1915: The Death of Innocence Page 53

  This calumny was as ill judged as it was unjust. Like the Territorials before them, Kitchener’s volunteers had proved that they were no weaklings. The criticism muttered in high places did not reach the ears of the rank and file, and it would not have worried them greatly if it had. They knew they had done their best. They had received high praise and even rare expressions of admiration from the senior officers on the spot, not least from Brigadier-General Nugent. And they had stuck it out. Best of all, one of their number had won the Victoria Cross – the first in the New Army. And the New Army was not a little proud of it.*

  When the Regulars of the 6th Division took over the line and managed to recover Hooge, Kitchener’s Army did not grudge them their victory.

  Chapter 29

  It was exactly a year since Great Britain had gone to war on 4 August 1914 and the 1st Coldstream Guards had been fighting from the start. They had fought their way back in the long retreat from Mons in a series of brilliant rearguard actions. They had fought in the battles of the Marne and the Aisne and raced north in October to meet the Germans at Ypres in the great battle that brought the German army to a standstill and saved the Channel ports. At the end of the autumn fighting the Battalion had been reduced to a hundred and fifty officers and men. But the drafts of reinforcements from the Reserve Battalion which had brought them almost up to strength were also Regular soldiers and Guardsmen, long-schooled in the discipline and traditions that had forged the reputation of the Guards as the best of all the soldiers in an army that was generally acknowledged to be the best army in the world.

  Fighting in the trenches was a sad comedown from the cut and thrust of mobile warfare and the particular length of trench-line the Coldstream were now inhabiting was not one that would have been easily envisaged by a guardsman drilling on the immaculate parade ground at Caterham or mounting the King’s Guard at Buckingham Palace in the piping days of peace. It was in a particularly nasty sector of the line at Cambrin near the la Bassée Canal where the tunnellers of both sides had been busy and the frequent explosions had reduced the trenches to a meandering shambles of loops and saps. The British and German lines were barely thirty yards apart and in the sector occupied by the Coldstream Guards the distance was even narrower. Two large mine craters nicknamed Vesuvius and Etna lay between them and the German front line and each side held one lip – a good deal too close for comfort. The Guards had constructed a new front line a little further back with a long listening-sap running forward to ‘their’ side of the crater. Every sound and every movement could be heard clearly by the troops across the way and although silence was rigidly observed and orders were given as far as possible by hand signals, it was difficult even for the disciplined Guards to make no sound at all in the ordinary way and, no matter how stealthily they went about changing places with an incoming battalion, almost impossible during a relief. A few nights earlier the Coldstream had suffered badly when the Scots Guards moved in to relieve them. The Germans were alerted by the shuffling of movement and the occasional inadvertent clink of equipment and sent over a shower of mortar bombs, giant Minenwerfers fired from close range, which had caused havoc in 2 Company’s trench. There were several casualties, including two of the senior sergeants, and the Company Commander, Captain the Honourable Thomas Agar Robartes was furious.

  Lt. G. Barry, MC, 1st Bn., Coldstream Guards.

  Tommy Robartes was a remarkable man. He was a Member of Parliament, and one of the very few men I’ve ever come across who appeared to be entirely devoid of any form of fear. Nobody ever saw him duck for a shell or take cover when bullets were flying around. His company would have followed him anywhere. He was infuriated at the loss of his two sergeants and swore he would get his own back on the Germans.

  Now it so happened that while he was on leave in England Tommy had bought a number of musical instruments, including a drum, which he’d had sent over to France with the intention of forming a company band. It numbered about ten men under a corporal and when we were out of the line or in billets they used to practise and they soon became so good that they were even allowed to play on route-marches. So when Tommy’s fertile imagination got to work on how to avenge the death of his two sergeants he immediately thought of the band. A large number of Germans would be lured to a certain spot by the music of the band, whereupon they would be well and truly shelled!

  Before we went back to the trenches Tommy explained his plan to the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel John Ponsonby, and the Colonel was tickled to death at the idea and gave him his blessing. At three minutes to midnight on the following night the band would start a musical entertainment as close to the German line as possible – in the saphead under the lip of Etna. Then the gunners behind would lay down a heavy barrage on the German trenches immediately behind and on both sides of their lip of the crater. The barrage would start exactly at midnight. Colonel Ponsonby made only one stipulation – that the front line on both sides of Etna should be evacuated for a short distance before the show started, and the troops moved back to the support line. He was under no delusions as to what the outcome would be!

  In order to make a really first-class kill, Tommy decided that, like all good shows, this one would have to be previously advertised. A large notice was prepared and stuck into the ground that night above the parapet of our front line so that the Germans could read it through their periscopes the next morning. It was written in German and read: ‘Our Band Will Play Tonight at Midnight’.

  It was 4 August and the Coldstream felt that on this auspicious date the Germans might think that the ‘concert’ was intended to mark the completion of a year of war.

  The instruments were brought up from the transport line, not without difficulty, and at a quarter to twelve they were passed along the front line to the band waiting at the sap-entrance ready to move up to the listening post under the lip of the crater. Robartes had made a point of warning them that it might be a dangerous job, but no one had backed out.

  Lt. G. Barry MC.

  It was a lovely calm summer evening. Hardly a gun was firing along the front. Quite a number of spectators couldn’t resist coming to watch the show, especially myself, since the party was to take place practically in my platoon sector. So, after that part of the front line was evacuated in accordance with the Colonel’s orders, I went along to Etna. The band was already there and waiting. It was also clear that the Germans had read our notice for they had begun to collect opposite us, and we could hear movements along their trenches and even see the spiked tops of their pickelhaube helmets against the skyline. From that distance – only about ten to twelve yards – we could hear them talking quite distinctly.

  Then Tommy appeared, smoking a cigar as usual, and the men got their instruments into position. It had been decided that the overture to the grand symphony should be The Watch on the Rhine’ – we hoped that the Germans would appreciate the compliment! I know that I, for one, waited in a state of intense excitement for the curtain to rise, and then, at exactly three minutes to twelve, Tommy nodded to the band and the music began.

  It would be difficult to picture a more bizarre scene on that warm summer night – the strains of music from deep down in the ground, the orchestra on our side of a deadly dividing line and the audience, our enemy, occupying underground stalls on the other! The Watch on the Rhine’ was played through to the end and the band stopped. Immediately from across the mine crater came cheers, and shouts and clapping. Some of them shouted, ‘Hoch, hoch’ and one voice called, ‘Long live the Kaiser.’ Tommy looked at his watch and saw that there was still more than a minute to go to midnight and on no account must the audience be allowed to disperse, so he motioned the band to start an encore.

  The men struck up again and had got about half-way through when Tommy gave the signal to stop. By this time there were only about fifteen seconds left to get clear of the saphead before the barrage was due to come down. There was some difficulty, I remember, getting the band out of the narrow trenc
h quickly without a lot of noise – especially the man with the drum! The rest of us followed behind and we hadn’t even got out of the sap into the front line when there was a swish and a roar and the first shells screamed over our heads and plunged into the ground just behind. A good old scramble then took place to get along the communication trench to the support line! A constant stream of our shells was pouring into the German trenches, and their flashes were lighting up the darkness around. But it wasn’t long before we heard a dull report from behind the enemy lines and, looking up into the sky, we saw the lighted tail of a Minenwerfer bomb turning over and over, as it began to fall. It made a noise like the rush of an express train but fortunately it fell behind us and we only got a rain of stones and earth thrown from the crater. More followed in quick succession but by this time the band was out of the danger area and we all reached the support line without mishap.

  I can’t remember how long our own guns went on firing, probably not more than ten minutes, for no one but a fool would have remained in such a death-trap any longer, but the Germans continued to pound our front line round Etna with Minnies and 5.9 shells for well over two hours. Not once did they think of putting some shells into our support line, and even then they would have got us a second time when we eventually re-occupied the front line, for it should not have been very difficult for them to guess that we would repair it during the first lull and all they had to do was to give us half an hour and then put down their barrage in the same place as before. As it was, we didn’t have one single casualty.

  Tommy now felt that he had had his revenge and decided he would treat the Germans to a real genuine show. So, before dawn, another notice was put up:

  Our Band Will Play Again Tonight

  This Time No Danger

  That evening the band assembled again but in a different place where the two lines were a little farther apart. They gave a first-class concert, and even sang some songs, but the only response from the Germans was a few bullets overhead! The following morning at stand-to I saw through my periscope that the Germans had put up a notice on their front line. It read:

  We Have Taken Warsaw and Captured 100,000 Russian Prisoners

  The implication was clearly: ‘So sucks to you!’ But the Coldstream were satisfied that they had won on points.

  The Germans, never slow to trumpet their victories, flashed news of the fall of Warsaw round the world and a very few hours after they had obliged the Coldstream with this information in their trench-line in France, a similar placard was hoisted above a Turkish trench at Lone Pine on far-off Gallipoli. The Australians of the 5th Battalion AIF read it incredulously and instantly dismissed it as a ‘furphy’.

  The word ‘furphy’ had been coined many months before in the training camps at Melbourne, where the rubbish and the contents of latrines were removed every day by carts prominently blazoned with the name of the contractor, which happened to be Furphy. The word ‘furphy’, meaning (in its politest form) ‘rubbish’, had rapidly gained currency and on Gallipoli, where rumours abounded, it was particularly useful. Every carrying party returning to the trenches from the beach had a tale to tell: Greece had declared war on Turkey and was going to land a hundred thousand men on the peninsula. Or, Rumania had declared war and was marching through Bulgaria to Constantinople. Or, two hundred thousand French were landing at Helles with the intention of taking over the whole peninsula. All were furphies, but the news of the fall of Warsaw happened to be true. It was serious news, for it meant that the Germans were winning on the eastern front and that the Russians were in retreat. The report reached Gallipoli on the eve of the ‘big show’ planned for 6 August when the Anzacs were to storm the high ridges in conjunction with a new British landing at Suvla Bay. In the minds of the men who conducted the war it was now more important than ever that the big show should succeed. In a few days, with a modicum of luck, the peninsula might be secured and the Royal Navy might be steaming up the Dardanelles on the way to Constantinople.

  The War Cabinet in London was desperate for first-hand information and Asquith had arranged for the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Maurice Hankey, to travel to the Dardanelles to report direct to him on the situation as he saw it, and so that Hankey would not be embarrassed by having to pass his reports through open channels, he also arranged for a King’s Messenger to bring them back. Hankey’s views would be confidential and he was to pull no punches.

  Sir Maurice visited every corner of the peninsula. He spent time at Cape Helles (‘I shall have to paint a picture of great discomfort and hardship… our men are in good heart’). He rode close to the front line for a view of Achi Baba (‘The only difficulty for the Turkish gunner on Achi Baba is the bewildering variety of targets – crowded beaches, horse lines, rest camps, flotillas of trawlers…’). He scrambled up Gully Ravine (‘Proper sanitation is impossible in places as the Turkish dead lie in heaps, the smell being bad, while the thought of masses of flies in such conditions makes the flesh creep…’). He visited every beach (‘Really rather horrible. A dust storm rages for a great part of most days, the sun is intensely hot, of shade there is none, the soil is soft sand, very fatiguing to move about in, the flies are execrable, and, worst of all, the Turks shell at frequent intervals…’). He went to Anzac (‘Several very deep, steep and bare ravines, the sides everywhere scarred by hundreds of “dug-outs” where the men off duty live like anchorites and hermits. The hills, some four hundred feet above the sea, are crowned with the most amazingly complete labyrinth of trenches…’).

  Sir Maurice spent a good deal of time in the Australian trenches at Anzac for his cousin was Second-in-Command of an Australian battalion and escorted him up to the front line for a close-up view. Hankey was deeply impressed. He wrote to the Prime Minister:

  I do hope that we shall hear no more of the ‘indiscipline’ of this extraordinary Corps, for I don’t believe that for military qualities of every kind their equal exists. Their physique is wonderful and their intelligence of a high order. Harassed by continuous shelling, living in intense heat, tormented by flies, compelled to carry their water and most of their supplies and ammunition by hand 400 feet up the hills and deprived of any recreation except occasionally bathing, they are nevertheless in the highest spirits and spoiling for a fight.

  Since it seemed the only way to get out of their present situation the Australians were certainly ‘spoiling for a fight’, but their spirits were not so high as the visitor assumed. The Anzacs made no bones about the fact that they were fed up. Perspiring in the baking heat, with frequent, unwelcome visitations of dysentery, with a monotonous thirst-provoking diet of bully beef and biscuits enlivened occasionally by tough unsavoury stew, and with no rest to look forward to but the weary toil of fatigues, it was hardly astonishing that they were sick of the peninsula and sick to death of the war. It was not what they had bargained for.

  Pte. W. Carrol, 21st Bn., AIF.

  The war broke out when I was up in Queensland and we were shearing and there were no telephones or wireless in those days and the shearer said, ‘Oh, there’s war. They’re going to have war.’ They all said it wouldn’t last a week. They wanted men to keep Arabs and Turks away from the Suez Canal because it linked England and Australia and New Zealand and China and India and so it was very important to have that channel free with all the food and ammunition and soldiers going backwards and forwards. They wanted Australia to send men – and I was one of the mugs. We all came down from the station, and they said anyone who would like to go to join the Army and go to Egypt to defend the canal was to report to barracks, and there was such a crowd and I didn’t expect to get through. We said it wouldn’t last a week, or two at the most. What fun it would be. That’s what we thought, actually. We were proved to be a lot of suckers.

  First of all, I was in the 13th, the Light Horse. Everyone wanted to ride a horse. With sixty pounds on your back, you didn’t get much encouragement to join the infantry! But then they must have had ideas that a horse was no good at digg
ing trenches – you must have infantry, so they had to transfer a lot of us. We were all wishing to go. We thought, ‘The war will be over before we get there.’

  When we got on the boat my sister and father came down to see me off and as I went up the gangway an old aunt pushed a little bag into my hand and there were ten gold sovereigns in it. Just think of that today! The first thing we knew was in the morning we’d slipped anchor and the two big ships, the Euripides and the Ulysses, both Blue Funnel ships that had been converted to troop carriers, were steaming out on their trip to the Suez Canal. We didn’t touch any other Australian port. We went by the Luin, a headland in Western Australia, and that was our last view of Australia. All the troops were on deck and you should have heard all the noise and yelling that went on. We all hung over the rail. It was fairly rough and the lights on shore were getting dimmer and dimmer. I think everyone was fond of their country. They were watching – I suppose they were thinking of their wives and sweethearts. I hadn’t a sweetheart, I hadn’t a mother, so it was a fairly easy trip for me, but as the lights got dimmer and dimmer they all went down below, and that night I never heard the men go to bed so quietly. The Captain said, ‘Have your last look at Australia.’ He couldn’t have spoken a truer word because 50 per cent of the infantry on board never came back.

  If the Aussies had hesitated to treat Sir Maurice Hankey to a recital of their woes they were only too willing to express their views to any other passerby, regardless of his rank.