1915: The Death of Innocence

by Lyn Macdonald

  I said to a doctor, Is it possible to get a drink of water? I’m dying of thirst.’ He said, I’m afraid we haven’t got a drop.’ I said, ‘Well, does nobody think of scraping that snow off the scrub outside there and melting it?’ So he sent someone off to do that and after a while an orderly came down with about half a pint of snow water. When I saw him I said, ‘Well, well, well, so it’s you, Snodgrass!’ Now this Snodgrass was a man I’d sent down weeks before with a self-inflicted wound. I heard this shot and I rushed out and he was sitting on one of the latrines, and he said, ‘I’ve been wounded in the foot.’ Imagine that, wounded in the foot sitting on the latrine! Well, he showed me and believe it or not the boot wasn’t even undone – it was all laced up, and that fellow’s state of mind was such that he had taken off his boot, shot himself, and put his boot back on again! Well, a chap like that is no good to you at all. However, he’d obviously got off with it, and when I saw him there in the clearing station I said, ‘There you are, Snodgrass, I told you you wouldn’t get off this peninsula until the show was over, but you’re much safer down here.’ He said, I’m all right, sir.’ I said, ‘It’s human nature, old chap, but it’s a terrible thing to go SIW and leave your pals behind. Anything’s better than that, so you stick to your job.’

  As a matter of fact that was the thing that was worrying me. I knew that I was very badly wounded, but the strange thing was that it didn’t worry me a scrap. It was leaving my men to do a job that I was there to help them to do – that’s what worried me most somehow.

  But the job was almost over and in a very few days after Gordon Beith left the shores of the peninsula the evacuation would begin and the remnants of the men who had struggled so valiantly for eight long months to do their job would be turning their backs on Gallipoli, leaving all its miseries and the graves of many thousand comrades behind them.

  Chapter 38

  After the storm that tore the last breath from the Gallipoli campaign there was a long spell of fine weather. The sun shone, there were chilly breezes but they were gentle and the tideless sea that lapped the beaches was mercifully calm. Without good weather the evacuation would have been infinitely more difficult.

  It was a difficult operation, later regarded as one of the triumphs of the war, and until it was safely accomplished the Turks had no idea that it was underway. It had taken nerve and cunning and discipline. For only disciplined troops could have padded silently with muffled feet along tortuous pathways from the trenches to the beaches, first from Suvla, then from Anzac, and maintained their silence on the beaches, waiting to board the lighters that glided in from the darkened sea to carry them off. It took nerve for the men waiting their turn in the emptying trenches, seeing their luckier comrades depart, working all the while to do the work of ten, twenty, a hundred men, rushing from point to point to send up flares and to fire the fixed rifles that would delude the enemy, knowing that it would be all up if they were attacked. And it had taken cunning and Machiavellian ingenuity to invent the devices that would send up the flares, explode the mines, keep up the rifle-fire, and keep the Turks guessing and on their toes for hours after the last of them was safely away.

  It was some satisfaction, particularly to the Anzacs, that they had at long last succeeded in putting one over Johnny Turk. They bore him no ill will. The Turks had been clean fighters and worthy adversaries, and although at the last moment the main supply dumps were blown up or set on fire, where battalion rations and even prized possessions like gramophones had to be left in dug-outs, notes were sometimes found fixed to the wall with a nail or a spent bullet: ‘So long, Johnny. It’s all yours. Love from Australia.’ One Turkish officer in charge of a cautious reconnoitring party kept such a note as a souvenir for the rest of his life.

  The evacuation went like clockwork. General Monro’s estimate of 30 to 40 per cent casualties was wildly wrong. By the combined efforts of the Army and the Royal Navy not a single man was lost and by 20 December all the troops on Gallipoli had been evacuated – with the exception of the unfortunate 29th Division who were ordered to stay for seventeen more days to garrison Cape Helles.

  Christmas on Gallipoli was not something to look forward to with unalloyed pleasure. Months ago, before the failure of the August battles, supplies of the 29th Division Christmas card (designed and printed in Egypt) had arrived on the peninsula, and the soldiers had bought them by the dozen to send to friends and families at home. They depicted a British bulldog clinging grimly to the toe of the peninsula. It was strangely appropriate.

  The delivery of Christmas mail in the eastern Mediterranean was a headache, for the troops evacuated from the peninsula were scattered far and wide – many in Egypt, some en route to Salonika, some still on the Aegean islands – but the Royal Navy had turned up trumps, and with its assistance most of the soldiers’ mail was delivered before Christmas. The Australians on Lemnos received a large consignment on Christmas Eve. There were letters and cards and parcels from home, and every man received a billy-can from the people of Australia packed with acceptable goodies – smokes, and pipes, and razors and sweets and socks and handkerchiefs. Some of the billy-cans were decorated with a cartoon of a victorious kangaroo, feet firmly planted on the peninsula, with the caption ‘Thispart o’ the world belongs to US!’ That hurt.

  Even the delivery of mail to the western front had stretched the resources of the Army Postal Service to the limit. There were hundreds of tons of mail, mostly parcels containing Christmas gifts and this year there were some interesting novelties. Manufacturers who had been caught on the hop by the speed of events last year had taken pains to design and produce goods to tempt shoppers looking for suitable gifts for men in the forces. Even firms like Goldsmiths and Silversmiths Ltd, who had always supplied their affluent clients with luxury goods – gold cigarette cases, rings, watches and lockets, silver-backed brushes and so on – now offered a range of items designed for more practical use. An officer’s whistle in solid silver, which ingeniously combined a detachable compass and silver indelible pencil; a collapsible drinking cup, also in silver and enclosed in a leather case; a luminous wrist watch in silver or gold; silver hip-flasks, matchboxes and tinder cigarette lighters whose discreet glow was guaranteed not to attract the attention of the enemy if lit in the trenches.

  Lance-Corporal Jim Keddie of the 48th Highlanders of Canada had recently received a present, of a sort, from a grateful Government – and it was not before time. It was more than six months since his foot was shattered at Ypres and then amputated in hospital at Huddersfield. Later he went to convalescent camp at Shorncliffe and his stump was healed, but he was still hobbling on crutches, waiting wearily for his turn to be fitted with an artificial limb at Queen Mary’s Hospital at Roehampton. The hospital was working flat out but there was a long, long list of maimed soldiers awaiting admission, and it took all the efforts of Jim Keddie’s mother, who took it up with her Member of Parliament, and an irate correspondence in the newspapers to shift him up the queue.

  Sir,

  The question put by Sir John Jardine in the House of Commons last week brought out into clear relief the treatment to which this young man has been subjected by the military hospital authorities. Lance-Corporal James Keddie was one of the heroic Canadian contingent which hastened homewards as soon as the cry reached the Far West that the Mother country needed them. He had the misfortune to be severely wounded at Ypres in May last, and as a consequence a foot had to be amputated. One would have thought that with the least possible delay an artificial foot would have been fitted in the hospital at Shorncliffe. But, no! Month after month has passed and James Keddie has been compelled to limp about on crutches, a very trying and depressing experience for a young man. He appears to have been referred to one authority after the other and all his appeals to have the limb replaced before he returned to Canada, disregarded. Obviously the advantage to him lay in having this completed in this country, so that he might be able to spend a time in his own home at Jedburgh before setti
ng sail for Canada. Lance-Corporal Keddie has not been well treated by the home authorities, in fact very badly. An incident like this is bound to do harm to the call of patriotic duty, and there may be other cases of a similar nature. It is devoutly to be hoped Sir John’s question will lead to prompt reparation.

  Yours faithfully,

  A Border Canvasser.

  In late November, and somewhat ahead of his turn, Keddie was sent to Roehampton to be fitted with his new foot and to learn to walk again. Now he fully expected to be home in Jedburgh for Christmas and better still to bring in the New Year in Scotland in the knowledge that he was out of the war for good.

  William Cushing was just as certain that he would be spending Christmas at the front, for his first home leave expired on 19 December.

  2nd Lt. W. Cushing.

  I don’t know who it was who suggested that I should bring back with me a turkey, a Norfolk turkey, for the officers’ mess Christmas dinner, or whether I made the suggestion myself. At all events I went to a shop in Prince of Wales Road, Norwich. As soon as these good people heard that I wanted to take a turkey to France, they offered me one at cost price. Rashly, I said that in that case I would take two! ‘And what about some sausages?’ ‘A good idea,’ said I. ‘We’ll put you those in free,’ they said. I thanked them, and some days later just before catching the train at Norwich Thorpe Station, I called to fetch the packages. The turkeys, each weighing some twenty-four pounds, and several pounds of sausages, were beautifully packed in two hampers with handles, and once more thanking these kind people, I set down Prince of Wales Road for the station. Those two hampers! By the time I arrived even at Thorpe Station my arms were aching, and by the time I got back to the battalion, out at rest in the Poperinghe woods, those birds seemed to have increased in weight to about half a ton each! However, they and I were welcomed and acclaimed!

  Next day the turkeys were cooked for an early Christmas dinner in the officers’ mess and Cushing’s health was drunk with glowing appreciation. Two days before Christmas the 9th Norfolks marched back to the line. The war had to go on, and to make sure that it did GHQ had sent an edict to every Division.

  CONFIDENTIAL

  140th Infantry Brigade

  The G.O.C. directs me to remind you of the unauthorised truce which occurred on Christmas Day at one or two places in the line last year, and to impress upon you that nothing of the kind is to be allowed on the Divisional front this year.

  The Artillery will maintain a slow gun fire on the enemy’s trenches commencing at dawn, and every opportunity will as usual be taken to inflict casualties upon any of the enemy exposing themselves.

  (Signed) B. BURNETT HITCHCOCK,

  Lt. Colonel,

  General Staff,

  47th (London) Division

  19th Decr. 1915.

  Just before Christmas the War Office produced a long and detailed memorandum on the future conduct of the war based on a realistic analysis of the events of the past year. They made it clear that the war would not be won by improvisation, and the muddled inception of the Gallipoli campaign proved it, just as the debacle at Suvla Bay demonstrated that determined, experienced leadership was vital to success. No longer would commanders be appointed on the basis of seniority in the army hierarchy. It was plain to the General Staff that Egypt and the Suez Canal must always be defended, but other commitments in the eastern Mediterranean were not desirable, nor was it desirable to disperse the strength of the Royal Navy, so vital to the defence of Britain’s far-flung sea routes as well as her island shores. Germany could not be defeated through the back door. As for Serbia and Russia, they could best be helped by a successful offensive on the western front, and the breakthrough at Loos had shown that it could be achieved and that complete success had been within their grasp.

  The Staff detailed the lessons that must be learned. The wire had not been sufficiently cut – more heavy guns and shells were needed, more men were needed, more careful planning by a well-trained Staff and less dependence on a single factor like the use of gas to compensate for other deficiencies. They could not rely on luck alone.

  There was no criticism of the troops. The Staff, like the senior officers in the field, had been astonished by the prowess and endurance of the soldiers of the New Army, were lavish in their praise of the Territorials, and confident that with more preparation, more experience, more materials, more backing, they would stand ‘a fair chance of success’. ‘But,’ the authors wisely reminded, ‘there is no certainty in war.’

  Nevertheless the message was clear. Come next year new brooms would sweep aside the debris of the setbacks that littered the chronicle of 1915 and sweep the New Armies to victory in the year ahead.

  Sir Douglas Haig was already installed as Commander-in-Chief and on Christmas Eve Sir John French motored for the last time to Calais and boarded a destroyer en route for England to take up his new post in command of the Home Forces. Officially, the Government had ‘reluctantly accepted his resignation’. Privately they thanked him profusely for his valuable services and assured him that no criticism was implied in their desire for a change. He was endowed with a peerage and also with the promise of a suitable pecuniary reward at the end of the war. The deposed Commander-in-Chief, newly ennobled, had given some thought to the choice of a title and decided on ‘Viscount French of Ypres’ – perhaps with a very natural desire to remind the nation down succeeding generations that his services had been thought to be of value when they were most needed.

  Fifteen months of the strain and responsibility of command in a war waged on a scale which had never before been encountered, with anxieties and disappointments at every turn, would have taxed the capacities of a much younger and fitter man. French was now in his sixty-fourth year. He was bitterly aggrieved and indignant, but in his heart of hearts he could not have been sorry to be going home, even if he was not much in the mood to celebrate Christmas.

  It was a stormy crossing, for the weather was filthy. At Ypres the rain had turned to sleet and it was bitterly cold. The 9th Norfolks were in wet trenches at Wieltje and B Company was in the front line where even the sandbags were disintegrating into slush and the duckboards were under water. Just before they left camp, Cushing had received a mammoth package of woollens from his Aunt Laura who was headmistress of the Girls’ Primary School at Swaffham. It represented months of work by the staff, the girls, and their relatives and it contained enough jerseys and mufflers and helmets and socks and gloves to kit out every member of No. 1 Platoon with at least one additional warm garment. They sorely needed them now and Cushing was sorry for them, for several were new to the platoon and were finding their initiation into trench life a spartan experience. Two inventive spirits thought to improve matters and, spotting some abandoned corrugated iron behind the trench, crawled out at night to retrieve it and propped it over their firebay to make a slightly weatherproof shelter. They were quite proud of their handiwork and actually went to fetch their platoon officer to admire it, feeling quite obviously that what the Army had lacked before their own arrival was brains. Cushing was forced to point out that the purpose of a firing bay was to fire from, and that their splendid roof entirely defeated that purpose. But he told them kindly and without undue blustering. Although he was several years their senior and had been a schoolmaster in civil life, it was not so very long ago that he himself had arrived, green and ignorant, to join the Battalion.

  Even in that short time there were new faces in the ranks and in the mess, and every day there were more casualties.

  2nd Lt. W. Cushing.

  On the morning of Christmas Eve a man in B Company on our right was hit in the head by a sniper’s bullet, and died a few minutes later. The new Second-in-Command of the Battalion was in the line on a visit of inspection. He was an energetic and efficient officer but he was also a fire-eater. He made both platoons file past the dead man, saying to each, ‘You must avenge this. You must kill two Germans for every one of our dead.’ I said nothing, but
I felt outraged. The men evidently thought he was mad. The object of war, the aim of a battle, is not primarily to kill numbers of the enemy, but to defeat his forces in battle. The men resented the Major’s tactless tactics. It was the mistaken psychology of fire-eating blimps and it made the bloodshed of war evilly bloodier.

  In the line at Loos a battalion of the Camerons had a Christmas visit from a Staff Officer.

  Lt. G. Barber, 1st Bn., Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, 1st Brig., 1stDiv.

  On the morning of the 24th I was sent to D Company, to take command while Gordon went on leave. This time D Company was in a support trench about a hundred and fifty yards from the front line. This trench was in poor condition – narrow, too seldom traversed, and not nearly deep enough. As I had to send two platoons up to the front line every night, it was rather difficult to improve the trench, especially as no work was possible by day owing to the fact that the Hun on Hill 70 could look down and shoot right along it. This fact was not fully appreciated by the Powers That Be who wear Red Hats, until one of them arrived about eleven o’clock in the morning on Christmas Eve and shouted down the steps of my dug-out for me. I went up and found an irate Staff Officer who wanted to know why the devil my men were not doing any work! I pointed out to him, respectfully but firmly, that unless he wanted half the men blotted out it was an impossibility. While arguing the point, he started along the trench and when he was about thirty yards away from the dug-out the Huns put over a covey of ‘pip-squeaks’. I’ve never seen a staff officer hurry so fast in all my life! He bolted into my dug-out like a rabbit, head first. He then stayed so long talking about the impossibility of working by day, that I very nearly had to offer him lunch! Christmastime did not reduce the daily hate on both sides.

  But in some parts of the line at least the ‘hate’ tailed away in the evening of Christmas Eve. It was the Germans’ Weihnachtsabend, the traditional night of celebration, but there was not much sign of celebration in the trenches. From time to time there was a plaintive attempt at a carol and once in the trenches close to Plugstreet Wood a tremendous voice entertained the trenches of both sides with a selection from La Traviata, stopping abruptly in mid-aria as if a door had been slammed shut. Near Wulverghem a Christmas tree ablaze with candles appeared on the parapet of the German front trench. For a few moments the tiny pinpoints of flame flickered uncertainly in the dark until a British officer ordered rapid fire and the Tommies shot it down.