CHESTERFIELD WFA

Newsletter and Magazine issue 52

Co-Patrons -Sir Hew Strachan & Prof. Peter Simkins Welcome to Issue 52 - the April 2020 Newsletter and Magazine of President - Professor Gary

Sheffield MA PhD FRHistS Chesterfield WFA.

FRSA

Vice-Presidents In view of the current public health

Andre Colliot engulfing the globe, your committee took the prudent Professor John Bourne BA PhD FRHistS decision, before the introduction of The Burgomaster of Ypres Government legislation, to cancel the The Mayor of Albert April, May and June Meetings of the

Lt-Col Graham Parker OBE Branch. The Branch outing to Cannock,

Christopher Pugsley FRHistS and meetings of the Book Discussion Lord Richard Dannat GCB CBE MC Group have likewise been cancelled. DL Meetings and other activities will be Roger Lee PhD jssc restarted as and when the authorities Dr Jack Sheldon deem it safe for us to do so. Branch contacts In the interim this Newsletter / Magazine will Tony Bolton (Chairman) continue anthony.bolton3@btinternet .com We would urge all our members to adopt all the Mark Macartney (Deputy Chairman) government`s new regulations that way we can keep [email protected] safe and hopefully this crisis will be controlled and the Jane Lovatt (Treasurer) Grant Cullen (Secretary) defeated. [email protected] Facebook Stay safe everybody – we are all – in the meantime - http://www.facebook.com/g `Confined to Barracks` roups/157662657604082/ http://www.wfachesterfield.com/ Grant Cullen – Branch Secretary

Western Front Association Chesterfield Branch – Meetings 2020

Meetings start at 7.30pm and take place at the Labour Club, Unity House, Saltergate, Chesterfield S40 1NF

January 7th . AGM and Members Night – presentations by Jane Ainsworth, Ed Fordham, Judith Reece, Edwin Astill and Alan Atkinson

February 4th Graham Kemp `The Impact of the economic blockage of AFTER the armistice and how it led to WW2`

March 3rd Peter Hart Après la Guerre Post- blues, demobilisation and a home fit for very few.

April 7th Andy Rawson Tea Pots to Tin Lids…how the factory which inspired his research (Dixons) switched from making tea services for hotels and cruise ships to making Brodie helmets in the Great War. CANCELLED May Nick Baker . The has always fought a long battle with 5th the debilitations cause to its soldier’s efficiency through venereal , a combination of behavioural change and civilian interference resulted in an ‘’ of VD which threatened military effectiveness.CANCELLED June 2nd Rob Thompson 'The Gun Machine: A Case Study of the Industrialisation of Battle during the Flanders Campaign, 1917.CANCELLED

July 7th Tony Bolton `Did Britain have a Strategy for fighting the Great War or did we just blunder from crisis to crisis? “From business as usual to total war”

August 4th Beth Griffiths ` The Experience of the Disabled Soldiers Returning After WWI`

September John Taylor. ‘A Prelude to War’ (An Archduke’s Visit) – a classic and true 1st tale of `what if` ?

October Peter Harris in the 100 Days. Peter will present some of his 6th researches for his Wolverhampton MA course

November 3rd Paul Handford Women Ambulance Drivers on the Western Front 1914 – 1918.

December John Beech 'Notts Battery RHA - Nottinghamshire Forgotten Gunners' 1st

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Issue 52 – list of contents

1 Meetings and Speakers Calendar 2 Contents Page + Project Alias + Book Group Report 3 Book Group Report 4 Personal Note from The Chair - 42 5 Secretary`s Scribbles 6 – 25 March Meeting 25 -26 The Hartlepool Bombardment 26 – 28 Lost hero Found 28 – 32 From the Irish Times…… 33 Grave Markers 34 – 35 Making Time for a Chat 36 Talbot House 37 – 39 The Epidemic 1918-1919

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We have received the undernoted from David Tattersfield at the Western Front Association regarding the very interesting `Project Alias` Please click on the link for fullest details. http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/latest-news/february-2020/project-alias-what-is-it-and-how- is-it-going/

If anyone wants to get involved, then please contact David directly.

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Book Group Report Six members of the ‘Book Group’ gathered in the bar at the Labour Club, Saltergate on Tuesday 10th March to discuss the book, ‘1918, Winning and Losing the War’, edited by Matthias Strohn. This book, published by Osprey, perhaps better known for smaller specialist books, is a collection of papers on the armies of both the Allies and the , and is in similar format to the editor’s, ‘World War One Companion, published in 2013 to mark the Centenary of the start of the war. The idea for this book was born when the author was working at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and wished to support the British Army’s Operation Reflect, a project to educate ‘educate modern soldiers about the achievement of the Army and learn lessons that may guide an uncertain future’ and is not a heavy-weight academic publication. It takes the central theme of ‘four armies in four days’ ~ the German Offensives, the French counter attack, the British Expeditionary Force’s counter offensive from breaking out from Amiens to the breaking of the and the American Expeditionary Force’s offensive through the Meuse-Argonne region to the Meuse River. The importance of coalition is emphasized – together with its potential benefits and the predictable problems of infighting. , Britain and Italy lost Russia as an ally and then absorbed the arrival of the USA.

3 Meanwhile Germany failed to exploit the full potential of their coalition with Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the . It also outlines the Restoration of manoeuvre along with firepower – which after reading ‘Artillery in the Great War as a Book Group choice’ we understood the latter was the dominant factor in the earlier three years– and all in 156 pages! While more serious students were not impressed by the book, indicting it as a ‘relatively superficial’ compendium. Others felt that it succeeded in providing a good background to explaining the role of the American Army, which some of us had little knowledge, despite previous WFA talks. We also understood more about Ludendorff’s mental breakdown and Foch’s and the French contribution to victory in 1918. Our favourite author was Jonathan Boff. Particularly his clear writing style - we had enjoyed his book ‘Haig’s Enemy’ about Prinz Rupprecht of Bavaria as our previous Book Group choice. The general conclusion was we enjoyed the book and the different authors. As usual, our discussions ranged over a wide variety of WW1 topics, from Dunster Force‘s Model T fords in Iran to the fact that Americans drove British tanks into a British minefield at Belle Helene. We were also impressed how the not easy word ‘Vernichtstag’ (annihilation day) rolled off Jane’s tongue. Those present liked the idea of splitting a book up into parts. This may make future choices less daunting and enable us to have meetings on a more regular basis. I have the problem of forgetting the early chapters of a 400 page book before reaching the end! Our next Book Group choice is to read the last five chapters of ‘1918, Winning and Losing the War’ - in fact some of our members had already done so. Our next scheduled meeting was to be 21st April but this has now been cancelled because of Covid 19. We should now reflect on the fact that future will be fought with biological and computer technology beyond our conception! Maybe we could get together online using ZOOM meeting software? The idea of a WhatsApp has also been suggested.

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Personal Note from the Chair (42)

Well this is the most unusual Personal Notes from the Chair that I have ever written. Here we are on lockdown for the second or is it the hundredth week, it certainly seems like more than ten days since the PM imposed the greatest set of restrictions ever seen in peacetime. I venture to suggest that even during the Second World War when there were blackout restrictions the initial closure of cinemas and theatres was soon reversed in an attempt to lift morale. You may not have been allowed to visit the coast and all workers were rostered for firewatching duty but these current restrictions are probably the most draconian in British history. Unless of course you consider that the imposition of Licencing Laws under the 1915 DORA Regulations more restricting.

I was amazed to realise that I think I may have something in common with Donald Trump, not a phrase I ever expected to admit to, but I do wonder if we are over reacting slightly to the threat. Is the cure worse than the disease? Although I have close family who are clearly in the ‘at risk’ group, I, as I suppose most of us, fluctuate between feelings of distaste for the borderline panic that seems to have gripped the loo roll buying public and genuine concern for the welfare of our NHS staff.

Rant over – back to the First World War. To try and get an historical perspective I have dug out some notes on the 1918 Pandemic which you may find informative. In one of the ironies which pepper of the First World War, the influenza epidemic which had been raging in and America since the spring of 1918 reached its peak death rate in England at exactly the time that the Armistice silenced the guns. Death rates abated in the new year of 1919 before rising again before Easter when in March recorded 3,889 deaths in a week. Half the population of Manchester contracted the disease and the death rate was almost 8%. At least 27,000,000 deaths worldwide are attributable to the majority in India, Africa and China. It was known as Spanish Flu not because it originated in Spain but because the King of Spain was one of the early victims. It is estimated that 150,000 British military and civilian deaths were due to the disease.

I hope members will take some comfort from the comparison with the 1918 statistics. At least for now our chances of survival are rather better than for the post Great War generation. Lloyd George not only failed to lockdown the country in . He initiated a General Election at a time before the BBC and social media and hustings were mass gatherings to hear politicians’ pitches. Some recent work seems to conclude that the base at Etaples was the epicentre, rather than as previously thought that it had crossed the Atlantic with the troop ships.

For the time being Government restrictions and common sense means that meetings are obviously suspended but please access the WFA website where you will find lots of new articles, including back numbers of Stand To, information on the WFA Youtube’s available lectures. As I write this work is ongoing to upload all the WFA podcasts so there should be enough to keep you from murdering your nearest and dearest. Keep well all. Best regards,

Tony Bolton, Branch Chair 5 Secretary`s Scribbles Welcome to issue 52 of the WFA Chesterfield Branch Newsletter and Magazine. Well, what can I say? Never thought I would experience what we are all going through in my lifetime. However, we are in the midst of a global crisis and all we can do is listen to the government and their scientific advisers and do what they tell us. I am fortunate that I live close to the edge of open countryside where I can walk my dogs and rarely come across anyone else.

As you have been advised all Branch activities have been cancelled for April, May and June. This is subject to review and we will of course adopt all measures going forward as instructed by the authorities. Mark Macartney, our vice Chair and Branded Goods Trustee for the WFA advises that until this crisis is over all sales of Branded Goods has been suspended, so please do not try to place orders by post, phone or online until Mark advises us that the normal service is being resumed. Assuming that I don`t fall victim to the ague – and we are ALL at risk – then I will endeavour to keep these monthly Newsletter/Magazines. Also, don`t forget that I am happy to talk to any member or Branch friend on an evening best between 7 and 8pm – any subject all – but preferably WW1 related – if they are alone, depressed or just want to chat with someone with similar interests – my number is below. Text me, am happy to call back. Regulars may recall the series of articles that I prepared and ran on the `Munitions Crisis` a year or so back. This enforced `Confined to Barracks` order has seen me prepare a new series telling the story of the Ambulance Trains of WW1. The first chapter is included in this Newsletter. Next month`s Newsletter won`t, of course have a report on the April meeting hence I would be grateful to receive any contributions from members for inclusion in the issue. Thanks again to regular contributor Jane Ainsworth for her article in this current Newsletter. I am sure with the good sense and social responsibility of our members, friends and society in general, we will come through this trying time. All of us are experiencing to a greater or lesser extent disruption to our daily lives. Yes, WE WILL come through it, although it is depressing times, not unlike the dark days that our parents and grandparents endured in the last two global conflicts. It is I think the fear of the unknown and uncertainty, but, as an elderly aunt of mine, long deceased, whose fiancé lies in Reichswald Forest Cemetery having lost his life at Arnhem, used to tell me when I had bad times even THIS WILL PASS. Stoicism at its best Take Care Grant Cullen – Branch Secretary 07824628638 [email protected]

Any opinions expressed in this Newsletter /Magazine are not necessarily those of the Western Front Association, Chesterfield Branch, in particular, or the Western Front Association in general

6 March Meeting Branch Chair, Tony Bolton, opened the meeting in front of a near `full house`. It was good to see so many ladies present, indeed this is a feature of our monthly gatherings. Without too much ado, Tony introduced our speaker for the evening, Peter Hart, recently retired after many years as Oral Historian at the Imperial War Museum, making his annual `pilgrimage` to Chesterfield, a town that he grew up in, and a WFA Branch that he has presented to every year since its inauguration ten years ago. Peter began by saying the title of his talk `Après Le Guerre` reminded him of days at school when he was tested in the French class with very indifferent results. The talk was about what happened to the army at the end of the war, where soldiers had to go, for example Germany, Russia and Turkey, A `touchy-feely` talk, including demobilisation what they had to go through when they came home. So going right to the end of the war, November 11th 1918 with the 2/15th London being released from the haunting prospect of an assault over the River Scheldt. Peter quoted….. Corporal Charles Hennessey, 2/15th (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment Well before 11 am our people decided to cease fire, but the Germans, for some Teutonic reason, kept shelling our positions almost up to 11 am. Then the noise stopped everywhere, and there came a silence which hadn’t been experienced for four long years. We had a tremendous feeling of relief at the thought that we had come through alive, and would, in due course, return to Blighty. At the same time, we felt that it was no time for jubilation, but for sadness at the thought of so many of our comrades who would not be going home. When this bloody war is over, Oh, how happy I shall be, When I get my civvie clothes on, No more soldiering for me. We never sang the above ditty joyously, because so far as we could see the war was never going to end. It was sung only on those occasions when, as a small carrying party for example, we waited at some dreary ration dump to collect rations and take them up the line, or, after having drunk more than enough vin blanc, we sat in some estaminet feeling doleful. And now, to our great surprise and joy, it was ‘Après la Guerre’. Peter said he wanted to get a point over right away….people try to create the impression that all soldiers had the same reaction at this news – there was 3 million of them…they don`t all react in the same way. If you look at `posh` peoples` books about the war they always try to say that they didn`t celebrate at all, as they were too sad, whereas others, rankers went out 7 and got drunk…but there were many gradients of emotion in between. One thing many of them felt at Spike Milligan memorably said..”What are we going to do now” It is a great quote and sums up what so many of the men are thinking, ordinary men like Captain Eric Bird, 2nd , A clear vision of the future suddenly came to me. I said, ‘Do you realise that we shall probably live to be old men!’ The enormous change in our outlook, expressed by these words, may not be apparent to the present generation. For years we had been accustomed to look no farther than the events of the next day or two, to the next meal, the next rest and, occasionally, the next leave. There were no personal responsibilities, no striving to hold down a job, no income tax, no bills, no dependants to feed. The Army paid us however well or ill we did our jobs, fed us regularly, nursed us when we were ill, supplied us with equipment, moved us about as by an inevitable destiny and buried us when we died. Our sole responsibility was fighting. Now, in a few months’ time this tremendously organised backing would be no longer behind us. We should have to fend for ourselves as individuals in a hard world, building up our own security and comfort and alone providing for our old age. Another point Peter made was that for us in the meeting room 5 years is nothing…like when `when did you last go a walk up a big mountain, hmm…a few tears ago…no it wasn`t - it was ten years ago!....but for young people say 18 to 23, like most of the soldiers 5 years was all their life! The thing is, the war is over but you can`t all go home What are we going to do now? The words might well have been a near universal refrain, but military service was not something that could be dropped at will. It was not a peaceful world and there were significant external and internal threats to the status quo. An Army of Occupation in Germany required contingents from Britain, France and America to make their way into the Rhineland. Elsewhere there were operations to stem the real, or imagined, threat posed by Soviet Russia, Troops were needed to occupy key locations in Turkey Substantial garrisons were still required across the . The occupation of Germany loomed large. The arrangements had been spelled out in the Armistice agreement, whereby the German forces must evacuate occupied France and Belgium within fifteen days, before falling back beyond the Rhine within a further sixteen days. The First, Third and Fifth Armies would stand fast, while Second and Fourth Armies (rejigged with specially selected corps and divisions) would, after a short delay, follow up the retreating

8 German Army with the Second Army moving over the Rhine to become the actual Army of Occupation. The British were pondering what might await them when they got to Germany. In several officers’ messes there were edgy discussions as to how their men might behave when exposed to revolutionary propaganda. Major Charles Dudley Ward, 1st Welsh Guards They have, as a start, a long and trying march before them, which I am not afraid of. But if there are months of idleness in Germany, they will be anxious ones. What I fear is German propaganda among our troops – infinitely worse than riots and street fighting. The men hate the Hun now, but if he lives in peace with them that hatred may give way to tolerance and so to friendliness and absorption of revolutionary doctrine, discontent and trouble. There is still much serious work in front of us. I think we have in front of us a starving people and they are always desperate and apt to be dangerous. The British advance guard of the 1st reached the German border on 1 December, three days later the of 29th Division arrived at the frontier. It was a significant moment, but, at the same time, something of an anti-climax. The mechanics of the occupation wrong-footed many of the men. Having hated the Germans for so long, envisioning them as monsters, the rather more mundane actuality came as something of a surprise. Private Stephen Graham, 2nd Scots Guards I had serious misgivings before entering Germany. My comrades vowed such vengeance on the people that I anticipated something worse than war. In theory, no treatment was going to be bad enough and cruel enough for the German. We were out to wreak on him four years’ war-weariness; we were ready to settle all the old scores of treachery on the field and mischance in the fight. What, therefore, was my surprise to find, after two or three days in Germany, all our roaring lions converted into sucking doves. The entrance into Cologne could easily have gone badly. Private Norman Cliff, 1st Grenadier Guards The people of Cologne welcomed us as rescuers from anarchy. It was a city of hunger and misery. One felt ashamed to see the damage to the lovely cathedral, and even more ashamed to walk about well-fed while children begged for food. We were met not with hatred, but with fear, and offered friendly hospitality that was not without a tinge of not so admirable subservience. Despite their pitiable circumstances, lowly citizens invited us into their homes and pressed us to share their meagre fare, and we were at once aware that the Huns were not such bestial monsters as we had been led to believe, but human beings sharing the same sufferings and decent feelings as ourselves. 9 The British moved to the limits of the bridgehead and immediately began constructing basic defence works – battalion defensive positions that were covered by a series of outposts situated on the perimeter of a 6-mile neutral zone. Many of the German civilians had a very real fear of a Bolshevik uprising. What they wanted was nothing more than peace and a return to some kind of normality, not a Communist nirvana. Guardsman Horace Calvert, 2nd Grenadier Guards They were pleased to see us! Funny thing to say, but there were revolutions breaking out – and there might be one in the Rhineland – and they knew that if we were there, there wouldn’t be anything like that! I don’t think the average British soldier in the front lines ever had any deep feelings regarding revenge or anything against the German – he admired and respected him! The French soldiers used to come in gangs of about four and they used to walk on the footpath. If there were German civilians – if they didn’t step off the footpath – they pushed them off – shouldered them off. I didn’t think that was the right thing to do! There must have been many cases where practical jokes and high spirits that that seemed hilarious to drunken young officers could be deeply offensive to the German inhabitants. This kind of thoughtless behaviour was typified by a wild officers’ mess party in the town of Bickendorf which was held to celebrate the departure of 4 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps in . Second Lieutenant John Blanford, 206 Squadron The Australians decided to paint Kaiser Bill’s gigantic equestrian status, nearly opposite our mess, with white aircraft fabric paint. The Kaiser’s charger, twice as large as life, was a stallion and the sculptor, with true Teutonic thoroughness, had faithfully reproduced every detail of the animal’s anatomy to scale. After the Australians had finished the job, the stallion possessed Zebra stripes and huge white bollocks! To crown all, literally, the Aussies borrowed our CO’s enamel chamber pot and wired it on top of the Kaiser’s head. Like Queen Victoria, the Germans were definitely not amused when they beheld this ribald spectacle next morning. Yet despite occasional incidents and flare-ups, generally the British and Germans found a way of co-existing without too much overt rancour. The billeting of so many troops in the Cologne area required considerable organisation. The Germans were required to make available any suitable buildings such as former German barracks, public buildings and factory premises. Private Norman Cliff was more than satisfied with his billets, but outraged by the preparations for a particularly public private inspection.

10 Private Norman Cliff, 1st Grenadier Guards We were billeted in the well-equipped buildings of a college on the outskirts of the city, in conditions that were luxurious by the standards to which we had been accustomed. No sooner had we settled in than an inspection by the Prince of Wales was arranged. All the usual paraphernalia of a royal occasion went into operation, and the pretence was made that the Prince would see us engaged in our normal routine. It fell to the lot of Guardsman Cliff to pose in a state of nature under a shower in a cubicle. For an unconscionable time, I shivered in the longest ablution of my life, and at length I heard the approach of the royal procession. Believe it or not, His Royal Highness swept past without even a glance at my magnificent physique, and I had made a full frontal exposure to no effect! I wiped down hurriedly, relieved but humiliated, and struggled into my uniform, nursing disloyal thoughts of the indifference of noble personages to the higher things of life! The officers and many soldiers were also housed in hotels and private billets. Sergeant William Collins found himself billeted in the hamlet of Heppendorf and was mostly content with his lot. Sergeant William Collins, No. 1 Cavalry Field Ambulance, RAMC I had a very small room with a sort of bunk bed, but it was something after nearly four and a half years of sleeping on the ground – it was a luxury! I was billeted with a small holding farmer and he had two daughters. The elder one was quite friendly, as a matter of fact she washed all my smalls for me! Our uniforms were all smartened up, we were polishing our buttons and we were well turned out. I must say the young men of Heppendorf didn’t take very kindly to us. One morning we came down and on the village pump was written a message in German, ‘It took four and a half years for the brave British troops to conquer the German Army, but they conquered the girls of Heppendorf in one night!’ That was a bit of an exaggeration, but there was no doubt about it that the attitude of the females in Heppendorf towards our troops in general was a very friendly one! I think a few bars of chocolate exchanged hands! The apparently amorous feelings of many German women must often have been underpinned by a desperation for the necessities of life; a weakness of which the more unscrupulous soldiers were far too willing to take advantage. Guardsman Horace Calvert, 2nd Grenadier Guards It was full of ladies of easy virtue! Sex was freely offered for fruit, tinned fruit, soap, bully beef or anything in short supply. The naval blockade had done its business without doubt. They hung around the barracks and they’d offer you sex if you could supply them with anything. They were desperate. Before long the black market spread its tentacles. Activities would start on a small scale, with just a few cigarettes or tins of food, but would soon grow in both size and scope. 11 The real black market was not an amusing little sideline run by the cheery ‘duckers and divers’ of legend, however, but rather a corrupt criminal enterprise taking advantage of German civilians’ misery out of sheer greed. The Second Army was renamed the British Army of the Rhine in April 1919. At this point, there was a period of mild tension, as plans and preparation were made for an advance into Germany should the German government fail to sign the , which ultimately brought a formal end to the Great War on 28 June 1919. This was followed by another flurry of alarm when it appeared that the Germans might not accept the stringent terms imposed, before it was finally ratified on 10 January 1920. The British would stay in the Rhineland until 1929. They were within, but separate from, a Germany that was continually racked by economic, political and revolutionary turmoil throughout the . Germany would prove to be a cauldron of hatred, a breeding ground in which fascism could simmer, twisting perceptions of the war, of how Germany had been defeated, until a new reality had been carved out by Hitler and his Nazi Party. But that is later story. Wherever they were, whether in Germany, France or Belgium, the troops found that time hung heavy on their hands. With the war over, their sense of common purpose was eroding away with every day that passed. It had always been a central tenet of the British Army that the officers had to keep the men busy or trouble would soon brew. Haig was well aware of this characteristic of the British soldier and on 11 November had warned his five army commanders of the problem they faced. I then pointed out the importance of looking after the troops during the period following the cessation of hostilities. Very often the best fighters are the most difficult to deal with in periods of quiet! I suggested a number of ways in which men can be kept occupied. It is as much the duty of all officers to keep their men amused as it is to train them for war. If funds are wanted, GHQ should be informed, and I’ll arrange for money to be found. It was suggested officers avoid ‘irritating restrictions’ and there were suggestions for organised visits to places of interest, celebratory military parades and processions, military demonstrations of the new technology introduced during the war and lectures on ‘after the war’. It was recognised that competitions and sports of all sorts would be a welcome distraction. Most of these were tried, but it was an uphill struggle – as even those responsible realised. Lieutenant Colonel Cuthbert Headlam, Training Branch, General Headquarters, BEF Everything is as dull as ditch water and I can see that it is going to be difficult to keep the Army – officers and men – amused and happy if this interregnum lasts very long. It is all very well soldiering when a war is in progress and you feel that your presence is essential 12 to victory – but quite another thing being obliged to hang about in a foreign country (which is getting a bit tired of you!) when someone else is at home trying to get hold of your job. The men were generally fairly understanding of the general situation, but at the same time they had their own agenda. Corporal Charles Hennessey, 2/15th (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment We soon began to speculate as to how long it was likely to be before we got home and into our ‘civvie’ clothes. As individuals, we were quite ready to go home at once, but we appreciated that some time must elapse before we could all hope to be back in civilian life. In the meantime, we began to feel all dressed up with nowhere to go, in other words that we were now neither soldiers nor civilians. We hardly expected to be allowed to remain idle, but at the same time thought that the new situation called for a rather less strictly military attitude on the part of the higher ranks. As things turned out, the people who had ordered our comings and goings for the past few years struck a very fair balance, which left the troops very content. In the desolate zone of destruction that stretched across France and Belgium there was a requirement for a great deal of battlefield clearance, but this was both gruesome and dangerous at times. Many troops were bitter at being assigned to such a role. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Banks, 10th Instead of garnering the fruits of victory in Rhineland, we were set to gather in the rusty aftermath of war which abounded on the fields of combat. Miles and miles of barbed wire we must have reeled in, hundreds and hundreds of tin hats – Bosche and British – were picked up, and bombs, rifles, shells, guns, aeroplanes, ammunition boxes, derelict wagons, loads of timber and every conceivable form of war material accumulated pyramid-like in monumental mounds along the sides of the roadways. The energy we expended on the new task in the first few weeks was colossal. But the machinery for getting the stuff away to Blighty was not conspicuously adequate, and gradually it began to dawn on the consciousness of the soldier-man that there was scant chance of much of the mouldering stuff we had collected ever seeing the white cliffs of old England. The problem was, that as the wartime unity eroded, men sought reasons why they should be exempt from work, and came to believe that other men with less service at the front should take over. This was a pernicious influence, but nonetheless also understandable. If they were based in France or Belgium, then the men had the opportunity to visit the places where they had fought, perhaps to find the graves of old comrades they had lost in action. Others who had never been on active service in the war were keen to see the fabled battlefields. Colonel Rowland Fielding was rather reluctantly inveigled into taking an American

13 Army doctor around the old Cuinchy-Loos trenches. Feilding recounts a story that rings across the years to our current era of battlefield tourism. Lieutenant Colonel Rowland Feilding, 1/15th (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment How much right has a mere sightseer to souvenirs? It is horrifying to see this sacred ground desecrated in this way, and still more so to think of what will happen when the cheap tripper is let loose. With his spit he will saturate the ground that has been soaked with the blood of our soldiers. This particular man, not knowing what he was doing, would pick up a bone and would call out, ‘Oh, look, a human tibia!’ It is the way of the world, no doubt, but I pray I may see no more of it. I know that these things will be collected, and hoarded, and no doubt boasted of, by tourists, things that no one who has fought would have in his possession. His reactions were understandable, but then Feilding did something that – even a hundred years later – would be regarded as a highly dangerous and irresponsible in the extreme. Before we left I thought I would give our visitor a respectable souvenir, and picked up a German hand grenade. It had been lying about so long that I did not think it could possibly have any sting left. However, I pulled the safety cord to make sure, and immediately there followed a hissing sound. I called to the two doctors to take cover and threw the bomb, which a second or two later went off with a loud explosion. A splinter drew a spot of blood from our visitor’s hand, at which he said, jokingly, ‘Anyhow, I shall be able to tell them at home that I’ve had a wound!’ They had been lucky! People are still badly injured in such incidents today. There was one obvious answer to the lacunae in the lives of soldiers left by the end of the war: a programme of mass education for the men. Such a project was easy to conceive, but difficult in the extreme to deliver. Most units were faced with a daunting series of difficulties as they lacked enough qualified teachers, access to feasible classrooms, textbooks, writing paper, or even an agreed syllabus of what was to be taught. At times, the results could be almost farcical. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Banks, 10th Essex Regiment It was very greatly a case of brick-making without straw. For the Armistice, like the War, caught England bending, and the hastily-worked-out scheme of Army education had little chance to come to bearing-time. We had instructions and admonitions on the subject months before any materials or books arrived, and one remembers the momentous day when the first educational material for the arrived – three 12-inch rulers for three thousand men! Yet more humorous was the arrival of one typewriter keyboard for the instruction of the Division in typing – 10,000 men spread over 20 miles of countryside!

14 Gradually, through extensive improvisation, they made some progress Units that invested effort in the project were often rewarded by a startling enthusiasm for education among the men, many of whom seemed to seek knowledge as dried-up plants thirst for water. Overall, there was an acceptance that, however, makeshift and ill-considered, whatever was achieved was of value. Education is never wasted. Demobilisation was all the men really cared about. They may have bided their time in educational classes, engaged in low-key tourism and engaged in countless football matches, but underlying everything was the desire to get home; the desire to be free of what they considered the petty restrictions of army life. Lieutenant Colonel Rowland Feilding, 1/15th (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment The raging desire still continues to be demobilised quickly. Nevertheless, I feel pretty sure that, for many, there will be pathetic disillusionment. In the trenches the troops have had plenty of time for thought, and there has grown up in their minds a heavenly picture of an England which does not exist, and never did exist, and never will exist so long as men are human. He was right as far as Private Norman Cliff was concerned. Private Norman Cliff, 1st Grenadier Guards We were all impatient to be freed from regimentation, to return home, to be free individuals again, to recover our dignity as human beings, to cast off uniforms, to be done with parades and bull, to cease to be bawled at, and ordered about; to get away from all the noise of guns, and drums, and bugles, and barking NCOs; to possess our own souls and to be masters of our own lives. What unimaginably heavenly bliss awaited us once we could escape from this stifling machine. We thought of love and leisure, of work we could enjoy, of being in affectionate indulgent again, surrounded by our dear ones in the quiet peace of home. We should miss the rough cheerful companionship of the chums we had learnt to respect in dire adversity, and on the brink of eternity, but how welcome the gentle feminine touch would be for a change. We discussed our prospects, the kind of jobs we hoped to secure, the things we felt would change for the better. Major Edward de Stein, Machine Gun Corps summed it up in a poem. When I put on my civvies, How happy I shall be, To hear no more the cannon roar, And know that I am free. Yet demobilisation was a massive undertaking. The army had swollen from its pre-war strength of 400,000 to 3,800,000; now it would have to shrink back. The question was how was it to be managed without triggering civil and industrial chaos? 15 The terrifying scale of the problem had to be acknowledged. This was an army of millions spread across three continents. It was, if anything, an even greater challenge than the wartime mobilisation had been, as the reverse process would have to occur over a far more compressed time frame. Optimism of being home in a few weeks was sadly misplaced. It was one thing to identify the difficulties, but quite another to solve them. Many of the men were deeply concerned as to their employment prospects on leaving the army. Assurances had been given by their employers and the government, but they could not help but worry. With the best will in the world there would still be injustice, winners and losers, whatever decisions were taken as to the order and manner of demobilisation. The government decided to adopt a system of piecemeal demobilisation, with priority given to ‘pivotal men’ who had worked in professions essential to get the British economy working again. The idea was that the would be gradually reduced to a cadre, with the first to go being the civil servants – ‘demobilisers’ – who would be needed to administer the scheme. Then the agreed priority groups were coal miners, agricultural workers, seamen and fishermen, shipbuilders, building trades, students and teachers. Then the early volunteers would be released, with the conscripts supposedly left at the back of the queue. Regular soldiers would be required to complete their period of service with the colours. Some 17,000 soldiers a day would be demobilised from the Western Front area. A soldier would be sent back via a Corps Concentration Camp, then a series of staging camps, an Embarkation Camp, a Disembarkation Camp and finally a Dispersal Camp – hopefully as close as possible to the soldier’s hometown. The system adopted was a mixture of pragmatism and principle – and, as might be expected, satisfied almost nobody. Delays multiplied as the army struggled to identify its demobilisers and pivotal men. One huge problem was that the key industry workers had often only recently been conscripted to join the army, after being ‘combed out’ during the 1918 manpower shortage. Now they would be demobilised first! This caused considerable resentment and there were outbreaks of ill-discipline that shaded into outright mutiny. Guardsman Horace Calvert witnessed a typical ‘spot of bother’ at the Harfleur Base Camp on 9 December. Guardsman Horace Calvert, Grenadier Guards I saw these red-tabbed staff officers – one of them was a Brigadier – surrounded by a lot of troops – three or four hundred – all sorts of . There were soldiers, very excited shouting, the main theme was they wanted to go into Le Havre – all restrictions lifted, they 16 wanted money paid every week so they could enjoy themselves – they hadn’t been paid for weeks. They wanted the Military Police easing up a bit on them and something done about demobilisation! The rumour was around that the last to be called up would be the first to be demobilised, because they were the key men to get industry going. Some of the chaps in this disturbance said they hadn’t been home for four years. Everyone was in agreement apparently because occasionally there was a shout, ‘YES!’ I was on the outskirts, I kept a few yards away; I didn’t join in – I listened! I thought, ‘I’m not getting mixed up in that lot!’ There were two or three ringleaders, they were doing all the talking and waving everyone around to come and join them, there was two or three hundred there. It wasn’t a mutiny – I would call it a disturbance! There was no officer injured; nobody was attacked. The camp was swiftly cleared and the troublemakers dispersed. There was also a major disturbance at Victoria Station in London, triggered by unrest among troops supposed to be returning from home leave to their units. This was part of a veritable rash of protests, strikes and demonstrations in the south of England in early January 1919. The government responded by allowing soldiers on home leave to take up offers of work from their pre-war employers provided that the local employment exchange and the parent army unit agreed. Then, on 17 January 1919, a new system was brought in which prioritised the release of men who had enlisted before the introduction of conscription in 1916; with exceptions made for compassionate cases, men with three or more wound stripes, those over 41 years old, a limited number of just 250,000 pivotal men and the demobilisers to administer the system. Shortly afterwards a new act allowed the compulsory military service required from conscripts to be extended into 1920. At the same time pay rates were doubled to try and compensate men who wanted to be free of the army. Taken in total, the measures worked, and although there were still sporadic outbreaks of unrest, gradually the discontent ebbed away. The demobilisation process was labour intensive, and every unit set up its own in-house organisation to process the men as their time for demobilisation grew nigh. Lance Corporal Walter Williamson was selected to run the scheme for the 1/6th Cheshire Regiment. It is refreshing to note that many aspects of human nature had not changed. Lance Corporal Walter Williamson, 1/6th Cheshire Regiment Miners are first priority. I have evidently been misinformed in my early youth, when I was taught that Cheshire was an agricultural county, as I was surprised when a call went round the battalion for miners, about 50% reported to the Demob Office. Then the fun started. When it was explained that they would be put into mines by the government, there was a 17 sudden reduction in the number of miners, and the ‘Cheshires’ reverted to a more agricultural flavour. The pace of the work gradually increased, and by late January 1919 they were struggling to keep up. When the men turned up at the orderly room, Williamson and his assistant had a well- practised drill as each ‘victim’ is stood before them. Tommy with half a dozen small forms, me with that monumental and now famous form Z10 (Dispersal Certificate). Tommy snaps at him ‘Number?’ and I yell, ‘Name?’ and he gets a crick in his neck and an impediment in his speech trying to answer us both at once. I can go on filling my forms up from the information I have got while I can hear Tommy at it, ‘Have you a pair of socks?’ etc., then a pause, then the famous question ‘Have you anything wrong with you?’ Instead of, ‘Do you wish to claim for any physical disability due to your military service?’ Next morning, each of the men would report for the last time before leaving their unit. I grab ten bundles of papers and rush downstairs and hand them a bundle each, and then give them another lecture on what has to be done with each form, where they are to hand it in, which they are to hand in and which they are to keep. Then one man will chip in that he hasn’t got two little ’uns like the next man, then I find he has forgotten to get his louse – pardon – I mean medical certificate and clothing certificate, then I get excited in a calm way and fix him up with blanks to get signed on his way back past the camp. I then warn them to get dressed as the CO will come and say a parting word. I don’t mean that they have forgotten to put their trousers on or anything like that – the weather is a bit too nippy for such forgetfulness – but just to get their equipment on again and button their pockets up. By the time the CO has shaken hands with them all and assured them that they will all want to be back in the Army in a month, another allotment comes in for the next day! The procedure was much the same in every battalion. Some of the more sentimental commanding officers found the actual moment of departure of these men quite emotional. After all they had shared so much, and now they were all dispersing, going off to an uncertain future. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Banks, 10th Essex Regiment Early in January the first envied drafts left for Blighty and the looked-for joys of a civvie suit. There was little regret among the men who went. But some of us had strange lumps in the throat to see them turn their backs on the unit which owed so much to their wondrous uncomplaining efforts. In company together we had faced unimagined hardships; in company we had learned to thresh the chaff from the grain, to face the grimmest things with a cheery laugh, to prize comradeship and manly worth above the trappings and the manifold delusions of life before the cataclysm. And now the arts of peace were claiming 18 the flower of the nation’s manhood again. Would they sink or swim in the struggles of peacetime? Would the lessons of common effort for the common weal be lost? Would all that wealth of comradeship be dissipated like the smoke of last year’s barrages? So there was sadness in the final handshake as one passed down the ranks and wished each sterling fellow ‘Good luck’. There was inadequacy in the simple words by which one strove to phrase the Nation’s thanks. And when the band played them out on their homeward way with the Essex march and ‘Auld Lang Syne’, the family circle seemed bereft; and we turned sadly back to billets with heartfelt hope that all would be well with them in the heritage of peace which they had earned so nobly. Corporal Charles Hennessey was demobbed on 26 January 1919. He found the cross-Channel crossing was the very stuff of romantic songs. The men were desperate to be home and many were in a highly emotional state. We took up positions on the deck where, in spite of the chilly breeze, we were determined to remain, so as to catch sight of the English coastline at the earliest possible moment. When it at last came into view. I thought of the many writers who had described this moment as one which always aroused a feeling of great emotion in the breasts of people who had been long away from their homeland. I thought of the famous lines Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land. And they suddenly took on a meaning which I had never before, fully appreciated. The other troops on deck were quietly watching the legendary white cliffs of Dover becoming gradually clearer, and I could see by the expression on their faces that their reaction to the sight of the welcome coastline was much the same as mine. Percy Eels, as I knew from my long association with him, was a case-hardened character, but I noticed that even he almost forgot himself for a few moments. The excitement intensified as the moment of disembarkation drew near. This time they were not returning on leave, for just an all-too-brief taste of civilian life and safety, before the inevitable return to the front. This was the promised land: they would be free of the army. Corporal Charles Hennessey, 2/15th (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment The troops suddenly became their cheerful selves again as the ship slowly reached the Harbour. The gangplank was lowered and the troops streamed ashore like a crowd of schoolboys, quickly forming ranks and setting off for the camp at Dover Castle. Little time was wasted before the work of converting us from soldiers to civilians began. First of all, we were required to hand in our rifles and equipment, which was indeed a moment to remember. We had carried these for many weary miles, and they had become almost part 19 of ourselves, so each man made a small ceremony of the handing over, and delivered himself of the oath that seemed most appropriate to him. We had always been told that our rifle was our best friend, and I could certainly recall an occasion or two when this could very well have been the case, but even so, no-one shed any tears at the parting. The men were trooped from hut to hut, completing the multifarious practical details of demobilisation. Corporal Charles Hennessey, 2/15th (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment It seemed to me that we were being dealt with in a very courteous manner – and this we liked. In one hut a Padre enquired about our future moral welfare, and in another a perfect stranger was desperately anxious to be sure that we had a job to go back to. From each of the huts we emerged with a piece of paper, and finally staggered from the last hut with a handful of assorted documents calculated to save us from all possible trouble when we got back into civvies. We had also been given £2 to show how anxious the authorities were for our immediate needs, while I got a further £1 as compensation for not wishing to retain my greatcoat, and £1. 18. 6 in lieu of a reach-me-down ‘Demob’ suit. Corporal Charles Hennessey, 2/15th (Civil Service Rifles), London Regiment All told it was a laborious process, indeed there seemed to be far more administration involved in leaving the army than they had encountered upon enlistment. Then they left the camp as civilians and began their journey home. Even this was an exciting ‘new’ experience to these erstwhile soldiers. A brief station stop, while en route to Victoria in London, seemed a thing of wonder to Hennessey. Everyone was thrilled at once more seeing the old familiar layout of an English railway station. It was all there, laid out exactly the same as it was on numberless British railway platforms. W. H. Smith’s bookstall alongside the ticket collector’s box; the refreshment buffet further along, flanked by a parcels and porters’ cubby-holes; and at the very end of the platform, the station ‘Gents’. There was even the motionless figure of a porter, standing leaning on the handles of an empty truck, with a facial expression which clearly dared anyone to ask him to do anything. Almost before they knew it, they were pulling into the hustle and bustle of Victoria Station. Here it would be time for a more special parting as Charles Hennessey bade farewell to his best friend Percy Eels. Carriage doors were flung open and the troops poured out, their heavy boots making the station ring as they clattered along the platform. At the barrier were about a dozen elderly ladies, obviously come to welcome the troops home. Their outstretched hand and friendly smiles were more welcome to us than the best brass band in the land. Percy Eels and I got through the barrier at last, and found ourselves saying goodbye to each other 20 after being in close contact since 1916. He did his job as a stretcher-bearer with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a dirty stub of cigarette in the corner of his mouth, but never failed to cheer his patients up as he cursed them for being silly enough to get in the way of a bullet. And then, after a bus ride on the No. 16 bus to Kilburn, it was almost an anti-climax as he got back to his front door – the prodigal returned. When I reached my house, I found my mother and sister there, having no idea that I was about to descend on them at that particular time. I had three brothers, one of whom had been discharged from the Army after being badly wounded at Loos in 1915, and the other two were still in France. So my sudden arrival was only a part-family reunion, although it was good enough to be going on with. After a hot meal and a rest, then a bath, I felt much better, and since I had previously flung my uniform, underclothing, and socks into the garden to be burnt on the morrow, I really began to feel myself a civilian again. Demobilisation would eventually embrace most soldiers as the army shrank from 3,800,000 to just 230,000 by 1922. This idea of an ‘aristocracy of the trenches’ was often twinned with the idea that the shared nobler values of military service could be harnessed to the good of society at large. Brigadier General Hubert Hart hoped that some good might have come from it. In a few days, we will be taking off these uniforms. Are we going to discard with them all the khaki has taught us, or are we going to draw from our experiences and utilise the knowledge it has given us in such a way that we will help make our glorious country better, brighter and a happier place to live in? Such optimism as to the future was often overwhelmed by despair at the reality that awaited them once they got home. This was no perfect society; nor was it ever likely to be so. Father Benedict Williamson The England to which we have returned is so different from the England of our hopes and dreams; and when the boys say to me, ‘I am sorry I came back; I would be happier lying under a little white cross in France!’ What can I say, when I know it is true? If only the wonderful spirit of the trenches had been brought to England – but it has not. The world is more sordid and self-seeking than ever before. The good father is at the extreme end of the spectrum! Most men considered their lives in the trenches to have been a brutal, sordid and depressing experience, a long torture only relieved by the comradeship of their fellows. Most were delighted to ‘escape’ the army. But the soldiers would find that there was no brave new world awaiting them; indeed, a whole new arena of conflict lay before them when they got back to their homes.

21 Even when released they would return to lives that, seen from the grim perspective of the trenches, they may have idealised, but which in reality were deeply unsatisfying. Mere schoolboys were now officers, or senior NCOs – trained for nothing but war and unsuited to the mundanities of civilian life. Working-class lads who had risen through the ranks would find themselves once more cast down to the bottom of the pile. Their education or trade apprenticeships had been interrupted. New generations of workers had taken root in the jobs of the serving soldiers. There was a right to return to pre-enlistment positions, yet for many this option was no longer desirable. But what else was there for them to do? They had to fight for worthwhile, secure, well-remunerated employment in blighted economies all struggling to recover from the massive costs of a global war. Some had to suffer the after-effects of dreadful wounds or mental trauma – what we now know to be post-traumatic stress, surely not a ‘disorder’ but a quite natural reaction to what they had undergone. They had to strive to re-establish relationships with their families, their wives, their girlfriends – their workmates who had not gone to war. They had to try to bury the memories of the terrible experiences they had endured, and to avoid being corrupted by all the evil they had witnessed. Most of all they had to fight to retain their self-respect in a society that did not seem to care one iota for their welfare. For some these would be the greatest battles of all. Did they talk about it? Yes, but not to families, who were often not listening, bored or too young to understand. They talked with their old comrades down at the pub, in the British Legion, at the Armistice parades and regimental association get togethers. If we listen, we can still hear their voices beneath the platitudes of academics.

And so Peter brought his excellent, entertaining presentation to a close…remember, he said the oft quoted comment , certainly made by in November 1918, but probably used by others previously about creating…`a land fit for heroes`….the `heroes` being the returning servicemen. A phrase which ultimately had a hollow ring to it as events and circumstances developed. But as Peter said, have things changed ?, taking for example those returning from the Falklands War in 1982…how many are aware that more ex servicemen from that campaign have died at their own hands than in combat with the Argentinians? Or look at the treatment currently being meted out by the authorities to some of those who served in Northern Ireland during `The Troubles`. What has changed in one hundred years? Après le Guerre indeed. 22 Military Ambulance Trains Adapted from the book `British Railways and the Great War` (two volumes) in 1921 by Edwin Pratt – with illustrations taken from the public domain –generally the internet.

Before looking in detail at British Military Ambulance Trains, it is necessary to consider the organisation at planning of the British railway system when war was declared in August 1914.

The Railway Executive Committee (REC) was formed in 1912 to act as an intermediary between the War Office and the various British railway companies. The companies were already involved in the transport of many thousands of troops during annual manoeuvres and it was realised that better coordination and planning would be required if the were to enter into a future European war. In 1911, the companies began to plan for the movement of troops, horses and equipment to the embarkation ports, chiefly Southampton, in case of mobilisation; the main role of the REC was to oversee this work. When completed, the orders for this complicated plan that were issued to the various railways were known as the "War Book".

Using legislation that had been enacted in 1871, the REC took control of the national rail network on 4 August 1914, the day that war was declared and mobilisation began. Alexander Kaye Butterworth was appointed chairman. REC control lasted from 1914 to 1921. It was followed by the Railways Act 1921 which led to the creation of the Big Four British railway companies in 1923. These were The Great Western Railway; the Southern Railway; the London Midland and Scottish Railway and the London and North Eastern Railway.

Part One Under the conditions of modern warfare, ambulance trains are no less essential to an army than troop trains and ammunition trains; and the intelligent foresight which plans in advance for the provision and working of the latter must equally include within the scope of its peace-time preparations by which to ensure an adequate supply of the former. Dictates of common humanity would alone suffice to establish the principle that those who fight our battles for us should, in the event of their being wounded or falling sick, be removed as speedily as possible to hospitals where they will have the best chance of good treatment and an early recovery. Humanitarian conditions are, however, not alone concerned. Looking at the mater from a military point of view, prompt removal of wounded from the Zone of the Armies may be no less vital to the Fighting Forces than to the men themselves. Napoleon is said to have declared that he preferred a dead soldier to a wounded one, and his preference was not surprising at a time when the conditions were such that the wounded were likely to become, not only an incubus to the unwounded, by hampering their movements, but a positive source of danger to them if they could be taken no farther than to some overcrowded, fever stricken base hospital where they would help to spread still further the seeds of the disease to which they themselves would run the risk of falling victims. It is, in fact, one of the commonplaces in the history of warfare that , under the conditions of former times, and especially in the pre-railway days, far more soldiers died from disease than from wounds received on the battlefield. Early and efficient treatment, right away from sources of possible contagion, means, also, that the vast majority of lightly wounded men, at least, speedily recover and are fit to return to the fighting front after no more than a comparatively short absence. The possibility of thus helping to keep up the strength of 23 an army must be of great advantage under any possible conditions of warfare, but especially so on occasions when every man that can be got is wanted. Great Britain was, on the outbreak of The Great War in 1914 not without a certain degree of experience in the construction and working of ambulance trains. This experience had been gained in the South African War of 1899-1902, when the `Princess Christian Hospital Train` specially built for the British Central Red Cross Committee by the Birmingham Railway Carriage and Wagon company, was sent out to South Africa. The picture shows this train at Durban station in 1900. This train was used in addition to seven other such trains adapted from existing rolling stock in Cape Colony or Natal; while in England on the occasion of the same war, The London and South Western Railway Company (LSWR) fitted up their Eastleigh Carriage Works, at the request of the War Office, five coaches for the conveyance to hospitals in this country of sick and wounded soldiers arriving at Southampton from overseas. The same coaches were in fact, regularly maintained on the LSWR from 1900 onwards for transport to inland hospitals of sick troops from India and elsewhere. When used for this purpose, the cars were attached to ordinary passenger trains and so taken through to destination. Ambulance Trains for Home Use. Among the many other subjects dealt with by the War Railway Council between 1897 and 1910 was that of the equipment of ambulance trains on British railways in the event of this country being involved in war. The plans of an ambulance train to be converted from existing rolling stock were prepared by the London and North Western Railway Company (LNWR) in consultation with the War Office medical authorities and copies were sent by the council to certain other railway companies with an inquiry as to whether or not they would be able to provide similar trains in case of an emergency arising at any time. It was found that some modification of the plans would be necessary to permit of the proposed trains running over the lines of all the companies likely to be concerned and conferences between representatives of these companies were held to consider the matter, with the result that towards the end of 1910 fresh plans, with modifications likely to meet all requirements, so far as then could be foreseen, were in the course of preparation. So it was that when war broke out in August 1914 complete drawings for the construction of ambulance trains for home use were in existence, and the War Office had no more to do than send word to the railway companies advising how many trains they wanted. In the first instance the number asked for was twelve, and construction was undertaken by the following companies:-Great Central (two),Great Eastern (one), London and North Western (three), London and South Western (one), Midland Railway (two). Each train consisted of nine vehicles adapted from ordinary corridor coaches, dining-cars, parcels vans, or passenger brake vans. In the centre of the train was a pharmacy car which comprised a dispensary, a treatment room, and office and two linen stores. On one side of this pharmacy car there were two, and on the other side three, ward cars. One of these had folding berths for four officers and sixteen men, while the others had similar berths for twenty men. 24 The berths in the ward cars were in two tiers and were so arranged that the lower could be used for sitting cases, the upper being let down so as to form a comfortable back for those seated below. Thirty sitting cases could thus be accommodated.

Another car served the combined purposes of a kitchen, a pantry, a dining room and a sleeping compartment, the removal of the fold up tables allowing of the lowering of frames on which beds could be made up for eight more men. Still another car afforded day and sleeping accommodation for two doctors, two nurses and two men of the RAMC while in the remaining car three third class compartments each provided beds for two men; one first class compartment was converted into a store-room, and the other became a guard`s van. The cars were all steam heated and they were equipped with Westinghouse as well as vacuum brakes. All the ambulance trains were numbered, in order that they could be identified and have their movements regulated. All, as soon as they were ready were to be sent to Southampton. The first convoy of war-invalids to reach this country from overseas arrived at Southampton Docks on august 24th 1914 and the patients (111 sitting cases) were taken on to Netley Hospital by a special train made up of ambulance vehicles forming the War Department`s pre-war stock thereof supplemented by some LSWR corridor coaches. No regular ambulance train was available at that moment, although the first of the twelve which the War Office had sked the railway companies to provide for use in this country – a train composed of Great Central stock – reached Southampton on the same day. On the evening of August 28th 1914, it took to Netley Hospital sixty two cot and 125 sitting cases laded at Southampton from the S.S. St. Andrew , one of three Great Western turbine steamers which had been commandeered by the admiralty on the outbreak of war and converted into hospital ships. The remainder of the 12 ambulance trains had arrived at Southampton by August 30th. Note. The number of hospital ships eventually brought into use was about 100 The first loaded trip to a destination of the LSWR system was on August 29th when the Lancashire Yorkshire (L&YR) ambulance train (no. 6) conveyed sixty five cot and 12 sitting cases to Well Hall, near Blackheath, on the South Eastern & Chatham Railway (SECR). From this time the arrivals at Southampton of vessels bringing wounded were steady and continuous. With the fall of Antwerp they assumed what was then regarded as almost formidable proportions, boat succeeded boat in rapid succession throughout the month of October, bringing wounded 25 Belgians back in addition to an increasing numbers of British. Work at the port had to be carried on at high pressure day and night in order to deal with these masses of suffering humanity. From the outbreak of the war, Southampton had been regarded as the headquarters of an organisation which it would be necessary to set up for distribution, by means of ambulance trains, of sick and wounded troops coming to this country from overseas. Such organisation was then practically non-existent, or at least amounted to little more than the ordinary pre-war arrangements for dealing with sick or injured troops from India and elsewhere. On August 25th 1914 Surgeon – General W Donovan, C.B, A.M.S. (later Major-General Sir William Donovan) was appointed Deputy-Director of Medical services, Embarkation, and he at once assumed responsibility at Southampton for the disembarkation and distribution of the wounded either landed there, or at other ports. Four additional military ambulance trains were asked for from the railway companies in January 1915, and the Great Central, the Great Western, the Lancashire & Yorkshire and the London & North western companies each undertook to supply one of the four. In order to meet still further the rush of wounded from overseas, it was arranged that each of the sixteen military ambulance trains should, in case of need, and by local arrangements be supplemented by two corridor coaches for sitting cases, and that five emergency ambulance trains consisting of ordinary corridor coaches for sitting cases with a dining car attached, should also be provided for use, in event of the accommodation afforded by the ambulance trains being inadequate. To be continued Hartlepool bombardment: Unseen footage of WWI attack found at market

Previously unseen footage of a World War One attack which killed 130 people has been revealed after being found at a market. The five-minute long newsreel shows the aftermath of the bombardment of Hartlepool on 16 December 1914. It was found in a box of broken cameras at Tynemouth Market by Mark Simmons, Hartlepool Council's museum’s curator. Two German warships fired more than 1,000 shells on the town during the 40-minute dawn attack. Mr Simmons, who by coincidence had been researching the bombardment since 2011, bought the £20 box of broken cameras and lenses thinking they might useful for art projects. "On getting home, I just took out a few useful pieces and put the rest in storage," he said. "It was only later that I got around to sorting through the entire contents. 26

"In the bottom of the box, wrapped in sheets of old greaseproof paper, was an old film reel and the title card on the first frames - The Attack on the Hartlepool’s - was just visible."

The bombardment was carried out by the cruisers Blucher, Seydlitz and Moltke. Mr Simmons said the film, which has been donated to and restored by the North East Film Archive (NEFA), was "mostly previously unseen footage" by the Gaumont Company. Mr Simmons said: "It is the best quality of any of the bombardment damage films but, crucially, contains a number of sections that have never been seen before, namely footage of Cleveland Street and the damage to houses at Carlton Terrace - including a close-up of local women and children."

It also includes footage of the German attacks on Scarborough and Whitby the same day.

A lost hero found at last: 102 years after his death, an unknown soldier’s family finally grieve by his grave

He has lain with his fallen comrades for more than a century but, at last, the family of Lance Corporal Brunton Smith will now be able to grieve by his grave.

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Killed in the First World War and buried in an anonymous grave in France, brave Brunton’s final resting place has finally been identified and now, 102 years after his death, will be marked as his family attend a ceremony of dedication.

The service will be held later this month, 102 years to the day since he lost his life, aged 35, during efforts to halt the German 1918 spring offensive.

His relatives have chosen the epitaph: “He fought bravely, died courageously. Gone from our home, not from our hearts.”

The Royal Scots hero was traced following research by Andy Pugh, the nephew of another soldier. Andy has now been invited to attend the ceremony at Bancourt Military Cemetery in France.

Grandson Brunton Hunter, 73, a sculptor, said: “We can never thank Andy enough for what he has done for us. Although he is mentioned at the war memorial in Roslin, we’ve always wanted our grandfather to have a dedicated grave. Andy’s tenacity and years of research made it possible.

Brunton told how his grandmother, Helen, was reluctant to talk about the Great War and the tragedy that befell her family.

“She rarely spoke about her husband, not because she wasn’t proud of him but simply because that’s how that generation handled their loss,” he said. “She was almost 90 when she died, and she did not remarry. I’m sure she missed him every single day.

“It must have been very hard for her, having two little girls to bring up on her own with Brunton’s Army pay left on his death, which was less than £6.

“My mum Jean and her sister Helen were too young to remember much about their father when he went away to war, but I know they would be so very happy at what’s happened. Gran had his medals, letters and photographs, but not having Brunton was devastating for her.”

LCpl Smith, of Roslin, Midlothian, was 35 when he was killed. He was buried alongside the other unidentified soldiers killed on the same day on the Somme.

Among them was Andy’s great-uncle, Henry John Murrell, as well as Thomas Houston, another soldier from Glasgow whom he was able to identify.

Andy has been searching for three years to find his great-uncle’s final resting place. He now believes he has found the correct grave, but the Ministry of Defence said there was not yet enough evidence to satisfy its strict rules.

However, Andy was able to provide enough evidence about LCpl Smith to get the MoD and War Graves Commission to agree to the dedication service. 28

“In Brunton’s case, I discovered through old Army records he had been wounded,” he said. “His family provided the last piece of the jigsaw to prove where he fell because they had a photograph showing him being treated at a military hospital.”

Brunton was killed near the town of Bapaume, in northern France, the scene of two days of intense fighting as the British tried to halt the German offensive.

Following the Russian withdrawal from the war after the October 1917 Revolution, the Germans were able to transfer large numbers of troops from the Eastern to Western front. They launched one last, desperate offensive, intended to defeat the British and French before US troops arrived. However, the German offensive was eventually stopped.

Brunton was buried alongside the other unidentified soldiers killed during the fighting around Bapaume on March 24 and 25, 1918.

From the Irish Times…….

The story of the Irishmen executed by the Germans is a compelling drama

The execution of the Iron 12, six of whom were Irish, by the Germans remains one of the great unknown stories of the First World War. Here Hedley Malloch tells how he came across the story and organised a memorial to the unfortunate men.

As a piece of Western Front drama the story of the Iron 12 is unsurpassed. The story has many epic elements: battles, escape, flight, solidarity, fortitude against all odds, humanity, 29 endurance, courage, betrayal, death and tragedy. Even sex has a part to play. If it was scripted and cast in Hollywood, it would scarcely be believed. The executions of 12 men, 11 British soldiers, six who were Irish, one Liverpool-Irish, and a French civilian, were committed in cold blood and almost certainly after some judicial or quasi-judicial process. Today the episode remains the largest single execution of its type of British soldiers by the German army in the First World War.

Apart from its chilling drama the story is important for other reasons. The incident underlines the courage of the soldiers concerned. They could have surrendered to the German search parties scouring the countryside for them, and done so with honour, having acquitted themselves with distinction in battle.

The French families who sheltered them could have asked the soldiers to move on, arguing that their presence in the midst of a French village endangered those who were looking after them; that the burden of their care should be shared with others. They did not do so.

The drama draws attention to a hitherto neglected aspect of Western Front history: the fate of those British and French soldiers cut off in the summer and autumn of 1914. From early 1915 the Germans became increasingly intolerant of British soldiers on the run. Those caught were at risk of being executed.

The fact that more than half of the men were Irish reflects the heavy dependence of the British army on Irish-born soldiers. The eldest was Matthew Wilson from Ahascragh, Co Galway, who was 36; the average age was about 24: the youngest appears to have been Daniel Horgan, from Co Cork, who would have been 18 or 19.

It is beyond doubt that these soldiers were stragglers from two encounters between the German and British armies in the last week of 1914. These were at Le Grand Fayt and Etreux. On the afternoon of 26 August the 2nd battalion of the Connaught Rangers were deployed about two miles east of Landrecies; they had been detailed to act as rear-guard to the brigade’s retreat. Misinformed as to the Germans’ position, 2/CR was encircled by them in an area around Marbaix and Le Grand Fayt. They emerged with nearly 300 men missing.

The next day (27 August) the 2nd battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers and two troops of the 15th Hussars were defending the crossings of the Sambre Canal between Catillon and Etreux, about six miles south-west of Le Grand Fayt. They were deployed along the road linking Bergues and Chapeau Rouge.

They came under German attack during the morning. Orders to retire from Brigadier-General Maxse, GOC 1 (Guards) Brigade never reached them. They were left isolated as other units in the brigade on their flanks withdrew and by early evening their line of retreat across the canal to the relative safety of Guise had been severed. Surrounded by a much superior German force, they lost their CO, Major Charrier.

Such large numbers of missing soldiers were made possible by both natural and man-made causes. The natural causes can be found in the nature of countryside. The area in which both of these battles took place is quite unlike the plains of Picardy, Champagne, Flanders and the Somme where the bulk of Western Front fighting took place. This is L’Avesnois, where the last vestiges of the Ardennes meet the plains of north-west France.

The sight of people living rough in the forests would not attract any special German attention, nor would anyone, given the presence of numbers of Flemish-speaking Belgian refugees, who was unable to speak French. 30

The first contact came on October 15th, 1914 when Vincent Chalandre came across nine British soldiers in the fields near Iron, a small village of 500 souls about three miles to the south of Etreux. The soldiers, still in possession of their rifles, were scavenging for raw carrots and other root crops. They asked Chalandre for bread.

Chalandre was a retired silk weaver living in Iron but he worked as a casual labourer for Monsieur and Madame Logez, smallholders who owned a mill in the same village. Touched by the plight of the nine, reduced to rooting in the fields for vegetables, Chalandre resolved to help them.

Monsieur Logez had suffered a stroke and appears to have been mentally incapable; in these circumstances Madame Léonie Logez had taken over the running of the family business. As well as her husband, she had a son, Oscar, aged 16, and daughter Jeanne, aged 15, to help her.

Cometh the hour, cometh the woman. She set about the task of saving the “pauvres enfants”, as she continually called them, with rare resolution. Her first response was to organise shelter for the nine soldiers in a large hut belonging to her, located in fields she owned. This was very dangerous as there were Germans billeted in the village. Whether they were in the hut or at the mill, Madame Logez remained responsible for feeding them. Her smallholding enabled her to move around carrying meat and cereals; her mill gave her access to flour, which she used to bake bread for the soldiers.

She organised a network of women, rendezvous and pick-up points to furnish the considerable supplies demanded by the daily task of feeding the nine soldiers.

The first portent of doom arrived on December 15th, 1914 when forty German military police arrived on motorcycles at the mill. Madame Logez, displaying considerable bravery and nerve, delayed them just long enough for her daughter, Jeanne, to warn the soldiers who were asleep in the loft to escape through the rear. They managed to get clear of the mill, crossed the river and hid in a copse on the other side.

In the village lived a woman named Blanche Maréchal. She was married and she was generous with her sexual favours. Her lovers included Clovis Chalandre, the 16-year-old son of Vincent Chalandre. There was some very indiscreet pillow talk during which Clovis told her about the British soldiers. Blanche told her husband who made his own enquiries, and he stimulated gossip. One way or another the news reached one of Blanche’s other lovers, Bachelet, a 66- year-old veteran of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. To be fair to all concerned everyone in the village knew - except the Germans. Clovis was jealous of Bachelet. On the night of 21 February Clovis went to M.Maton’s brasserie where Bachelet lodged and threw stones at Bachelet’s window. Bachelet’s response shocked Clovis. Bachelet shouted, ‘You’ll pay for this; tomorrow I am going to inform on you and the English - you will all be shot!’ Clovis returned home - and told no one. Bachelet was to be as good as his word.

On 22 February Bachelet, driven by ‘a thirst for revenge, and a madness born of senility’ went to the German military headquarters in Guise. There the Rear-Zone Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Waechter and his adjutant Kolera, received him. To these two, Bachelet denounced the soldiers and those who were sheltering them.

Waechter began his preparations to take the British troops. The eleven soldiers were in Chalandre’s large attic busy washing themselves and repairing their clothes or shoes. They had guns and about 1,000 rounds of ammunition between them.

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They could have fought the Germans, but they went quietly, perhaps reasoning that any resistance on their part would only lead to reprisals against the villagers. The Germans tied their hands behind their backs, and then bound them in pairs. Along with Chalandre, they were punched, kicked and beaten into the waiting lorries. Before they left the Germans torched the Chalandre family home and all their possessions. The villagers were forced to witness the incineration.

The soldiers were then taken to the German HQ in the Guise Town Hall located then, as now, in rue Chantraine. According to one newspaper report, the soldiers were badly beaten up on the night of February 24-25th, to such an extent that their cries woke the residents of Rue Chantraine. On the morning of February 25th the twelve were woken and subjected to ‘a terrible beating with punches, whips, cudgels; blunt instruments and rubber hammers in an orgy of joyous and strictly administered callous cruelty’. Half-conscious, the twelve were put in a cart and taken into the Château at Guise by the porte-secours, a gate at the rear of the castle specially built to allow the admission of reinforcements in times of crisis.

On the other side of the relief gate a ditch had been dug. Everyone understood its significance. The soldiers were made to stand along the edge of the ditch in two batches of six. The order to fire was given twice; gunfire rang out. Their bodies were then covered with soil.

The members of the Logez and Chalandre family were brought before a military tribunal. Madame Logez’ life was spared. She was given five years’ imprisonment, Jeanne, her daughter, one year’s imprisonment, Oscar, her son, was sentenced to penal servitude for an unspecified period.

Madame Chalandre was sentenced to four years’ forced labour. Her health deteriorated and she died after the war. The three youngest Chalandre children, Marthe, Marcel and Leon were turned out onto the street where, according to one account, ‘they existed by begging until the armistice’. All three children died in the next 10 years as a result of their deprivations during the War. In all the tragedy claimed 16 lives.

“My grandfather came from Mitchelstown, Co Cork and was a soldier in the Royal Munster Fusiliers in the First World War. In the early 1990s I joined the Royal Munster Fusiliers Association (RMFA) to find out more about him. The story first came to my attention in about 1994 when the RMFA published a one-page version of the story in their association magazine. I have since found out that they republish the story every 20 years or so. It impressed me deeply.

My first reaction was how did M. Chalandre and Madame Logez think they could get away with hiding eleven British soldiers in a village with a heavy German presence and with a death penalty for anyone who tried it?

It was the RMFA who kept this story alive and they deserve a lot of credit. It was virtually unknown in the 1990s and if it were not for them it would have passed out of memory if it were not for them,At that time I was living and working in north-east England and did not have much opportunity to research the story. But in 2000, purely by chance, I came to Lille to work which was, not far from Iron. I resolved to go down there and have a look around. I did not know what to look for or what I would find, but I am a great believer in serendipity.

Sure enough, there was the village war memorial with M. Chalandre’s name on it - but nothing else. But then by chance a man came of his house and asked me what I wanted. He introduced to M. Gruselle, the Mayor of Iron and the great-grandson of Léonie Logez, one of the two main 32 carers for the soldiers. He talked to me and started a dialogue about the story which is still on- going.

The other development from 2004 onwards has been the internet. This has opened so many doors.

What interests me in the story? First, it deals with neglected aspects of the First World War: what happened to the soldiers left behind the lines? Who helped them - and why? It shows that there was more to the Western Front than two armies facing each other over no-man’s land.

This other war involved women and children, many of whom died as a result of their efforts

The memorial commemorates not just what happened at Iron; it commemorates all soldiers trapped behind the lines and who did not or could not surrender, as well as all the French and Belgian people who helped them, and suffered as a result.

I hope, too, that the memorials stands as a strong symbol of Franco-Irish co-operation and friendship. This appeals to those parts of me which are Irish and working and living in France. Despite the linguistic barriers, the French families who were sheltering the soldiers had picked up knew that many of them were Irish. For this reason, if no other, I am so pleased Ireland is starting to take an interest in this story.

The monument has an Irish feel to its design. It was carved by Feelystone who live of Boyle, Roscommon. The bronze plaque was made by Seamus Connolly, Ireland’s best bronze artist.”

Commemorations to mark the centenary of the execution of the Iron 12 took place in Iron and Guise on February 25th, 2015.

Robert Wilson visits the grave of his brother Matthew Wilson who was executed by the Germans in 1915.

33 Grave Markers

34 MAKING TIME FOR A CHAT

It has been interesting to read in newspapers recently about the need for people to talk to strangers on public transport or pass the time of day with someone on his/her own in an attempt to help deal with loneliness. Clearly the writers must be southerners!

One of the things that I missed most while living and working in Cambridge for more than 30 years was being able to enjoy fascinating conversations with strangers in unexpected places – the locals there are generally aloof and reserved! Since moving to Barnsley seven years ago, I'm delighted at the number of serendipitous experiences that have occurred.

I visited Hoyland Library to view Barnsley Council's new exhibition last October - I have a particular interest in Hoyland because it is my birthplace. The Librarians had put a relevant selection of their wide-ranging local history books on a nearby table for people to look at. While browsing the only one I don't own, a man spoke to me and we passed the next hour deep in conversation.

It turned out that Philip is the brother of Michael M Bedford, whose 'Hoyland Nether Through the Years' (1983) contains some wonderful photographs of Hoyland and local people. Apparently, he had a huge collection of old photos and I often wished he had published more books. Michael died a few years ago and his family cherish his archives.

Philip and I discussed changes in Hoyland and the regrettable loss of some important buildings such as the Town Hall with Martha's clock. The clock inspired the title of Sheila Ottley's book about Hoyland in the 1920s, ‘While Martha Told the Hours’, which includes her memories of several of my relations (Firths and Booths). We wondered where this clock was now and why it had not been put back on display in Hoyland since paid for by local people.

Philip and I had a lot in common. His father was a Coal Miner like many in Hoyland and Elsecar including my father's family (Hardy). Philip qualified as a Mason and worked for Wentworth Woodhouse, based alongside the Blacksmith in the area of shops opposite the entrance roadway. A great, great aunt of mine was employed as a domestic servant in the big house for over 30 years and she retired to what was originally the Miners' Lodging House. Martha Elizabeth Berry (nee Horn) came from a family of Masons in Islip, Northamptonshire, and, as the Earl Fitzwilliam owned property in the area, this could have led to her employment in Yorkshire. They may even have been employed by him for some work.

Some of Philip’s relations lived in Sebastopol and he was surprised I knew where this was until I explained that some of mine had also lived there (Bailey). Like other streets named after the Crimean War (1853 to 1856) - Turkey and Inkerman - it was demolished in the slum clearance programme and now forms part of the inner ring road.

This led to my inevitable question about the involvement of Barnsley/Hoyland folk in this War, where they were commemorated and whether there were names anywhere. Philip told me that a huge Crimean War Memorial had been erected in Sheffield, apparently for the wider area, but had been removed for road planning, again despite being paid for by public subscription. He was unaware of its current location.

As I had recently seen some old postcards on Ebay showing this impressive memorial with a statue of Victory at the top (but no names) in Moor Head, Sheffield, I had to consult Mr Google when I got home. The Imperial War Museum's Memorials website states that it is Grade II listed and was relocated to the Botanical Gardens in 1960 but this information is out of date. Photographs show only the top part of the Memorial with Victory and the plaque there, the tall column having been removed – destroyed?

The War Memorials Online website explains that it was removed into Council Storage in 2004 needing £2 million to renovate it. Sheffield City Council were approached by the Victorian Society in 2014 as they were concerned about its survival. I understand that Sheffield City Council, like so many other Councils, has been starved of resources over the last ten years of Government imposed austerity, but where is it being kept in storage and is it being properly looked after? It saddens me to think that such an important and beautiful Memorial, generously paid for local people who lost sons in the Crimean War and wanted them to be commemorated, is not on public display and might be lost. 35 If anyone knows anything about Martha’s clock from Hoyland or the Crimean War Memorial I would love to know more about them. Has anyone done research into relations who served in the Crimean War to share their stories and how they found details?

Yorkshire folk are generally a friendly outgoing lot, although we all lead busy lives these days and some people are in thrall to their smart phone screens. However, next time a stranger speaks to you try to spare some time in conversation as it could lead anywhere. You never know what memories you might share or what new information you can learn...

The postcards that Jane referred to…….

Jane Ainsworth

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Talbot House For those of us who have visited the Battlefields, Ypres is frequently on the itinerary and a short way north of The Salient is Poperinghe……… During the Great War, Poperinghe was part of unoccupied Belgium. Away from the turmoil of battle in the Ypres Salient, the town became the nerve centre of the British sector. In the heart of this bustling town, the Army chaplains Neville Talbot and Philip "Tubby" Clayton opened a club. From December 1915 onwards, and for more than three years, the House provided rest and recreation to all soldiers coming in, regardless of their rank. Today, as real as then, the place offers a welcoming and friendly stop in Flanders fields. A visit to Talbot House usually starts at the old hop barn adjacent to the house, which was converted into a concert hall during the War. In 'A House of People', the new (2020) permanent exhibition, you are immersed in the history of the club over the last century. Your journey will start in the military camps, hospitals and the vibrant city life of 'Petit Paris' before telling the tales of Talbot House, both from its founding to the present day. Through some 500 artefacts, each linked to personal accounts of Talbotousians, you relive the old days. On the first floor of the Concert Hall, the 'Happy Hoppers' have quite a show waiting for you in. Exiting the Hall , you enter what for the soldiers would have been heaven on earth, the well-kept green garden. In the Slessorium there is always a temporarily exhibition to discover. And then on to the highlight of your visit, Talbot House. You are welcomed at the door by our resident wardens. As you make your way up the stairs to the Upper Room, you will reach the foundations of the club, the authentic chapel. The House is very much still in use. Have moment of peace in the chapel (below) or you can even spend the night in one of the guest rooms. It is what Talbot House is famous for.

During my working life I got the opportunity to travel and in doing so visited many famous religious and spiritual sites across the world, but there is something special about climbing the steep stair (ladder?) into that upper room at Talbot House where so many had their first communion…and for too many…. their last……

37 Epidemic of 1918-1919 In the middle of a 21st Century pandemic, it's important for us to recall the at the end of World War 1. The “Spanish flu” was named because Spain wasn’t in the war, and therefore had no press . All other countries censored news of the disease, so the first reports came out of Spain. But the disease originated elsewhere. There are several theories of its origin. The most popular is that it came from . Certainly, the first cases in the U.S. were at , on , near Manhattan, Kansas, in spring, 1918. The origin appeared to be from southwest Kansas. But there are other theories. It may have started in British replacement camps in France. Or it may have been brought by imported from China. Whatever its origin, the disease spread quickly and widely. While it was known as an "epidemic", by today's standards it was truly a pandemic. The pandemic attacked in three waves: spring of 1918, fall of 1918, and winter of 1918-19. The second wave was the most lethal of the three, causing civilian deaths throughout the US, as well as around the world. About a quarter of the US population fell ill. Some 600,000 died. There were widespread , people were advised to stay at home, large gatherings were prohibited, and everyone wore masks. President Wilson caught the flu, while he was in Paris in early 1919. He took a long time to recover. The disease very likely affected his performance at the Peace Conference. More broadly, perhaps one-third of the world population fell ill. The total number of deaths is not accurately known. At the time, the death toll was thought to be 20-30 million. Recent studies have revised this upwards to 50 million and downwards to as low as 18 million. These are all just estimates, but it is clear that influenza killed more people than the war itself. The conditions of the war, with soldiers and civilians moving about the world, almost certainly contributed to its rapid spread and its death toll. Influenza usually carries a mortality of rate of less than 1 in a thousand, largely from secondary . It's a seasonal disease. But the new strain appearing in early 1918 was capable of causing death by primary lung failure, not just by secondary pneumonia. This new strain killed 2 to 3% of people who contracted it. Unusually, this strain caused deaths in young people of 20 to 35 years, the age of most soldiers. Armies on both sides were severely affected. One of the several causes contributing to the failure of the is that widespread illness blunted the offensive power of the German army. The peak of illness in the fall of 1918 affected both the Allied offensive, and the German defence. In the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), cases peaked in the week of September 15-22. But the disease was not limited to France. According to the War Department at the time, over 1 million men, fell ill. Army-wide, influenza and pneumonia accounted for nearly 30,000 deaths, more than half of the 52,000 non-combat deaths during the war. Army soldiers being sent to France, crowded into troopships, fell ill in great numbers. Navy personnel, for the same reason, were particularly vulnerable. The Navy recorded 100,000 hospital admissions, with 5,000 deaths, out of 600,000 men in the Navy. Influenza is caused by a virus, a micro-organism twenty times smaller than a bacterium. In 1918, medical scientists had barely discovered , and had little or no idea how to combat them. The best microscopes of the day couldn't see them. Today, we know that the "Spanish Flu" was the H1N1 strain of influenza. We can see the virus with an electron microscope. We can immunize against it, and all of the other strains of influenza. We can give for the secondary pneumonia. And we can support patients with ventilators if their lungs fail. But in 1918, all physicians could do was to support the patient, as best they could, and ride out the epidemic. Even today, much about the epidemic remains a mystery. We still don't know why the 1918 strain was so deadly. The H1N1 strain continues to circulate, and was in fact the major strain in the current 2019-20 epidemic in the US. But mortality was 0.1% or less, far smaller than with 38 the 1918 virus. Still, 30 to 50 million have been infected, with between 23,000 and 59,000 deaths (estimated by the CDC as of March 14, 2020). The yearly flu remain a serious public health problem. What lessons can we take for today's COVID-19 pandemic? It's a different virus, but lessons can still be learned. Public health response to reduce the spread of disease is vital. Much of the response in 1918 was too little and too late. Still, cities which responded with early quarantines and other measures (e.g., St. Louis) fared much better than those which did not (e.g., ). We have more treatment options, but we still are limited. There is no vaccine (yet), no anti-viral medications, and limited abilities to test for the virus. We do not yet know if today's pandemic will reach the scale of 1918-19, although we are obviously hopeful that it will not. Stay safe out there. Books on the great influenza pandemic . Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World. Public Affairs, New York. 2017 John M. Barrey. The Great Influenza. The Epic Story of the Deadliest in History. Penguin Books, New York, 2005. Gina Bari Kolata. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus That Caused It. Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999.

The influenza ward in an AEF hospital in France.

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The large influenza ward at Camp Funston, Fort Riley, Kansas.