The Great Mine at La Boisselle in 1917.

Irish artist Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, visited the Western Front in 1917. In his book ‘An Onlooker in France,’ he records his time on the Front together with some vivid painitings.

This extract is regarding his visit to the great mine at La Boisselle.

The Great Mine. La Boisselle

“The great mine at La Boisselle was a wonderful sight. One morning I was wandering about the old battlefield, and I came across a great wilderness of white chalk—not a tuft of grass, not a flower, nothing but blazing chalk; apparently a hill of chalk dotted thickly all over with bits of shrapnel. I walked up it, and suddenly found myself on the lip of the crater. I felt myself in another world. This enormous hole, 320 yards round at the top, with sides so steep one could not climb down them, was the vast, terrific work of man. Imagine burrowing all that way down in the belly of the earth, with Hell going on overhead, burrowing and listening till they got right under the German trenches—hundreds and hundreds of yards of burrowing. And here remained the result of their work, on the earth at least, if not on humanity. The latter had disappeared; but the great chasm, with one mound in the centre at the bottom, and one skull placed on top of it, remained. They had cut little steps down one of its sides, and had cleared up all the human remains and buried them in this mound. That one mound, with the little skull on the top, at the bottom of this enormous chasm, was the greatest monument I have ever seen to the handiwork of man.

There was another fairly large mine here, just by the Bapaume Road, and there was a large mine at Beaumont-Hamel, and also the "Cough-drop" at High Wood. These were wonderful, but they could not compare in dignity and grandeur with the great mine of La Boisselle.”

View from the Old English Trenches. Looking towards La Boisselle.

(Major Sir William Newenham Montague Orpen, KBE (27 November 1878 – 29 September 1931) was an Irish portrait painter. He studied art at the Metropolitan School and at the Slade School in London where, at the time, great emphasis was put on the study of old masters.

William Orpen was made an official war painter of the First World War and in 1917 he travelled to the Western Front. He produced drawings and paintings of privates, dead soldiers and German prisoners of war along with official portraits of generals and politicians. Most of these works, 138 in all, are in the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.

He was deeply affected by the suffering he witnessed in the war and his 'To the Unknown British Soldier Killed in France first exhibited in 1923 showed a flag draped coffin flanked by a pair of ghostly and wretched soldiers clothed only in tattered blankets. Although widely admired by the public, this picture was attacked by the press and Orpen painted out the soldiers before the painting was accepted by the Imperial War Museum in 1927).

A Court Martial for a Conscientious Objector.

Not everybody could reconcile their faith with ‘serving their country’. This report from the Eastbourne Gazette on 18th October 1916 concerns Mr. Gerald Whichelo, who was an assistant at a boy’s school.

Mr Whichelo obviously had very high principals, but perhaps lacked a measure of ‘common sense’. A dose of humility might have helped his case with the members of the Tribunals.


“Court Martial

Schoolmaster as Conscientious Objector

One of the most persistent of conscientious objectors is Gerald Ross Whichelo, a gentlemanly looking, black haired man about 25 years of age. He was formerly an assistant at a boys school in Eastbourne carried on by an ultra-patriotic principal. Relinquishing his scholastic work Mr. Whichelo went to work on a farm at Weybridge in Surrey. When he appeared before the Eastbourne Tribunal some of the members were rather displeased by the high-flown language in which he declared himself a Christian opposed to “totemism”- a word which many people are unprepared to define.

A District Court Martial was held at Stoughton Barracks, Guildford, the depot of the Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment, on Thursday, when Mr. Whichelo was charged with refusing to obey the command of his superior officer to undress for medical inspection at the Barracks on September 23. He pleaded guilty.

In his defence the accused said his position was due to the scandalous administration of the Military Service Acts by the Tribunals of Eastbourne and East Sussex. Although the concession of non-combatant service more or less acknowledged his objection to warfare he could not reconcile the Sermon on the Mount with being a member of an organisation whose sole purpose was the destruction of his fellow Christians. He had asked for exemption on condition that he undertook work of national importance but the East Sussex Appeal Tribunal dismissed his application. He then obtained work on the land and applied for the variation of his certificate, but the application was dismissed with the result that he appeared there a day as a prisoner, to the permanent disgrace of the British Law of liberty and justice. He was not a soldier before the eyes of God, and in view of all the circumstances he asked to be released and allowed to continue his civil work.

Prisoner was found guilty and the sentence will be known in due course.”

Gallipoli Landing as recalled by Corporal Nixon, 13th Battalion, AIF.

This article in the Eastbourne Gazette from 1915, gives a personal account of the landing at Gallipoli on 25th April 1915, by Corporal Nixon of the 13th Battalion. Corporal Nixon was convalescing at the Summerdown Camp in Eastbourne after a wound to his left shoulder.

This is a fascinating account for the Newspaper. It starts off with plausible information about the initial attack, but as you read on it gets more and more bizarre!

After reading it you are left with the impression that Corporal Nixon enjoyed telling a ‘tale or two’ and had a captive audience with the newspaper reporter who believed everything he recalled.

“How the Australians Routed the Turks

Colonial Wounded By Sniper

Corporal Nixon of the 13th New South Wales Battalion, who is a Sydney man, told a “Gazette” representative a thrilling story of the landing at the Dardanelles. He arrived there he said, on the memorable 25th April. They had been at the peaceful Greek island of Lemnos and while on their voyage to the scene of one battle they were watching another conflict in progress. It was an amazing spectacle. The landing of the Australians was unprecedented in any warfare. Men were landed in open boats in small parties, and when they reached the shore the positions was so difficult that there was no possibility of any military formation being attempted.

“We fixed bayonets and rushed the Turks over the hill in the most extraordinary manner,” he said. “It was never intended that we should land where we did; we were taken there by some strange current. There was barbed wire entanglement under and above the water and the sea was heavily mined.”

“There was also a sheer precipice in front of us. We hopped out and the Turks could not make much defence; they only had a few machine guns. It was a magnificent sight and I would not have missed it for the worlds. As the General said, ‘Our men fought with such wonderful cheerfulness and absolute fearlessness.’ We were without trenches for twenty-four hours. Our greatest source of trouble was the snipers. They had picked marksmen in every shrub and among the dead leaves. We had to take of our packs and leave them on the beach; we could not carry them up the hill.”

Corporal Nixon added that as night advanced they had orders to retreat, and they found there were German Officers in Australian uniforms in their trenches giving orders. These Germans could speak very good English with an accent which deceived the Colonials who had not travelled much. They also engaged one man as an interpreter. He said he was an Armenian, but at Alexandria he was found to be a spy and arrested.

The “Queen Elizabeth” is doing splendid work and Corporal Nixon saw one of her shells kill 300 Turkish cavalry. The Navy rendered wonderful assistance in the landing.

Corporal Nixon mentioned the case of a Turk who was a prisoner on board a British ship. The Turk had twenty-seven bayonet wounds and a broken thigh. He died eventually but it was remarkable that he should have lived so long. He had been taken out of goal (to which he had been confined for murdering his wife) to fight and this was not an isolated case. Turks had taken small farmers off their land with a threat to seize their holdings if they did not take up arms.

Corporal Nixon, who was wounded in the left shoulder by a sniper on April 28th, speaks very highly of the kindness shown them by a number of private residents of Eastbourne and remarked yesterday that they were having, ‘true Australian weather.”

(Corporal Rupert Charles Clive Wallace Nixon of Harriett Street, Neutral Bay, Sydney enlisted 24th September 1914 aged 22. (No. 663).
He embarked at Melbourne with the 13th Battalion on “HMS Ulysses”, on 22nd December 1914.)

Pozieres 1916 - Part 2 - The 1st July 1916

C.E.W. Bean an Australian Correspondent who covered the war, describes the start of the 'Battle of the Somme' on July 1st 1916 in his book 'Letters from France'.

It is a different view from the one we read about so often.

"France, July 1st.

Below me, in the dimple beyond the hill on which I sit, is a small French town. Straight behind the town is the morning sun, only an hour risen. Between the sun and the town, and, therefore, only just to be made out through the haze of sunlight on the mists, are two lines—a nearer and a farther—of gently sloping hill-tops. On those hills is being fought one of the greatest battles in history. It is British troops who are fighting it, and French. The Canadians are in their lines in the salient. The Australians and New Zealanders—it has now been officially stated—are at Armentières.

A few minutes ago, at half-past six by summer-time, the British bombardment, which has continued heavily for six days, suddenly came in with a crash, as an orchestra might enter on its grand finale. Last night, some of us who were out here watched the British shells playing up and down the distant skyline, running over it from end to end as a player might run the fingers of one hand lightly over the piano keys. There were three or four flashes every second, here or there in that horizon; night and day for six days that had continued. Within the last few minutes, starting with two or three big heart bangs from a battery near us, the noise suddenly expanded into a constant detonation. It was exactly as though the player began, on an instant, to use all the keys at once.

We now ought to be able to see, from where we sit with our telescopes, the bursts of our shells on those distant ridges. But I cannot swear that I see a single one. The sound of the bombarding is like the sound of some titanic iron tank which a giant has set rolling rapidly down an endless hill. We can hear the soft whine of scores of shells hurrying all together through the air. Every five minutes or so a certain howitzer, tucked into some hiding-place, vents its periodical growl, and we can hear the huge projectile climbing slowly, up his steep gradient with a hiss like that of water from a fire-hose. There is some other heavy shell which passes us also, somewhere in the middle of his flight. We cannot distinguish the report of the gun, and we do not hear the shell burst; but at regular intervals we can quite distinctly hear the monster making his way leisurely across our front.

We can distinguish in the uproar the occasional distant crash of a heavy shell-burst. But not one burst can I see. The sun upon the mist makes the distant hill crests just a vague blue screen against the sky.

There is one point on those hills where the two lines of trenches ought to be clearly visible to us. With a good glass on a clear day you should be able to distinguish anything as big as a man at that distance—much more a line of men. Within less than an hour, at half-past seven, the infantry will leave our trenches over twenty miles of front and launch a great attack. The country town below us is Albert—behind the centre of the British attack. One can see the tall, battered church tower rising against the mist, with the gilt figure of the Virgin hanging at right angles from the top like the arm of a bracket. On the hills beyond can just be made out the woods of Fricourt behind the German line. They are in the background behind Albert church tower. The white ruins of Fricourt may be the blur in the background south of them. We shall be attacking Fricourt to-day.

The Germans have not a single "sausage" in the air that I can see. The sausage is the very descriptive name for the observation balloon. We have twenty-one of them up, specking the sky as clearly as a bacteriologist's slide is specked with microbes.

The Germans used to have a whole fleet of them looking down over us. But a week ago our aeroplanes bombed all along the line, and eight of them, more or less, went down in flames within a single afternoon.

7.10 a.m.—Six of our aeroplanes are flying over, very high, in a wedge-shaped flight like that of birds. Single British aeroplanes have been coming and going since the bombardment started. I have not seen any German plane. The distant landscape is becoming fainter. The flashes of our guns can be seen at intervals all over the slopes immediately below us, and their blast is clearly shown by the film of smoke and dust which hurries into the air. The haze makes a complete screen between us and the battle.

7.15 a.m.—Our fire has become noticeably hotter. Some of us thought it had relaxed slightly after the first ten minutes. I doubt if it really did—probably we were growing accustomed to the sound. There is no doubt about its increase now. We can hear the crump,crump, crump of heavy explosives almost incessantly. I fancy our heavy trench mortars must have joined in.

7.20 a.m.—Another sound has suddenly joined in the uproar. It is the rapid detonation of our lighter trench mortars. I have never heard anything like this before—the detonation of these crowds of mortars is as rapid as if it were the rattle of musketry. Indeed, if it were not for the heavy detonation one would put it down for rifle fire. Only eight minutes now, and the infantry goes over the parapet along the whole line.

7.27 a.m.—The heaviness of the bombardment has slightly decreased. A large number of guns must be altering range on to the German back lines in order to allow our infantry to make their attack. The hills are gradually becoming clearer as the sun gets higher, but the haze will be far too thick for us to see them go over.

7.29 a.m.—One minute to go. I have not seen a single German shell burst yet. They may be firing on our trenches; they are not on our batteries.

7.32 a.m.—Ever so distant, but quite distinctly, under the thunder of the bombardment I can hear the sound of far-off rifle firing.
So they are into it—and there are Germans still left in those trenches.

7.35 a.m.—Through the bombardment I can hear the chatter of a machine-gun. And there is a new thunder added, quite distinguishable from the previous sounds. It is only the last minute or so that one has noticed it—a low, ceaseless pulsation.

It is the drumming of the German artillery upon our charging infantry. Behind that blue screen they must be in the thick of it. God be with our men!"

Australia Will be There.

A song which became very popular before the first contingent sailed from Australia in October 1914 was ‘Australia Will be There’.

Used in countless recruiting rallies it was popular amongst the ‘folk back home’. Written by ‘Skipper ” Francis, it was a rousing call to all and with the sound of a brass band behind it, it certainly set a great patriotic tone.

Needless to say as the war progressed, it was not loved by the soldier’s themselves.


“There has been a lot of argument going on they say,
As to whether Dear Old England should have gone into the fray,
But right thinking people all wanted her to fight;
For when there’s shady business, Britannia puts it right.

Rally round the banner of your country,
Take the field with brothers o’er the foam;
On land or sea, wherever you be,
Keep your eye on Germany.
But England home and beauty have no cause to fear,
Should Auld acquaintance be forgot,

No! No! No! No! No! Australia will be there,
Australia will be there.”

The author, Mr. W M Francis explains how the song came about, “ The song came into my brain in King Street, Sydney, on Saturday August 8th , 1914 and I sang it in public for the first time on Saturday 15th, in the Gaiety Theatre, Melbourne…. I sang the first week from a manuscript copy, and then got a cheap copy edition printed because of an immediate demand. As soon as the ‘Sydney Emden’ scrap was cabled, I substituted the words in place of politician’s names which were put in the earlier editions… It did duty over many thousands of miles in camps, recruiting platforms, hospitals and fairs.”

(Mr Francis was rejected for Miltary Service on the basis of a deformed foot).

Lord Kitchener's Address to the Troops.

Every soldier leaving for the front during 1914-15 received a copy of Lord Kitchener's letter to the troops, it was a brief, soldierlike statement of the standard of conduct which England expected of her fighting men.

This letter was to be considered by each soldier as confidential, and it was to be kept in his Active Service Pay Book :-


“You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King to help our French comrades against the invasion of a common enemy. You have to perform a task which will need your courage, your energy, your patience. Remember that the honor of the British Army depends upon your individual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set an example of discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly relations with those whom you are helping in this struggle. The operations in which you are engaged will, for the most part, take place in a friendly country, and you can do your own country no better service than in showing yourself, in France and Belgium, in the true character of a British soldier.

Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. Never do anything likely to injure or destroy property, and always look upon looting as a disgraceful act. You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted; and your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound. So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temptations, and while treating all women with perfect courtesy, you should avoid any intimacy. “

Do your duty bravely.

Fear God.

Honour the King.

KITCHENER,
Field-Marshal.

Bullets by Edward Dyson.

I love poems by the Australian Poet Edward Dyson, "Bullets" is yet another.

BULLETS

AS bullets come to us they're thin,
They're angular, or smooth and fat,
Some spiral are, and gimlet in,
And some are sharp, and others flat.
The slim one pink you clean and neat,
The flat ones bat a solid blow
Much as a camel throws his feet,
And leave you beastly incomplete.
If lucky you don't know it through.

The flitting bullets flow and flock;
They twitter as they pass;
They're picking at the solid rock,
They're rooting in the grass.
A tiny ballet swiftly throws
Its gossamer of rust,
Brown fairies on their little toes
A-dancing in the dust.

You cower down when first they come
With snaky whispers at your ear;
And when like swarming bees they hum
You know the tinkling chill of fear.
A whining thing will pluck your heel,
A whirring insect sting your shin;
You shrink to half your size, and feel
The ripples o'er your body seal-
'Tis terror walking in your skin!

The bullets pelt like winter hail,
The whistle and they sigh,
They shrill like cordage in a gale,
Like mewing kittens cry;
They hiss and spit, they purring come;
Or, silent all a span,
They rap, as on a slackened drum,
The dab that kills a man.

Rage takes you next. All hot your face
The bitter void, and curses leap
From pincered teeth. The wide, still space
Whence all these leaden devil's sweep
Is Tophet. Fiends by day and night
Are groping for your heart to sate
In blood their diabolic spite.
You shoot in idiot delight,
Each winging slug a hymn of hate.

The futile bullets scratch and go,
They chortle and the coo.
I laugh my scorn, for now I know
The thing they cannot do.
They flit like midges in the sun,
But howso thick they be
What matter, since there is not one
That God has marked for me!

An Eastern old philosophy
Come home at length and passion stills-
The thing will be that is to be,
And all must come as Heaven wills.
Where in the swelter and the flame
The new, hot, shining bullets drip;
One in the many has an aim,
Inwove a visage and a name-
No man may give his fate the slip!

The bullets thrill along the breeze,
They drum upon the bags,
They tweak your ear, your hair they tease,
And peck your sleeve to rags.
Their voices may no more annoy-
I chortle at the call:
The bullet that is mine, my boy,
I shall not hear at all!

The war's a flutter very like
The tickets that we took from Tatt.
Quite possibly I'll make a strike;
The odds are all opposed to that.
Behind the dawn the Furies sway
The mighty globe from which to get
Those bullets which throughout the day
Will winners be to break or slay.
I have not struck a starter yet

The busy bullets rise and flock;
They whistle as they pass;
They're chipping at the solid rock,
They're skipping in the grass.
Out there the tiny dancers throw
Their sober skirts of rust,
Brown flitting figures tipping toe
Along the golden dust.

Women Grocer's at the International Stores.

This article from the Eastbourne Gazette dated 9th August 1916, relates to the ‘International Stores’ releasing men for the Front as women take their place at the famous grocers.

" 2,000 Heroes

We hear so much of the enormous difficulties that our Tommie’s overcome that we are apt to overlook the trials of those working at home, and who have every right to the glories and sympathies given to our brave men at the Front.

We refer particularly to the burden which our women folk have shouldered with such patriotism.

The International Stores tell us the women now employed by them have enabled them to release nearly 2,000 men for military service. An experienced grocer would have have told you in June 1914, that a few years must elapse before a youth entering a grocer’s shop as an apprentice van consider himself qualified to “take charge”. Bearing this is mind it is really remarkable that the lady grocer’s should step in and fill the position vacated by the heroes at the Front in such a capable manner.

Their untiring energy, adaptability and strong will, whilst working under the most tiring conditions, calls for the very heartiest support and consideration from the shopping public."


And for those of you that haven’t heard of the 'International Store':-

The International Stores started out, in 1875, with a single store in Bristol, trading as J H Mills. By 1900, when J H Mills become a limited company, there were 12 stores and the name 'International Stores' was in use.

In 1950, J H Mills changed its name to Gateway. From then the name 'Gateway' was mainly used for all of the company's new (supermarket-style) stores but 'International Stores' was retained for the traditional-style stores.

Gateway was taken over by Linfood Holdings in 1977 but International Stores were not, initially part of the deal (although many branches of International Stores closed at this time, or were re-branded as Gateway as a subsidiary part of the deal). Linfood Holdings changed its name to the Dee Corporation in 1983 and then proceeded to acquire International Stores (along with other well-known names, such as Fine Fare and Keymarkets). All of the stores were then either closed or re-branded as Gateway. (The Dee Corporation changed its name back to Gateway Corporation plc, to match the store names, in 1988).

Between 1989 and 1991, over 100 stores were sold off to Asda and Kwik Save.

The firm opened the first Somerfield store in 1990. In 1994, Gateway Foodmarkets became Somerfield Stores. Thus, if there's still a supermarket trading on a former International Stores site, there's a very good chance that it will bear the Somerfield brand name (although it could be Asda or Kwik Save) and, incidentally, be part of a multi-national group that includes the Carrefour chain in France.

Article from - Food Deserts.