British casualties to 31 October: 57,000.
Saturday, 14 November
Hard frost today. After dinner, I went part of the ‘complete’ walk, a memory of my courting days, but I was alone, the pleasure was gone. When I came in, Lily was in. No need now, alas, to say wee Lily. It’s hard yet to realise that Lily is gone for ever. British army to be raised to over two million men.
Monday, 16 November
The war is costing us £1 million a day. My salary won’t pay it.
Tuesday, 17 November
We are now the proud possessors of a new hall clock, a sewing machine which Agnes does not know how to work, and a bed we don’t know what to do with.73 We spent the night stowing them away, and I put up the clock. I will need to increase my insurance policy.
Wednesday, 18 November
Tommy’s chicken pox seems to be on the wane (this is not a pun).74
Thursday, 19 November
Working late. This is stocktaking day.
Friday, 27 November
Dirty wet day. An old girl of mine, Mrs Robertson, dropped in at night.75 British army in Belgium ‘covered with honour and glory’. Outlook for Allies ‘very good and full of promise’. Russia’s great triumph ‘colossal and decisive’.76
Wednesday, 2 December
Tommy got a bad cough. Made him a wee bridge at night and bought him a new slate.77 Glasgow Territorials now in the trenches in France.
Members of the Black Watch in the trenches.
Thursday, 3 December
Wild, stormy, wet day. Tommy still got a bad cough and Agnes greatly worried thereby. I put up a shelf in the pantry for the household boots. Belgrade taken by the Austrians.
Friday, 4 December
Stormy day. Some rain. Tommy’s cold much worse. Agnes in the depths of despair. All German attacks repulsed in Flanders.
Saturday, 5 December
Bitter cold day. Tommy a little better and Agnes is thusly in a better frame of mind. German trenches captured.
Sunday, 6 December
The ‘lum’ went on fire while breakfast was being made, which delayed the breakfast somewhat. We took it in the dining room, and then I cleaned all the flues, which seemed badly needing it.
Wednesday, 9 December
Hetty here tonight, which pleased us greatly. We are always glad to see her. Nellie arrived about 9 p.m. with some pictures from John for us.78 Allies progressing in Flanders.
Monday, 14 December
Agnes and Tommy went in the afternoon to Tollcross to see an old girl of mine (Mrs Robertson) and I went straight from my work.
Wednesday, 16 December
My father and Isa here at tea time. German raid on east coast of England – Hartlepool, Scarborough, Redcar and Whitby shelled by the devils, and then they ran back to their kennel. 130 people killed and 300 wounded.
Thursday, 17 December
We arranged the pictures in the room at night.79 I wrote to the factor about our lum, as it has struck work.
Sunday, 20 December
The ground white with frost today. Took a big walk before dinner. Through Queen’s Park to Shawlands Cross, then car to Pollokshaws West and walked along Cowglen Road and down past Crookston Castle and on to Half Way House and car home. Agnes very ill at night, and I had to apply hot flannels to her.
Thursday, 24 December
Tommy got his first Xmas present of the season, a book of boats from Hetty and we got cards. Nannie and Ella here at night, and they gave Tommy a motor car. I sent off a few hundred Xmas cards tonight. 80 German airplane drops a bomb on Dover. No damage done.
Friday, 25 December
Got away today at 12.30. We got a few more cards and Tommy got a teddy bear from his uncle John, and a wee card like a horse from Jenny Roxburgh. Agnes not in good form. She has a sore head, so we did not go out at all. Big Russian victory.81
Saturday, 26 December
Took a walk to Paisley and car back. German aeroplane off Sheerness but it got chased. Rumours of great naval activity by Germans getting ready for ‘Der Tag’.82
Monday, 28 December
Mr Crozier sent Tommy a big wooden horse today. Cuxhaven, the German naval base, bombarded by seven British waterplanes, assisted by the cruisers Dauntless and Arethusa, and submarines and destroyers. These were attacked by two German Zeppelins and some aeroplanes, but were easily driven off. The first fight of its kind in the world’s history.
Wednesday, 30 December
My niece Lily here at night. Bought a new hat for my Ne’erday.
Thursday, 31 December
After dinner we went into the town and bought Tommy a new coat (15/-) and cap (1/6). Not out again. We will now sit up and watch the New Year come in.
* * *
1 Thomas’ father, Joseph Livingstone, lived at 3 Greenlodge Terrace, Bridgeton.
2 Lily was Thomas’ sister, married to John White.
3 Lum is a Scottish word for chimney.
4 Duncan was Thomas’ brother, who lived between Belfast and Glasgow.
5 Castor oil was used to ease constipation and induce vomiting. ‘So help me bob’ is a bowdlerisation of the Christian oath ‘So help me God.’ Usually rendered in Scotland as ‘Help ma boab.’
6 ‘Going for the messages’ is a Glasgow expression for going out for grocery shopping.
7 The equivalent temperature in Celsius is 38°.
8 Mrs Carmichael was a neighbour in the same tenement as the Livingstones.
9 Tommy usually walks his visitors to their tram or train, often travelling long distances. In this case, he and Hetty presumably walked from Govanhill to Central Station, in the centre of town, so that she could catch her train home. Hetty was Agnes’ cousin.
10 Nell Ruth was probably the wife of Frank Ruth who lived at 20 Morgan Street.
11 Andrew Hamilton was a former office boy in Paterson and Baxter, where Thomas worked. John and Margaret Carmichael lived at 14 Morgan Street and were neighbours and good friends of the Livingstones. Mrs Brown was likely to be Catherine or Charlesina Brown who lived at 14 Morgan Street. John McCort was the son of the painter, Daniel McCort (see 23 January, 1913).
12 Nannie Gordon.
13 Josephine was Thomas’ older sister.
14 ‘Thanks be to God’.
15 The Hundred Acre Hill, also known as the Hundred Acre Dyke, was a hill in Cathcart, now part of King’s Park.
16 The scullery was a small area off the kitchen generally used for washing and storing dishes and kitchen equipment.
17 The wash-house was a stone or brick structure at the rear of a tenement, used by all of the tenants in rotation. It contained a boiler, a number of sinks and a wringer or mangle.
18 Jenny Roxburgh was a family friend who lived in Clydebank and worked as a nursing sister in Maryhill.
19 Dalmuir is to the west of Glasgow, on the River Clyde near Clydebank.
20 Nannie Henderson was probably one of Agnes’ aunts.
21 ‘I don’t think so’.
22 Hampden, the Scottish national football stadium, is in the district of Mount Florida in south Glasgow. It had the largest capacity of any ground in Scotland, and one of the largest in Europe.
23 The game was one of six in the British Home Championship, which was won by Ireland.
24 Thomas’ brother-in-law.
25 ‘Of sound mind’.
26 Kingston Halls was a public hall in the Kinning Park district of Glasgow. The German word ‘Kinderspiel’ means children’s games.
27 Pollok Estate was owned by the Maxwell family for more than 700 years. It was gifted by them to the city of Glasgow in 1966. Part of the estate is now known as Pollok Country Park. The estate also contains the Burrell Collection gallery, opened in 1983.
28 Virol was a health food made from bone marrow.
29 Presumably for the tonsillectomy.
30 In the days before vacuum cleaners, spring cleaning involved taking the carpets outdoors, laying them on grass or hanging them
on washing lines, and beating them to remove dust and dirt.
31 The liner Aquitania was built by John Brown of Clydebank for the Cunard Line, for its fast weekly service between Liverpool and New York. Langbank is on the south side of the river, opposite Clydebank, giving a good view of the ship leaving the yard and heading to sea.
32 Small Lily was Josephine’s daughter and thus Thomas’ niece.
33 May 25 is Whitsun, one of the four Scottish quarter days. Most annual rentals began and ended on this day, so many of Thomas’ neighbours would be moving home that day.
34 This change was introduced by the government to preserve the efficiency of workers. See ‘Food and Drink’,.
35 The Empress of Ireland was a steamship owned by the Canadian Pacific Steamship Company which collided with the Norwegian ship Storstad in the St Lawrence Seaway.
36 The Cinerama stood at the corner of Victoria Road and Cuthbertson Street, near the Livingstone family home. It opened in 1912 in a former skating rink and closed in 1922.
37 The Lord of the Isles was a large paddle steamer, built by Hendersons of Partick, on the Clyde, and operated by Turbine Steamers.
38 Because Thomas worked on Saturday mornings, he travelled later in the day by the Glasgow and South Western Railway (GSW).
39 Ardbeg is to the north of Rothesay. The Jones girls were sisters and probably residents of the island.
40 Bogany Point and Skippers Wood are both to the south of Rothesay.
41 King George V and Queen Mary. Thomas is being facetious by saying ‘Holinesses’.
42 Tommy puts wavy lines under both ‘I’ and ‘church’, emphasising the rarity of the event. This is the only time in 1914 he records attending church.
43 Lamlash is on the island of Arran, reached by boat from Ardrossan in Ayrshire.
44 A collector for an assurance society.
45 Guns and ammunition were smuggled ashore near Howth, a village to the north-east of Dublin, on Sunday 26 July, and distributed to members of the Irish Volunteer Force. During a clash with the Dublin Metropolitan Police and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers (KOSB) three people were killed.
46 Servia is an archaic term for Serbia. Thomas spells it both ways at different points in the diary.
47 The latest war news may have been posted on the Tolbooth Steeple or Mercat Cross.
48 Thomas is mimicking the cries of the newspaper vendor, shouting ‘war special!’
49 The army requisitioned horses from Glasgow businesses for use at the front.
50 The 3rd Lanark Rifle Volunteers’ drill hall was in Coplaw Street, just west of Govanhill.
51 The Western Front was now the French and Belgians fighting along a broad front against the Germans. The British Expeditionary Force was preparing to land in France to join battle against the Germans.
52 The common staircase of the house, which residents took turns to wash, was not made of marble.
53 Brussels was evacuated by the Belgians and occupied by the Germans on 20 August.
54 Thomas is making fun of the official censor, who took a thick blue pencil to news reports from the continent.
55 The Battle of Mons began on 23 August.
56 Lord Kitchener, the Secretary of State for War, set a target of recruiting 100,000 volunteers for what he called the New Army, although it was popularly known as Kitchener’s Army.
57 Thomas worked in the shipping industry, and he may have heard about this naval action through his contacts at sea or in the ports.
58 The First Battle of Marne and the First Battle of Aisne had begun.
59 The War Fund was a public subscription to help pay the cost of the war.
60 To buy a newspaper with the latest war news.
61 All three ships, which were sailing in convoy in the North Sea, were sunk by the German submarine U9.
62 Stobhill Hospital was commandeered by the army and was known as Stobhill Military Hospital between 1914 and 1918. A railway station was built in its grounds to allow the injured to be transported there.
63 On the Western Front, where the Battles of Marne and Aisne were continuing.
64 Flag days, where local charities would take to the streets and give out flags in exchange for a donation, were a regular feature of Scotland in the first half of the twentieth century. The flags were printed pieces of paper, wrapped around a pin, which people would fasten to their clothing.
65 Many people volunteered along with their workmates, in what were known as ‘pals’ battalions’. The 15th (Service) Battalion (1st Glasgow) Glasgow Tramways of the Highland Light Infantry was formed in Glasgow on 2 September 1914 by the Lord Provost.
66 Probably an emulsion of cod liver oil. One branded product was Scott’s Emulsion, which was advertised as ‘the World’s Standard Body-Builder and Nerve-Food-Tonic’.
67 The refugees were lodged in the city and the surrounding towns.
68 This seems an odd destination, given current events, but cemeteries were seen as places for Sunday strolls in landscaped grounds.
69 Thomas’ father was presumably visiting relatives in the north of Ireland.
70 Isabella Ferguson, the daughter of Thomas’ sister Josephine.
71 At the Battle of Messines.
72 Elders are senior lay members of a church who take part in its organisation and administration.
73 From Lily’s house.
74 ‘The wean’ is a Scottish and North of England term for ‘the child’.
75 A former junior work colleague, rather than a former girlfriend.
76 The quotes are presumably from the two Glasgow newspapers Thomas read, The Glasgow Herald and The Bulletin.
77 The wooden bridge was probably for playing with alongside other toys. The slate was used for writing on with chalk or a slate pencil.
78 Probably framed prints.
79 The pictures from John.
80 Thomas may be exaggerating here.
81 The Russians defeated the Austrians at Tarnow and ended the Austro-German offensive in Galicia.
82 German for ‘the day’, which was presumably the momentous battle that would conclude the conflict.
1915
In 1915, the first full year of the war, Thomas records the battleships and merchantmen sunk by U-boats and mines, and notes the captured guns put on display in London ‘to decorate our parks with’. In January, he notes ‘a great French victory in Alsace Lorraine’. This territory was hugely important to the French, for cultural if not military reasons. The area, known by the Germans as the Imperial Province of Elsass-Lothringen, was created in 1871 by the German Empire after it captured most of Alsace and parts of Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War.
February was dominated by the imposition of a German submarine blockade on Britain, as retaliation for the Allied blockade of the Central Powers. Germany threatened to sink enemy ships of all kinds in British waters. In May, Germany torpedoed the Atlantic liner Lusitania, which sank with 1,300 passengers and crew, including many American citizens. While the Americans did not react publicly, this was one of the incidents that drew them into the war.
British Red Cross nurses close to the front line in Flanders.
The first significant use of poison gas during the war occurred in 1915, when in April the contents of 5,730 gas cylinders was released by the German army north of Ypres. The 168 tons of chlorine gas formed a cloud that drifted across the French trenches, causing the French to flee. The Allies claimed that this was a clear breach of international law, but the Germans argued that the Hague Conventions on the laws of war forbade only shells filled with poison gas. The Allies, who also used chlorine on the Western Front (where it was known as ‘Red Star’ after the markings on the cylinders), soon developed effective countermeasures against chlorine, and both they and the Central Powers continued to research more deadly chemical weapons.
The most important military action of 1915 was the Gallipoli Expedition. This was a campaign to open up the Dardanelles, which had been closed b
y Turkey when it entered the war on the German side in October 1914. In April 1915 a British Expeditionary Force that included the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (known as the Anzacs) landed in the Gallipoli Peninsula aiming to open the Dardanelles straits, conquer the Ottoman capital of Constantinople and make available a sea route to connect the Allies in the west with the forces of the Russian Empire, which were fighting the Austro-Hungarians and the Germans from the east. The British, Anzac and French forces that landed on the peninsula fought the Ottoman army for eight months before admitting defeat and retreating at the end of the year. The battles were long and hard, and the losses of men on both sides were unprecedented – more than 100,000 lives were lost, and another quarter of a million men were wounded.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who fought on the Ottoman side in 1915, became the first president of the Turkish state in 1923. In 1934, he erected a monument at Anzac Cove to all those who died at Gallipoli. The inscription reads:
Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets where they lie side by side here in this country of ours … You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. Having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
Tommy's War: A First World War Diary 1913-1918 Page 7