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 pandemic engulfing the globe, your Professor John Bourne BA PhD committee took the prudent 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) virus defeated. Grant Cullen (Secretary) [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 Germany AFTER the armistice and how it led to WW2` March 3rd Peter Hart Après la Guerre Post-war 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 British Army has always fought a long battle with 5th the debilitations cause to its soldier’s efficiency through venereal disease, a combination of behavioural change and civilian interference resulted in an ‘epidemic’ 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 Tanks 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 2 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 Influenza Epidemic 1918-1919 XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 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. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 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 Central powers, 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 Hindenburg Line 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. France, 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 Ottoman Empire. 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 wars 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. 4 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 Europe 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 London recorded 3,889 deaths in a week. Half the population of Manchester contracted the disease and the death rate was almost 8%.