmarked 9th January 1917 – lettercard – Officers’ Rest House, La Motte
My darling,<
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I should arrive Victoria about same time as before on Tuesday next.
Robert (Sunday)
ON 9 JANUARY, Robert went on home leave to Cowfold, to recover from his illness, with Buxton in attendance on the journey. Meanwhile Major Wallace took temporary command of 24th Battalion. Robert and Ethel spent their final few nights together at the Berkeley Hotel, before he returned to duty on 6 February.
1 During this period in the subsidiary lines the battalion supplied working parties to the Royal Engineers, repairing trenches in the front line.
2 Daly’s Theatre, off Leicester Square, London.
3 Field Marshal von Hindenburg.
4 The temporary CO.
5 In the War Diary it is recorded that there were 18 inches of water in several of the trenches.
6 His reaction to news that his wife was not pregnant again.
7 On the Somme.
8 An army camp ‘5 km west of Armentières’.
9 Major Prior.
10 On 6th December, Asquith had been replaced as prime minister by Lloyd George, who, according to Winston Churchill, had more ‘aptitude for war’. Hollweg, the German Chancellor, had offered to open peace negotiations with the Allies.
11 The parade was taken by Douglas Haig, at Erquinghem.
12 By Kipling.
13 His wife had given him a thumbstick.
14 Casualty Clearing Station.
PREPARING FOR THE SPRING OFFENSIVE, 1917
DURING FEBRUARY 1917 the fortunes of war continued to fluctuate between the Allies and the Central Powers. Allied morale was bolstered by the arrival, on the 3rd, of the Portuguese Expeditionary Force in France, comprising 50,000 men. The following day the Kaiser ordered the withdrawal of his troops on the Western Front to the recently fortified trenches of the Hindenburg Line, reducing the length of the German front line by twenty-five miles. Several of their divisions were now released into reserve, and as the troops retreated, everything between the lines which could afford cover to attacking troops was destroyed.
On 4 February, President Woodrow Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany after the interception of an encoded telegram from the German Foreign Minister, Zimmerman, to their Minister in Mexico, offering to unite with Mexico and Japan against the United States. As U-boat attacks on American shipping continued, it seemed increasingly likely that the USA would enter the war.
On the Western Front preparations were being made for the spring offensive. After returning from home leave Robert resumed command of the 24th Battalion at Tatinghem: 103 Brigade was now on the move eastwards towards Arras, training for the impending attack.
6th February 1917 – Series III – No. 1 – en route for Tatinghem (near St Omer)
My own darling,
Well done my dear brave lassie, your last cheering smile was everything in the world to me as was your nice cheery note. It has been the most lovely day, simply glorious tho’ most bitterly cold & the snow is pretty thick over here & it’s freezing hard now.
The car wasn’t here & so I have to wait for the train which leaves just after midnight. I was a bit cold last night but not half what I am going to be tonight & I shall miss the cup of Ovaltine, or should be very glad of it in the train.
I was rather amused this morning as the train didn’t leave in the end till 7.20 & there was a captain in R.A.M.C. talking most awful rot to a friend & was rather annoying me. When the train started he took off his coat & had a V.C. & a Military Cross!! Can’t always tell by appearances & oddly enough reading The Times a few minutes later I saw the account of his investiture.
Darling mine I’m sitting in the Club & there are such dozens swarming about that I can’t write decently or as I should like to but the quicker that fourth honeymoon comes along the better.
My love, my whole love, & nothing but my love to you my own dear, dear, love.
Ever your Robert.
7th February 1917 – No. 2 – Tatinghem
The day has been glorious sunshine & on the sunny side of a building was like summer except for the snow, of which there is quite a lot. I’ve got quite a lot of new young officers since I left and everything seems to be going top-hole. We’ve got a very nice house for H.Qrs tho’ it’s a bit cold as like all these small French Châteaux it’s only one room thick with windows on both sides.
The enclosed little brooch is for Mairky as I subscribed to a soldiers’ charity some time ago & if you gave a certain sum they sent you a gold brooch as a memento & as old Bet got the grenade I thought it was Mairky’s turn for a ‘pres’. I’m sorry I had no ‘pres’ for you dearie but I didn’t quite know what to give you.
Lass dear, we had a ripping time, hadn’t we & I don’t think I ever missed you quite so much as I did last night, sitting in the club, packed with folk I didn’t know, & was feeling very sad but now I’m back I am as right as rain & quite happy once more.
It was a topping time old dear & I loved our last days together but they went so terribly quick. I don’t know that I’ve any more news for you old dear, & each time I come back I feel it harder to write – it all seems so thin & poor & yet one simply lives for one’s letters.
Give my best love to the dear little Chugs & my all to you, my own darling.
8th February 1917 – No. 3 answering 1 – Tatinghem
I got your first instalment today & was very pleased to get it too. The whole Battalion practically is down with inoculation so I have had a quiet day. I am going to have another of old Juckes’ doses as soon as I have finished this letter.
Today has been again glorious and the roads are in fine condition for sleighing & I wish I had the White House sleigh here now as with a couple of mules in it we could have rare good fun. Your old horse looks very well & Harry & Saxon are both looking top-hole.
I got a nice letter from old Bet too today. I am glad to hear that the doggies are out once more. Give old Spoot a kiss from me as I shirked saying goodbye to her, somehow it was the only one I felt I couldn’t just manage. I know it was very silly but I couldn’t, with the goodbyes to the Chugs coming on top of it & I didn’t feel I should be quite sure of myself when the time came. I don’t know why, but somehow the fact she didn’t quite understand sort of tickled one up & it was much harder saying it to Ken than any of the others. However it’s all over now & let us hope that we shall not have to do it again.
10th February 1917 – No. 5 answering 2 & 3 – Tatinghem
I see by the paper today that you are not going to be allowed to drive the car so you will have to drive the new pony in the cart. It’s a pity we bought it now tho’ I do not really regret it, but I never thought that you would get cut down so very soon. I see too that they now object to our car standing outside the Savoy?!! However the more drastic things are the sooner the show will be over.
I have simply loved your two letters old dear – they were ripping. I laughed like anything over the canary hunt because I was sure they were bound to get out. I’m so afraid that even when they clean the hut1 they will, but perhaps it won’t want much cleaning. I should just put more sand in!
I am sorry to hear you have got to cut down your rations so much but there it is & it’s no good worrying & if it helps to win the war it’s everything.
My love to you old dear.
11th February 1917 – No. 6 – 2nd Army School, near St Omer
Well I’ve gone back to school again and am in about the coldest shop you ever were in in your life. My bedroom is a little wooden hut and the mess and sitting room is an old Monastery. The dining hall is a magnificent hall but it is about 150 feet long and certainly 80 to 100 feet high, all stone. Cold beyond words but it’s thawing very slowly so it isn’t as bad as it might be but it’s pretty bad nevertheless.
A cake & marmalade rolled up today and also prayer books and undies etc. Many thanks. It’s so cold old dear I’m going to bed as I can’t write in the cold. My Spanish blood isn’t warm enough to write you a really nice letter, but I could do with my last Ber
keley pillow well tonight.
13th February 1917 – No. 8 – 2nd Army School, near St Omer
To my great delight the thaw seems to be firmly established now & since about midday it has been really very nice up above tho’ the conditions underfoot are really beastly. We have had a poor day again today & I am afraid unless things brighten up a bit more the course won’t have done one very much good. I had hoped that I should have picked up a good deal from the other members of the class in conversation but they don’t seem to be overflowing with ideas.
One’s movements etc. are taboo, as with most other bits, so it is very difficult to say much. I hear today that Temple has been given a ‘Croix de Guerre’ & that Richardson has got a Légion d’honneur & I am so glad, tho’ I suppose it will stop Temple from getting anything in the next honours list which is perhaps rather bad luck.
The thaw hasn’t lasted very long as it is freezing like anything now & I am shying off getting into my pyjamas but I shall be Spartan, I think. I asked the Brigade to let me chuck the course & go back to the Battalion tomorrow but I don’t know if they will let me. I think as a matter of fact these next few days will be far the most interesting.
I’m far too cold to be in a writing mood as the servants have let the stove in the passage go out. Anyhow I’m very lucky really not to be in the line.
My love to you all my darlings. I must hurry to bed as there is a very nasty draught blowing over my ankles!!
14th February 1917 – No. 9 answering 6 – Tatinghem
I have returned from my class I am glad to say. I pointed out to the powers that be how very stupid it was to send me there just now and so got off it.