1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  The dilemma which faced them was whether to strongly reinforce the troops in the peninsula as Sir Ian Hamilton had desired, and to make an all-out effort to capture it, or to cut their losses and give it up. Already opinion was split between ‘Easterners’ who clung to the idea of pursuing the strategy in the eastern Mediterranean and ‘Westerners’ who subscribed to the belief that the war could only be won on the western front. There were many factors to take into consideration. Bulgaria, just as they had feared, had now entered the war on the side of their enemies and had already invaded Serbia. At the behest of the French the 10th Division had already been dispatched with a French Division from Gallipoli to the Greek port of Salonika in an effort to break through to help the Serbs, and although it was even now apparent that they had only a slender chance of succeeding the French were pressing for reinforcements. It was a delicate political situation, not least because of the continuing neutrality of Greece. What was to be done? No one could decide.

  Eventually a compromise was reached and it was agreed that a strong force should be sent to Egypt ‘without prejudice to its final destination’. Gallipoli? Salonika? It was anybody’s guess, but at least it would buy time. But the Dardanelles Committee did reach one unanimous decision. Sir Ian Hamilton was to be sacked.

  Another head was also destined for the block. Returning by special train from an Anglo-French conference at Chantilly at which the Salonika question had been the main item on the agenda, General Callwell, then Director of Military Operations at the War Office, overheard an interesting conversation in the dining car. Lloyd George, Mr Asquith and Sir Edward Grey were discussing the replacement of Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies in France. They made no effort to lower their voices and since a short train of only two coaches makes less noise than a long one, their words were plainly heard.

  Major-General C. E. Callwell, KCB.

  The Big Three sat together at one table, whilst we lesser fry congregated close at hand at others. They may perhaps have been somewhat stimulated by draughts of sparkling vintage! But, be that as it may, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Munitions were in their most expansive mood, and after a time their conversation was followed by the rest of us with considerable interest. To the sailors present, also to one or two of the junior officers, it was probably news – and it must surely have been news to the waiters – to learn that Sir John French was shortly to vacate command of the BEF in France. Nor could we be other than gratified at the discussions concerning Sir Douglas Haig’s qualifications as a successor. I was expecting every moment to hear Sir William Robertson’s suitability for the post freely canvassed – he was sitting back-to-back with the Munitions Minister. Cabinet Ministers certainly are quaint people.

  But Haig seemed the obvious candidate for the job of Commander-in-Chief, and there was little doubt on whom the final choice would fall.

  Jock Macleod celebrated his twenty-first birthday in style. After a better-than-usual dinner in the mess, supplemented by a birthday cake from home, the officers drank his health in port wine laid down by his godfather in the year of his birth, and which he had brought back after his last leave with this occasion in mind. It was the eve of the 27th Division’s departure for an unknown destination and early next morning the Battalion marched off to entrain. It was a long, slow journey. Mail was collected along the way to be censored and dispatched at the first opportunity, and Jock was able to post a letter home.

  I am now using a new pony.

  Nothing seems to do any good

  to my old pony, which still

  remains lame in spite of

  all bandages. The pony that

  I now have belonged to our origi-

  nal padre, who has left us

  for the Base Camp at Havre.

  On the completion of his year he

  returns to his parish. He had

  merely six weeks to do until then,

  and so the authorities decided to

  retain him in France. It did not

  seem worthwhile to

  employ him with us, and then

  immediately send him back.

  Last night we had a

  long rumour that a Bulgarian gen-

  eral had been assassinated.

  Sorry that I have no news!

  Yours Aye,

  Jock.

  The censor passed it without comment for its contents were of no importance. But it was of considerable interest to his family, for it was written in a clever code, prearranged with Jock’s father. Added together, the first letters of each line spelt out the news he wished to impart: I-N T-R-A-I-N F-O-R M-A-R-S-E-I-L-L-E-S.

  He had no idea where the 27th Division was ultimately bound for. Neither had anyone else. The 27th Division had been sent off ‘without prejudice to its final destination’. But they were only too thankful to kick the mud of Flanders from their feet and nobody gave a hoot where they were going.

  Part 8

  The Dying of the Year

  Colonel Cold strode up the Line

  (Tabs of rime and spurs of ice),

  Stiffened all where he did glare,

  Horses, men, and lice

  Visited a forward post,

  Left them burning, ear to foot,

  Fingers stuck to biting steel,

  Toes to frozen boot.

  Those who watched with hoary eyes

  Saw two figures gleaming there,

  Hauptman Kälte, Colonel Cold,

  Gaunt, in the grey air.

  Edgell Rickword

  Chapter 37

  On the western front, after a spell of fine autumn weather when the sun shone through the dying days of the Loos offensive, winter set in cold and harsh and early as the troops settled into the monotonous routine of holding the line. After a brief rest the 15th Scottish Division was back in the trenches. This time they were in front of the Hohenzollern redoubt, and it was a bleak initiation for the men of the new drafts.

  Even in the best of weather it was not an inspiring spot and wrapped in the dank mist of early winter it was positively eerie. The mist hung above the low plateau of the redoubt and hung in wisps round the unlovely slag-heaps where two battered cranes still sat drunkenly askew on the flat top of Fosse 8. The leaden November skies added to the gloom and the ground between the lines bore miserable witness to the fearsome efforts that had been made to capture it. Among the battered trenches, the splintered stakes that still supported remnants of rusting wire, the dead were lying in rows, just as they had been cut down – as neatly and tidily as if some ghostly sergeant-major had drilled them in their dying as he had once drilled them on the parade-ground. There was no possibility of bringing in the bodies and as they decomposed, the smell of death and decay hung thick about the trenches.

  But the dead soldiers were still doing duty of a sort for soldiers creeping close to the enemy lines on listening patrols could lie low among the dead and get away with it. It was not a job for the squeamish.

  Pte. C. Stewart.

  My first listening party there I’ll never forget. We were out there in No Man’s Land, crawling out among the dead boys, because the idea was that if we lay close to the dead boys you would think we were dead. We spaced ourselves out, so you would be on your own among these corpses and we had to be quiet, no noise, no speaking. After a while, if we couldn’t see or hear anything and it was time to come in, the NCO in charge would crawl round and give your foot a kick. That was the only way he could see if you was one of the Loos dead or one of his listening party. If you responded to his kick he gave you the sign to come into the trench again and if there was no response then he knew it was one of the poor boys killed at Loos.

  The officer in charge of the listening party was a very fine chap. We just called him ‘Algy’, because he always wore a monocle. He was a great guy, always for his men and a real good sport when we were out of the trenches. After we got back into our own trench we found that our officer ‘Algy’ was missing and they
called for volunteers to go out again into No Man’s Land to get him in. Everyone wanted to go. I wasn’t chosen for the rescue party, but the boys did get ‘Algy’ in and he was very badly wounded. We sent him down the line a bit, and maybe he got the length of the big hospital at Etaples, but I am so sorry to say he died. At least he would get a burial. There was nothing you could do for the boys lying out in front at Loos. They were a terrible sight. We used to talk about it afterwards – and even long afterwards, for the rest of war, we would say that something or somebody was ‘as quiet as the Loos dead’. It was quite an expression with us.

  Trpr. W. Clarke.

  It was impossible to bury them all. They lay in the trenches where they’d fallen or had been slung and earth had just been put on top of them and when the rain came it washed most of the earth away. You’d go along the trenches and you’d see a boot and puttee sticking out, or an arm or a hand, sometimes faces. Not only would you see, but you’d be walking on them, slipping and sliding. The stench was terrible because of all that rotting flesh. When you think of all the bits and pieces you saw! But if you ever had to write home about a particular mate you’d always say that he got it cleanly and quickly with a bullet and he didn’t know what had happened.

  Looking over the top through the periscope we could see old Jerry’s line about fifty yards in front. So I thought, ‘Blimey, that’s within bombing range, isn’t it?’ We kept our eye on him all night – and by the way, we had no wire in front of our trenches, it was all open! – and me being the left-hand man there was no one at the side of me, so I had to traverse through a lot of trenches to make contact with the infantry on our left, and blow me if I didn’t come across the dead Welsh Fusilier again I’d come across weeks before, only there was hardly anything left of him by then. I felt responsible for him, don’t know why, so I popped him in the side of the trench again. That was the last I saw of him.

  Pte. F. Bastable.

  We went in the trenches ten days at a time – sometimes it was twelve days, but if you was lucky it was ten – a day marching up, three days in the front line, three days in support and three days in reserve, and in that weather you was a right mess when you got out. You’d march back to your billet and when you got back your coat was covered in mud, you couldn’t lift them hardly sometimes because they’d be dragged down in mud, and you’re in mud all the time. Then you had to get these coats cleaned and your rifle cleaned and go on parade next morning. It’s impossible, you know, to get all the mud off your coat in that time and go on parade, and I was really unlucky. I was Mess Orderly and I had other duties to do and I suppose I got my coat clean but I hadn’t cleaned my rifle. It was loaded, and I went on parade with it loaded. Of course when they inspected your rifle you had to have it properly cleaned and you had to open and shut your bolts so that they clicked all together. Well, I went to pull my bolt and it fired out this bullet! It went right past the bloke’s nose next to me – nearly hit him. Well, I got court-martialled for that. I got ten days’ number one field punishment, and it was bleeding cold and the worst time of the year.

  I got tied up against this cart-wheel. I never knew they was going to do that. I never knew they done such a thing (they don’t do it now!). It was done under the Military Police and there were a few of us who’d been court-martialled (not for the same thing) and they gave us orders to go to the wagon-lines and told us to bring up the wagons and clean the wheels, because they were covered in mud. Well, the old soldiers might have known what was going to happen, but I didn’t. I thought it was just like fatigues and this was the punishment, cleaning the wheels. But it wasn’t! After we’d cleaned them they tied us one up against each wheel for a couple of hours a day, an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.

  I wasn’t none too keen! I wasn’t all that eager to do it. I got froze! You had to run round to get warm after that and there was a school there and we used to run round the playground to get our circulation back, because it was bleeding cold. Anyway, I done this ten days and went back up the line again. When I got back (we were in the reserve line at the time) I laid on the firestep of the trench and went off to sleep. Now sometimes if you go off to sleep in the cold you don’t wake up again. They say that sometimes they used to find men dead of a morning, just with lying in the cold. Anyway I went off to sleep and I felt myself, like, sinking, just as though I was sinking down, and I roused myself and woke up. I was covered in snow. It must have been the first snow of winter, in fact we didn’t have much more of it until January time, but when I roused myself and woke up it was all snowing. I shan’t forget that. I shall always remember that. It was bleeding awful.

  Snow before Christmas was unusual, but the bone-chilling night frosts that descended on the trenches were bad enough. Years later they said it was the worst winter of the war – but it was the first winter in memory in which tens of thousands of men had been forced to live exposed to the elements with only holes in the ground for shelter. Women at home were so busy knitting that the clack of millions of needles might almost have been heard in France, but they were knitting socks and there was hardly a parcel that did not contain at least one pair. Now, at the urgent request of battalions in France, there were published appeals for other garments – mufflers, mittens, wrist-warmers, woollen helmets, knitted waist-coats, and yet more mufflers. Many months ago someone in the Quarter-master-General’s department had the wit to look ahead to winter and about this time the troops were issued with fur jerkins. They looked extremely odd for they were made from a variety of furs – goatskin, sheepskin, the skins of shaggy ponies and even of piebald cows. They were imported mainly from South America and, since some of the skins had been badly cured, they did not always smell particularly sweet. Wearing these bulky garments fur side out over khaki tunics, with equipment strapped and belted round them, the Tommies closely resembled an army of brigands, but the jerkins were a lifesaver and a bulwark against the Flanders chill.

  When the gnawing cold abated, it turned to rain, and in the Ypres salient it rained in torrents. Company Quartermaster-Sergeant Scott McFie was enduring his second winter in the salient and, as he graphically described in a letter to his brother, it was no more pleasant than the first.

  My dear Jimmy,

  I had a little break in the monotony of life on Sunday night. I still live with the stores in my tents by the side of the farm pond, but the men have been moved about almost every day lately. On Sunday they were at the point of the salient, between the much-contested place where we made our charge and the hill with the numerical name. It is always pretty lively there, the place being almost surrounded by the Germans. Also it is an awfully long way off, a good ten miles at the least, and the tracks, especially the tracks across the fields, were deep in mud with the heavy and continuous traffic after a day of never-ceasing rain. So I put plenty of dubbing on my boots and made up my mind for twenty miles of bad walking in the dark. Fortunately there was a good moon or I don’t see how we could have avoided the big shell craters, now full of water and unpleasantly cold.

  We reached the wood just behind the firing line where our men were, and were waiting for the fatigue parties to come and carry away the bags of rations when the Germans suddenly began an attack to regain some of the ground they lost lately. The first thing that happened was that a packhorse bolted without its leader. Then all the carts belonging to other regiments fled home at a gallop. Then a lot of soldiers came running from the direction where the attack was and rushed for positions of greater safety – but I think they were only a digging party and not fighters. All the time there was a fine display of fireworks – not only the ordinary white magnesium rocket, but green and red stars, and even clusters of various colours – signals of course – and the bursting shrapnel of high-explosive shells from both sides, an occasional small mine going off, and the rattle of the machine-guns and rifles made a most deafening noise. Everybody who could took shelter in a communication trench close to us, but as I was the senior left I had to s
tay with the transport. I took the responsibility of unloading all the things on the ground and sending the carts and horses back. They went off in such a hurry, and the ground was so slippery, that two horses fell and two men were slightly injured.

  We do not yet know what was the result of the attack. As soon as things grew quieter we handed over the rations and did our muddy ten miles home.

  It is a horrible day – pouring and blowing furiously. My ‘office’ has been trying to go up like a balloon and I have had to sit and watch for loose pegs all day. The groundsheets are covered with mud, little rivers run in at each corner, occasionally a gust of wind gets in and scatters everything. However the other tents are worse, and many have been blowing about the field like autumn leaves in a gale.

  I was out last night, first to the town of Ypres with rations, and then to a village about five miles away to attend the funeral of my captain, another officer and two men who had been killed that morning by a shell when out for a walk. I fear he must have been very badly smashed for he was a tall big man and the bundle in a blanket which we buried at night was quite short. Barring the colonel, who is ill, we have no officer with us now of more than a few weeks’ standing.

  Many thanks also for the big tin of milk, the chocolate, the candles (very scarce just now!) and the handkerchiefs.