1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  1915: THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE

  Over the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a reputation as a popular author and historian of the First World War. Her books are They Called It Passchendaele, an account of the Passchendaele campaign in 1917; The Roses of No Man’s Land, a chronicle of the war from the neglected viewpoint of the casualties and the medical teams who struggled to save them; Somme, a history of the legendary and horrifying battle that has haunted the minds of succeeding generations; 1914: The Days of Hope, a vivid account of the first months of the war and winner of the 1987 Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award; 1914–1918: Voices and Images of the Great War, an illuminating account of the many different aspects of the war; and 1915: The Death of Innocence, a brilliant evocation of the year that saw the terrible losses of Aubers Ridge, Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres and Gallipoli. Her most recent book is To the Last Man: Spring 1918, the story of the massive German offensive that broke the British line and almost broke the British Army. All are based on the accounts of eye-witnesses and survivors, and cast a unique light on the First World War. All are published in Penguin.

  Lyn Macdonald is married and lives in London.

  1915 The Death of Innocence

  Lyn Macdonald

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  www.penguin.com

  First published by Hodder Headline 1993

  Published in Penguin Books 1997

  12

  Copyright © Lyn Macdonald, 1993

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  The poems on the part-title pages are reproduced with kind permission of the Estate of Robert Service, John Murray (Publishers) Ltd, Sidgwick and Jackson, Literary Executor of the estate of Roben Nichols, the Estate of Patrick MacGill

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  ISBN: 978-0-14-196117-0

  Contents

  Author’s Foreword and Acknowledgements

  List of Maps

  Part 1: ‘We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here…’

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part 2: Into Battle: Neuve Chapelle

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part 3: ‘This is the happy warrior – this is he!’

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Part 4: The Desperate Days

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Part 5: ‘Damn the Dardanelles – they will be our grave’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Part 6: Slogging On: The Salient to Suvla

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Part 7: Loos: The Dawn of Hope

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Part 8: The Dying of the Year

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Bibliography

  Author’s Note

  Index

  Author’s Foreword and Acknowledgements

  In the chronicle of the Great War the resonant names of great battles – Mons, Somme, Passchendaele – have echoed down the years. But although the Battles of Neuve Chapelle, Ypres, Loos were far from insignificant and have received some attention from historians (and the Gallipoli campaign has received a great deal), 1915 as a year has been strangely neglected.

  Looking back in harsh hindsight 1915 appears to be a saga of such horrors, of such mismanagement and muddle, that it is easy to see why it coloured the views of succeeding generations and gave rise to prejudices and myths that have been applied to the whole war. But it was a year of learning. A year of cobbling together, of frustration, of indecision. In a sense a year of innocence. Therein lies its tragedy.

  The battles of the early months of the war in 1914 were not ‘battles’ in any sense that Wellington would have understood. From the British point of view Mons, the Marne, the Aisne and the First Battle of Ypres were rather struggles for survival, and by January 1915 their names had already passed into legend. The incomparable Regular soldiers of the original British Expeditionary Force had suffered ninety per cent casualties and to all intents and purposes it was no more. The few who were left or had been hastily brought back from foreign stations held the line through the winter, together with the erstwhile ‘Saturday Afternoon Soldiers’ of the Territorial Force. The line ran through the Flanders swamps. The men who held it fought the wet; they fought the snow, the rain, the cold; they fought the floods and the mud. Ill-equipped and with pathetically small supplies of ammunition, they fought the Germans. And they waited – for the coming of spring, for the promised reinforcements, and for the better weather which would herald the start of the offensive that would surely break the German line and send them roaring through to victory.

  The first months of 1915 were a time of hope, of wide-ranging plans and far-reaching ideas which were destined to end, at best, in stalemate and in another gallant litany of fortitude and loss – Neuve Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, Festubert, Gallipoli, Ypres (always Ypres!) and Loos. By the end of the year all the old ideas of warfare had been swept away, although some of those responsible for the conduct of the war were slow to realise it. It was the year that brought the new armies they called ‘Kitchener’s Mob’ into the fight, sent the Anzacs to Gallipoli, the Canadians to Ypres. By the end of it there were some who already felt that the war had taken on a momentum of its own. It was a long time before the lessons of 1915 were learned and applied, for it was cursed with partial victories which implanted the idea that in better circumstances, with more ammunition, more men, better communications, more detailed planning, with firm leadership and with a modicum of luck, the enemy’s resistance could be finally crushed.

  Words like gallantry, endurance and patriotism have an old-fashioned ring about them which str
ikes discordantly on modern ears. It is easy to dismiss the soldiers as gullible victims, the generals and their political masters as incompetent dolts, the nation as a whole as unprotesting sheep blind to the realities which, eighty years on, a generation that believes itself to be endowed with superior sensibilities is quick to appreciate and condemn. To subscribe to this point of view is to show little understanding of human nature and the spirit of the times. We cannot alter history by disapproving of it. I hope that, by setting events in context, this book might add a little to the understanding of how and why things happened as they did. As always, my intention has been to ‘tell it like it was’, to tune in to the heartbeat of the experience of the people who lived through it. In the end it is the people who matter.

  My thanks, as always, must go first to the Old Soldiers who have told me their stories personally, written them down, or often vividly described what happened as we stood on the battlefields during one of my many trips to Flanders in their company. Many whose stories appear in this book have, alas, not survived to see them in print. Time is running out, and it is all the more important that we should listen, and listen carefully, before the curtain finally falls on the generation who experienced the Great War that was the watershed of the tumultuous twentieth century and the bridge between the old world and our own.

  It was a literate generation of inveterate letter-writers and diary keepers, and it is almost impossible to list the staggering number of people who have so very kindly sent me collections of letters, diaries, photographs, papers, belonging to their families or, occasionally, rescued from abandonment in antique shops. The latter give me particular pleasure – Corporal Letyford’s diary, from which extracts have appeared in 1914 as well as in this book, is just one example. I like to think he would have been pleased. My thanks to Andrew Taylor, to Ian Swindale for Pte. Harry Crask, to Dr R.C. Brookes for Pte. Bernard Brookes, Brenda Field for the memoir of Trooper Harry Clarke, R. A. Watson for Alan Watson’s diary, and to the many other people who have so generously endowed me with valuable contemporary written material and given me permission to make use of it. It goes without saying that my archive of first-hand material, written and oral, will in due course (on my demise or retirement) be passed to the care of the Imperial War Museum for the benefit of future students and historians.

  My thanks are also due to the Imperial War Museum, and in particular to Roderick Suddaby, Keeper of Documents, for his great interest and assistance in the preparation of this book and for making available unpublished material which makes a considerable contribution to its scope. Also to my friend and colleague Mike Willis, whose knowledge of the photographic archive is second to none, for his invaluable assistance with the illustrations.

  Many people have assisted in interviewing the Old Soldiers, and I must especially thank Barbara Taylor, Colin Butler, Chris Sheeran, and Eric Warwick. Others have helped enormously with the research in parts of the world which were not immediately accessible to me. I should like in particular to thank Elspeth Ewan in Scotland for local research in pursuit of extra information on Jim Keddie, Bill Paterson in Edinburgh, and Vivien Riches, who was my assistant a long time ago and who has maintained her interest since moving to Australia, where she found and interviewed the Australian veterans of Gallipoli.

  My French and Belgian friends have, as always, taken a great interest and, by sharing civilian recollections, added another dimension to the story of 1915. Yves de Cock generously made available his research on the gas attack. My friend Stephan Maenhout introduced his Tante Paula’ (Mevrow Hennekint née Barbieur) who told the story of her family in 1915. I must pay particular tribute to the senior members of my own much-loved French family, Pierre and Germaine Dewavrin, who have added so much to my understanding over the years, and whose recollections of 1915 appear in this book.

  Colonel Terry Cave most kindly helped with information on the Indians; Peter Thomas of Ρ & O and Vivien Riches in Australia between them researched different aspects of the story of the Southport; and Lord Sterling, Chairman of Ρ & O, also deserves my gratitude for his interest and for his generosity to the Old Soldiers.

  I must also thank Rennie McOwen and many readers of the Edinburgh Evening News who responded overwhelmingly to his request and showered me with unique photographs and personal recollections of the Royal Scots rail disaster. Anne Mackay of the Scottish Music Information Centre took a great interest and went to considerable trouble to supply me with the words of The March of the Cameron Men’ which, to our shame as Scots, neither General Christison nor I could wholly remember.

  Of all my books on the First World War 1915 has been the longest and most complicated to write. (My publisher, Alan Brooke, remarked ‘It’s taken as long as the war itself!’) With the deadline looming the last few months have been trying for my family. I must thank my husband, Ian Ross, for suffering almost in silence, for his constant interest and support, and for all the take-aways he brought home when there wasn’t any dinner!

  I have been blessed with colleagues over the years who have given unstintingly of their time, interest and support. Some are mentioned above. Tony Spagnoly is always available for interesting discussion and gave much appreciated help with the maps; and John Woodroff, my military researcher, deserves my warmest thanks for answering a million queries on corps, divisions, battalions and individual soldiers – plus many other topics – and he very occasionally took as long as five minutes to come up with the answer.

  Last, but by no means least, I must thank my stalwart assistant Sandra Layson, not just for her competence and efficiency, but for her bright presence, her sharp appreciation, her support and sympathy – evidenced by the occasional tear over the ‘sad bits’ – and for a great deal of extremely hard work.

  Lyn Macdonald

  London, 1993

  List of Maps

  The Western Front 1915

  The Front, Ypres to Vimy 1915

  The Battle of Neuve Chapelle

  Neuve Chapelle: German positions, 11 March

  Neuve Chapelle: The line at the end of the battle

  The Ypres Salient 22 April 1915

  Ypres: The Gas Attack

  Ypres: The Salient after Retirement

  Ypres: Bellewaerde and Frezenberg Ridge

  Aubers Ridge

  The Eastern Mediterranean

  The Gallipoli Peninsula

  Gallipoli: Helles and the Southern Sector

  Gallipoli: Gully Ravine, 28 June 1915

  Gully Ravine: Final line 5 July

  Gallipoli: Anzac

  Gallipoli: Suvla Bay and Anzac

  The Battle of Loos

  Loos, 26 September

  Loos, 14 October

  Part 1

  ‘We’re here because we here, because we’re here…’

  Oh, the rain, the mud, and the cold

  The cold the mud and the rain.

  With weather at zero it’s hard for a hero

  From language that’s rude to refrain.

  With porridgy muck to the knees

  With the sky that’s still pouring a flood,

  Sure the worst of our foes

  Are the pains and the woes

  Of the rain, the cold and the mud.

  Robert Service

  Chapter 1

  Across the chill wasteland that was Flanders in winter the armies had gone to ground. During the short hours of murky daylight, rifles occasionally crackled along some stretch of the line. From time to time a flurry of rooks, startled by a shot that ricocheted through a wood, rose cawing from the trees to wheel in the grey sky. Here and there, when some half-frozen soldier drew hard on his pipe, as if hoping its minuscule glow might keep out the cold, a stray puff of smoke would rise to mingle with the ground-mist that lay most days above the bogs and ditches. In Flanders, where the merest rise counted as a ridge and the smallest hill was regarded as a mountain, vantage points high enough to give a bird’s-eye view were rare, but on a quiet day even a vigilant observer standi
ng almost anywhere above the undulating length of the front line would have been hard pressed to detect any sign of life and, apart from the odd burst of desultory fire, any evidence that the trenches were manned at all.

  On the British side the fire was desultory because bullets were too precious to waste, and also because the soldiers were disinclined to shoot. Nineteen fifteen had swept in on the back of a gale, and high winds and violent rainstorms continued to torment the men in the trench line for day after dreary day. Peering across the parapet, enveloped in a clammy groundsheet that mainly served to channel the rain into rivers that trickled into his puttees and seeped downwards to chill his feet, contemplating the ever-worsening state of the rifle that rested on the oozing mud-filled sandbags, the last thing a soldier wished to do was foul the barrel by firing it if he could help it. Cleaning the outside was bad enough, and no sensible soldier was belligerent enough to wish to spend hours cleaning the bore for the sake of a few pot-shots in the general direction of the enemy.

  Such belligerence as there was at present was largely directed by officers towards their own troops. Authority on both sides of the line had strongly disapproved of the Christmas spirit of goodwill that had brought the front-line soldiers of both sides out of their trenches to swap greetings and gifts, and the rebukes that had passed down the chain of command through discomfited Brigadiers, Colonels and Majors to the rank and file, had left them in no doubt that such a thing must not occur again. But it was good while it lasted.

  Parcels had arrived by the trainload from Germany and by the boatload from England, from places as far apart as Falmouth and Flensburg, Ullapool and Ulm. So many trains were required to bring the flood of Christmas mail to France from the Fatherland that German transport and supply depots were seriously disrupted, and even officers at the front complained that crowded billets and narrow trenches were becoming dangerously congested, for goods and parcels were showered on the troops by legions of anonymous donors as well as by friends and families. In most Germans towns and villages committees had been formed to raise funds and send Christmas parcels, Weinachtspaketen, to the troops. The more sentimental called them ‘love parcels’ – Liebespaketen – and at least one recipient, fighting for the Kaiser in the comfortless trenches of the Argonne was struck by the irony of the name. He expressed his thoughts in a plaintive verse that appeared in one of the many columns of thank-you letters in a German newspaper whose readers had been particularly generous. ‘So much love,’ he sighed, ‘and no girls to deliver it!’* Even the Kaiser sent cigars – ten per man – in tasteful individual boxes inscribed ‘Weinachten im Feld, 1914’.