After the Big Mine: The View from Hawthorn Ridge by John Masefield

Hawthorn Ridge Mine Detonates at 0720 hrs, 1 July 1916

Readers know that I love discovering personal connections (for friends, readers and myself) to the First World War.  So you can imagine how thrilled I was to discover I share a resume line with a one-time Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.  Yes, the great writer, poet, and P.L. John Masefield and I both have written battlefield guides.  A frequent visitor to America, whose citizens were puzzled by the point of the great Dardanelles adventure, Masefield was somehow recruited to write a 314-page book titled  Gallipoli  explaining (and justifying) the failed campaign.  Such was his success that a year or so later he was asked to do something similar on the Battle of the Somme.  He terminated his work on this project when he discovered he would not be allowed to present the full details of what a blood-letting that struggle turned out to be.  He had, though, completed his description of the terrain and positions of the contending forces and published it at the end of 1917 as a 152-page book, The Old Front Line. [Both works are available at Project Gutenberg, by the way.] Below is an excerpt in which he beautifully describes how things looked from Hawthorn Ridge immediately after the mine detonation shown above.

By John Masefield

All that can be seen of it from the English line is a disarrangement of the enemy wire and parapet. It is a hole in the ground which cannot be seen except from quite close at hand. At first sight, on looking into it, it is difficult to believe that it was the work of man; it looks so like nature in her evil mood. It is hard to imagine that only three years ago that hill was cornfield, and the site of the chasm grew bread. After that happy time, the enemy bent his line there and made the salient a stronghold, and dug deep shelters for his men in the walls of his trenches; the marks of the dugouts are still plain in the sides of the pit. Then, on the 1st of July,  when the explosion was to be a signal for the attack, and our men waited in the trenches for the spring, the belly of the chalk was heaved, and chalk, clay, dugouts, gear, and enemy, went up in a dome of blackness full of pieces, and spread aloft like a toadstool, and floated, and fell down.

Find Hawthorn Ridge and Mine Site in Upper Left
Y-Ravine Is at the Top of the Gold Quadrilateral 

From the top of the Hawthorn Ridge, our soldiers could see a great expanse of chalk downland, though the falling of the hill kept them from seeing the enemy's position. That lay on the slope of the ridge, somewhere behind the wire, quite out of sight from our lines. Looking out from our front line at this salient, our men saw the enemy wire almost as a skyline. Beyond this line, the ground dipped towards Beaumont Hamel (which was quite out of sight in the valley) and rose again sharply in the steep bulk of Beaucourt spur. Beyond this lonely spur, the hills ranked and ran, like the masses of a moor, first the high ground above Miraumont, and beyond that the high ground of the Loupart Wood, and away to the east the bulk that makes the left bank of the Ancre River. What trees there are in this moorland were not then all blasted. Even in Beaumont Hamel some of the trees were green. The trees in the Ancre River Valley made all that  marshy meadow like a forest. Looking out on all this, the first thought of the soldier was that here he could really see something of the enemy's ground.

Location of Y Ravine and Newfoundland Memorial Park
from Hawthorn Ridge

It is true, that from this hill-top much land, then held by the enemy, could be seen, but very little that was vital to the enemy could be observed. His lines of supply and support ran in ravines which we could not see; his batteries lay beyond crests, his men were in hiding places. Just below us on the lower slopes of this Hawthorn Ridge he had one vast hiding place which gave us a great deal of trouble. This was a gully or ravine, about five hundred yards long, well within his position, running (roughly speaking) at right angles with his front line. Probably it was a steep and deep natural fold made steeper and deeper by years of cultivation. It is from thirty to forty feet deep, and about as much across at the top; it has abrupt sides, and thrusts out two forks to its southern side. These forks give it the look of a letter Y upon the maps, for which reason both the French and ourselves called the place the "Ravin en Y" or "Y Ravine." Part of the southernmost fork was slightly open to observation from our lines; the main bulk of the gully was invisible to us, except from the air.

A Surviving Section of Y Ravine

Whenever the enemy has had a bank of any kind, at all screened from fire, he has dug into it for shelter. In the Y Ravine, which provided these great expanses of banks, he dug himself shelters of unusual strength and size. He sank shafts into the banks, tunnelled long living rooms, both above and below the gully-bottom, linked the rooms together with galleries, and cut hatchways and bolting holes to lead to the surface as well as to the gully. All this work was securely done, with balks of seasoned wood, iron girders, and concreting. Much of it was destroyed by shell fire during the battle, but much not hit by shells is in good condition to-day even after the autumn rains and the spring thaw. The galleries which lead upwards and outwards from this underground barracks to the observation posts and machine-gun emplacements in the open air, are cunningly planned and solidly made. The posts and emplacements to which they led are now, however, (nearly all) utterly destroyed by our shell fire.

In this gully barracks, and in similar shelters cut in the chalk of the steeper banks near Beaumont Hamel, the enemy could hold ready large numbers of men to repel an attack or to make a counter-attack. They lived in these dugouts in comparative safety and in moderate comfort.  When our attacks came during the early months of the battle, they were able to pass rapidly and safely by these underground galleries from one part of the position to another, bringing their machine guns with them. However, the Ravine was presently taken and the galleries and underground shelters were cleared. In one underground room in that barracks, nearly fifty of the enemy were found lying dead in their bunks, all unwounded, and as though asleep. They had been killed by the concussion of the air following on the burst of a big shell at the entrance.

Road to Serre, Known as "Artillery Lane"

One other thing may be mentioned about this Hawthorn Ridge. It runs parallel with the next spur (the Beaucourt spur) immediately to the north of it, then in the enemy's hands. Just over the crest of this spur, out of sight from our lines, is a country road, well banked and screened, leading from Beaucourt to Serre. This road was known by our men as Artillery Lane, because it was used as a battery position by the enemy. The wrecks of several of his guns lie in the mud there still. From the crest in front of this road there is a view to the westward, so wonderful that those who see it realize at once that the enemy position on the Ridge, which, at a first glance, seems badly sited for  observation, is, really, well placed. From this crest, the Ridge-top, all our old front line, and nearly all the No Man's Land upon it, is exposed, and plainly to be seen. On a reasonably clear day, no man could leave our old line unseen from this crest. No artillery officer, correcting the fire of a battery, could ask for a better place from which to watch the bursts of his shells. This crest, in front of the lane of enemy guns, made it possible for the enemy batteries to drop shells upon our front line trenches before all the men were out of them at the instant of the great attack.

The old English line runs along the Hawthorn Ridge-top for some hundreds of yards, and then crosses a dip or valley, which is the broad, fanshaped, southern end of a fork of Y Ravine. A road runs, or ran, down this dip into the Y Ravine. It is not now recognisable as a road, but the steep banks at each side of it, and some bluish metalling in the shell holes, show that one once ran there. These banks are covered with hawthorn bushes. A remblai, also topped with hawthorn, lies a little to the north of this road.

51st Highland Division Clearing Y Ravine,
13 November 1916

From this lynchet, looking down the valley into the Y Ravine, the enemy position is saddle-shaped, low in the middle, where the Y Ravine  narrows, and rising to right and left to a good height. Chalk hills from their form often seem higher than they really are, especially in any kind of haze. Often they have mystery and nearly always beauty. For some reason, the lumping rolls of chalk hill rising up on each side of this valley have a menace and a horror about them. One sees little of the enemy position from the English line. It is now nothing but a track of black wire in front of some burnt and battered heapings of the ground, upon which the grass and the flowers have only now begun to push. At the beginning of the battle it must have been greener and fresher, for then the fire of hell had not come upon it; but even then, even in the summer day, that dent in the chalk leading to the Y Ravine must have seemed a threatening and forbidding place.

Source: The Old Front Line by John Masefield, Published December 1917; Wikimaps;  Wiki Commons

First Neutral Ship Sunk in WWI? Not the Lusitania!

When I asked Google recently to identify the first vessel of a neutral nation to be sunk during in the Great War, the AI gizmo that now provides quickie answers at the top of your search results responded with RMS Lusitania, sunk 7 May 1915. This left me perplexed because Great Britain was decidedly not neutral during the war. So, I kept digging and discovered this Swedish collier that  clearly belonged to a company within a neutral nation and flew the flag of a neutral country. Plus, it was sunk befoe the Lusitania:

SS Hanna, Sunk 13 March 1915

Over a century later, though, the exact circumstances are still murky. Here's what the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre has to say about it:

The Swedish collier Hanna has variously been reported as being torpedoed and mined. The ship’s second officer claims to have seen the wake of a torpedo, but as no submarine was spotted, it is probable that the ship struck one of German cruiser SMS Kolberg’s mines as the ship was within the area where the minefield had been laid. Indeed, the ship’s first engineer, who had served in the Swedish navy for five and half years, was convinced that the ship had struck a mine. 

The Hanna was bound for Las Palmas with coal from the Tyne. Around 01:40 on 13 March 1915. A huge explosion quickly followed, which killed six of the eight men asleep in the forecastle. The explosion occurred near the foremast and the ship remained afloat for half an hour. The two survivors in the forecastle, although badly injured managed to escape. The Hanna began to sink immediately and the surviving crew took to the lifeboats. They were picked up by the steamer Gylier and landed at Alexandra Dock, Hull. 

The Case for a mine: On 16 December 1914, the German Navy had attacked several British ports and laid mines as part of their mission. As the German battlecruisers bombarded the streets of Scarborough, the light cruiser Kolberg was laying a minefield in the waters between Cayton Bay and Gristhorpe. Over three months, between 16 December 1914 and 13 March 1915, the mines would sink twenty ships and cause the deaths of 113 sailors; six times more than were killed on land during the bombardment.

The captain also reported that the night was so dark that it would have been impossible to see anything in the water. The German policy of sinking all vessels in the North Sea was not in force at this time, which suggests that a mine may have been the reason for the sinking.

Why a torpedo?:  The second officer was on watch and reported that he saw the wash from a torpedo on the starboard side. Consequently, some sources still report the sinking as due to a torpedo from a U-boat. I wasn't there, but that's not the way I'd bet.

Le Pèlerin, A French Catholic Magazine Covers the War — A Roads Classic

Contributed by Tony Langley

Le Pèlerin was a French weekly journal founded 1873 by the Roman Catholic Assumptionist order of priests. Naturally, during the Great War it covered its events extensively. Most of the work covered the troops and the fighting, but they also wanted to show the Church's support of the war and published a number of images and articles about priests (who were not exempted from serving and fighting) participating in the war.

Le Pèlerin was published by the Catholic press and as such was chronically underfunded. That meant a lot of amateur contributions, volunteer work, and underpaid professionals to do work the less technically adept could not perform. And it also meant pushing parishioners and Catholic schools to buy the magazine. Publications like Le Pèlerin were printed in the cheapest manner possible using a cheap off-set procedure with large rasters, almost like newspaper printing. They used photographs as covers and then hand-colored them to give a semblance of quality. The quality of this colorizing varied greatly.

In France, and to a large degree in Belgium, priests were not given religious deferments in order to avoid military service. They were called up in the same manner (in peacetime) as other civilians and had no special status as such. If they were a student at a university or other institution recognized by the state, they would be given student deferments (before the war), but afterward were drafted all the same. They received no special deferments or treatments as such. Nor were there military chaplains before the war.

In fact, when priests or candidate priests were called to service, they had a high chance of being the recipient of many a degrading task and were more than likely to be made fun of, have their noses rubbed in the crude and coarse way that soldiers lived in barracks or amused themselves when at liberty. Their comrades would be sure to teach them all the crude facts of life and pleasure when in some remote and dreary garrison town. This was often to a degree somewhat beyond the usual hazing inductees have to go through, as many French were vehemently secular and anti-religious in their outlook. 

During the war, however, due to the general feelings of national solidarity in adversity and the unity displayed by the Union Sacrée, the wartime coalition government of secularists and Catholics, less animosity was displayed by army authorities to priests in service. They were often given duties as stretcher bearers for instance and would act as unofficial chaplains of sorts. And the higher church authorities also cultivated their patriotic image. 

This worked fairly well, as the French could portray themselves as a Catholic nation, compared to the overwhelmingly Protestant make-up of Germany. Bavarians, though, were mainly Catholics, which is why there was often less animosity between the two in general.

Chowtime on a WWI German U-boat (Video with Food Historian Max Miller)

Editor's Note:  Max covers much more in this video than the soup recipe on the title slide.  MH

Then and Now: Wintertime on the Western Front

Click on Images to Enlarge

Reims Cathedral Today

U.S. Dressing Station, St. Mihiel Sector, Winter 1917/18

Ouverage, Verdun

Scottish Reserve Trench, 1918, Location Unknown

Vimy Ridge Memorial

French Troop Convoy, 1916

U.S. Somme Cemetery

British Light Rail Line, Arras Sector

Lochnagar Mine Crater, Somme Sector

German Prisoners Assembling a Nissen Hut

Sources: ABMC, Traces of War, National Archives, National Library of Scotland, WW1Cemeteries.com

The Discovery of France : A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

Click HERE to Order

By Graham Robb

Picador, 2007

Reviewed by Tony Langley

Until 1 August 1914, no piece of news [in France] had ever reached the entire population on the same day.

That afternoon, in the Limousin, people heard the alarm bells that usually signified a hailstorm and looked up into a clear blue sky. In villages from Brittany to the Alps, firemen rushed out at the sound of clanging bells, looking for the fire. In the little town of Montjoux in the arrondissement of Montelimar, a car screeched to a halt in front of the mairie. A gendarme jumped out and delivered a package. A few moments later, people in the fields were intrigued to see cyclists whizzing past carrying bundles of posters. Near Sigottier, a man called Albert R. . . .met a young lad heading for his village. The boy claimed to be on his way to announce the outbreak of war and round up all the men of the village. On hearing this, Albert R. . . .collapsed in tears of laughter and wished him luck with his practical joke.

In places where newspapers were scarce and the main source of news was the weekly market, war came as a complete surprise.  According to a survey conducted in 1915 by the rector of Grenoble University, people were 'thunderstruck' and 'stupefied'. The first inkling they had at Motte-de-Galaure, two miles from the busy Rhone corridor, was the order given on 31 July to have all the horses ready to be requisitioned. Some men sang the 'Marseillaise' and looked forward to coming home a few weeks later with tales of  glory, but most were silent and dismayed. There was talk of hiding in the woods. At Plan in Isere, "the men of our peaceful locality who were mobilized did not leave with the same enthusiasm as their comrades from the cities. Rather, they were resigned and went out of patriotic duty."

In some parts of the Alps, men were making hay in the high summer pastures when messengers brought the news. Some had to leave for the station in the next valley before saying farewell to their families. 

This excerpt from Graham Robb's The Discovery of France is from the very last part of the book, as it closes with the great watershed of the Great War in 1914. In general the book is about the history and discovery of France outside of Paris in the 18th and 19th centuries. It's a very comical book in a British sense (understated, that is) but factual to a high standard and full of interesting, intriguing, endearing, and puzzling facts about French history, local languages and dialects, customs, clothing, cuisine, and whatnot seen in the regions in France outside of Paris.

Paris Long Before the Great War

I found it charming, and it gave me a sort of remembered recollection of the France my wife and I came to travel through and discover during the 1970s and '80s. That was of course long after the time period in the book, but the echoes of the 19th century were never far away in rural France in those days. 

It's also a haunting book; the ghosts of the past flicker throughout the telling, and the author recounts quite factually how the agreed-upon history of France as told in schools, institutes, and the collective memory is mostly a (polite) fiction and far from what even a cursory reading of old books, memoirs, tracts, and writings can tell us.

Anyway, I found the part about the spreading of the news of the outbreak of war in rural France to be very evocative—certainly at odds with what some books would have us believe. Ever so sad, yet quite likely accurate. I can readily believe farmers being called from their high pastures in the mountains, without being given time to pass by their homes first. It strikes me as just the thing to have happened in the Pyrenees, for instance, where Paris is far off and the rest of the world even farther away.

Tony Langley

The Pola Naval Base of Austria-Hungary

In All Its Glory: The Austro-Hungarian Fleet at Pola

The Pola (now "Pula") Naval Base was  located in Pola, a city in the Istrian peninsula, which is now part of Croatia. [Since our focus is on the WWI period we will use "Pola" exclusively in this article.]

During the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in the mid-19th century, Pola became the Monarchy's main wartime harbour which led to the construction of the maritime arsenal of the Austro-Hungarian navy. Located on the south coast of the Pula Bay, it is surrounded by high hills and the Brijuni islands from the sea side. Its position, size, and the protection from winds and waves made it one of the most suitable natural ports. The works commenced in 1848 by the erection of three warehouses. The arsenal cornerstone was laid in 1856 by Empress Elisabeth herself. At the same time, the Navy or the Military Hospital and the Franz Joseph Barracks were also erected. The base eventually included dry docks, an arsenal, shipyard, and fuel storage facilities. The military infrastructure around Pola would grow to include 28 forts and concrete fortifications, and over 200 military buildings.

Location on the Adriatic

Polad the Great War

The base was the primary operating base for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. It was home to the main battlefleet and its headquarters, U-boat operation, aviation units, and the navy's main fueling and supply depots. Additionally, the Imperial German Navy (IGN) formed the Pola Flotilla to support the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The flotilla operated out of Pola and Cattaro to the south. Underground tunnels were erected during the war throughout the city to provide shelter for people in case of air raids. This underground tunnel system consisted of shelters, trenches, galleries and passages, as well as ammunition storages and communication passages.

Three Dreadnoughts at Pola

During the First World War, Grossadmiral Anton Haus, commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, consolidated the fleet at Pola and refused to send forces to operate outside the Adriatic, stating that “his first obligation was to keep the fleet intact to meet the Italian threat.” He espoused the policy that Austria-Hungary's naval position was best maintained by avoiding risk to the country's battlefleet in risky offensive naval actions. 

Repair Docks at Pola

Haus, however, would die of pneumonia in August 1917. By March 1918, he had been succeeded by Admiral Miklos Horthy who had seen great offensive success in  the May 1917 Battle of the Strait of Otranto, the largest naval engagement of the war in the Adriatic Sea. Horthy had subsequently gained the Emperor's attention by subduing a series of naval mutinies, trying 40 of the sailors and executing four.

One of the Forts That Guarded the Approaches to Pola

By June 1918, Horthy planned another attack on Otranto, and in a departure from the cautious strategy of his predecessors, he committed the empire's battleships to the mission. This would mark a great downturn in the fortunes of the empire's navy. While sailing through the night, the dreadnought SMS Szent István met Italian MAS torpedo boats and was sunk, causing Horthy to abort the mission. Szent István is the ship immortalized in the film of its sinking that often shows up in WWI documentaries and at our site HERE.  

U-Boat Docked at Pola

Disaster at Pola

By the summer of 1918, as World War One was drawing to close, the Austrian navy had suffered a series of setbacks, its most powerful ships retreating to the port of Pola. The entrance to this harbor was protected by forts and floating booms and barricades designed to ensnare and destroy enemy ships. The Italian navy made several attempts to attack the Austrian fleet at Pola but failed to breach the elaborate harbor defenses. On 31 October, with the war clearly winding down,  Horthy was ordered by Emperor Charles to surrender the fleet to the new State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs (the predecessor of Yugoslavia). Nonetheless, early the next morning, two Italian frogmen  executed a brilliant attack within the Pola harbor defenses that resulted in the mining and sinking of the Dreadnought Viribus Unitis and a nearby freighter. Viribus Unitis had by the time of the explosion been turned over to its new owners. This Italian Triumph / Austrian Humiliation was covered in depth in our earlier two-part article HERE and HERE.

Viribus Unitis Going Under

Aftermath

After Austria-Hungary collapsed in 1918, Pola became part of Italy. During World War II, the German Wehrmacht occupied Pola, and the Kreigsmarine again used it as a U-boat base. The city was repeatedly bombed by the Allies from 1942 to 1944. After the war, Istria was partitioned into occupation zones until the region became officially united with the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on 15 September 1947. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991, Pula has been part of the Republic of Croatia. The city today holds many clues to its once naval character but (sadly) hosts no men-of-war.

Pula, Croatia, Today

Sharing a Family’s Grief with Posterity: The Personal Messages Carved on WWI British Headstones

By James Patton

Many readers of Roads to the Great War have toured the British battlefields in Europe and visited some of the hundreds of British cemeteries, perhaps to the point of ABC (“Another Bloody Cemetery”) fatigue. A visitor’s Frequently Asked Question is about personal inscriptions on headstones.  

After the war, the  Imperial War Graves Commission (IWGC), now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), allowed the family of those with a known grave to have a short personal inscription engraved on the headstone. The following set of instructions were transmitted to the Next of Kin of record in an official letter from the IWGC’s Vice Chairman, Maj. Gen. Sir Fabian Ware  KCVO KBE CB CMG (1869–1949). 

• The headstone will have engraved upon it the naval or military inscription, the badge of the deceased’s naval or military unit, and an emblem of his religious faith. 

• The Commission would be obliged if you could kindly assist them by saying whether the above particulars, name, initials, honours, etc. are correct, in order that the naval or military inscription may be absolutely accurate.

• A space “a” is provided on the opposite page for any corrections that you may desire to make.

• If you wish the age to be engraved, will you give particulars in the space on the opposite page after the word AGE.

• In addition, a space has been reserved at the foot of the headstone, below the emblem of religious faith, to allow the engraving, at your own expense, of a short personal inscription or text of your own choice.

• It is regretted that special alphabets, such as Greek, cannot be accepted.

• The length of the inscription is limited by the space available on the headstone, and should in consequence not exceed 66 letters, the space between two words counting as one letter.

• For instance, if you choose 12 words the total number of actual letters should not exceed 55, there being 11 spaces between the words.

• If you desire to use this space, would you kindly write (clearly) the inscription or text that you select in the space “b” opposite.

• A claim for the amount due from you in respect of the engraving of the selected inscription, will be sent to you in due course. The present price is 3 ½ d per letter, but this may be subject to future fluctuations of cost.

• Unless you express a wish to the contrary in the space “c” opposite, a cross will be engraved in the centre of the stone.

• The above rules didn’t apply to headstones in the cemeteries at Salonika and Gallipoli;  those markers are substantially different in size, style and composition, and won’t be discussed here.
• 
  

According to the CWGC, there are more than 229,000 headstones with a personal inscription such as those shown above. Many families chose terse expressions of duty or loss, like “He did his Bit” or “My Darling Husband”,  KJV Bible verses, snippets from the Anglican liturgy, or hymns or even famous quotations, often from Rudyard Kipling.

However stern Maj. Gen. Ware’s instructions may have seemed, in practice deviations  were allowed. For one thing, Victoria Cross holders have the image of that honour inscribed in the place of the religious emblem. In another instance, in spite of Ware’s ban on special characters, Indian Army and Chinese Labor Corps headstones have inscriptions in the native language, and there is even a stanza of music inscribed on a British one.

Furthermore, there was no cost to the family for personal inscriptions on Australian and Canadian graves as those governments picked up the bill, and New Zealand families couldn’t order personal inscriptions due to their government’s policy.  

But by far the most significant deviation was the relaxation of Ware’s "strict" 66 letter limit. 

Visitors will no doubt have come across some headstones where that limit has obviously been exceeded. The following are the three longest personal inscriptions that have been found by the Western Front Association (WFA).

The record found thus far is 388 letters, for Private Edward Rust, in Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery. He is also one of only two Other Ranks found thus far to have a non-standard inscription on his headstone—at a cost annotated on the schedule in the IWGC files of £4/13s—a considerable sum at the time. A member of the Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment), Edward had joined the Territorials whilst still at school and volunteered for foreign service in 1914. He had been at the front for only one week before he was wounded. He died six days later, aged 19 years. His inscription is:

SERIOUSLY WOUNDED WHILE ADVANCING WITH HIS REGIMENT IN THE FIGHTING NEAR ST. JULIEN SAT. APRIL 24. 1915 HE WAS TAKEN TO THE FIELD HOSPITAL BUT WAS SO EAGER TO UPHOLD THE HONOUR OF HIS REGIMENT AND TO SERVE HIS COUNTRY THAT HE RETURNED NEXT DAY TO THE FIRING LINE AND REMAINED WITH HIS COMRADES UNTIL THEY WERE RELIEVED AND DIED ON APRIL 30TH COURAGEOUS TO THE END AND BELOVED BY ALL WHO KNEW HIM

The runner-up is Lieut. Alfred James Lawrence Evans. He was born in Quebec, the son of Lorenzo and Elizabeth Evans, and after graduation from Montreal’s McGill University, he became a mining engineer in British Columbia. Due to his education, he was rated as a sapper in the 1st Field Company, Canadian Engineers. He left Canada in the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) in October 1914. Promotion was swift, and he was commissioned in July 1915. He died of wounds in No. 2 Casualty Clearing Station on 7 December 1915 and is buried in Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension. He has a non-standard inscription of 318 characters, which reads:

BORN AT QUEBEC DIED OF WOUNDS RECEIVED ON 23RD NOVEMBER 1915 WHILE IN COMMAND OF 1ST BDE. MINING SEC. 3RD BTN. FRONT LINE TRENCHES BELGIUM MENTIONED IN DESPATCHES FOR GALLANT AND DISTINGUISHED CONDUCT IN THE FIELD "THE BRAVE DIE NEVER BEING DEATHLESS THEY BUT CHANGE THEIR COUNTRY'S ARMS FOR MORE THEIR COUNTRY'S HEART"

Since Alfred served in the CEF and the Canadian Government would have covered the cost, the IWGC records do not show that an individual bill was issued. According to the price schedule, the cost would have worked out at just over £3. 

Lastly, there is Captain Guy Charles Boileau Willock, a great grandson of General Sir Henry Willock (1790–1858) a former chairman of the East India Company. After attending Cambridge, Guy was a barrister in London. Commissioned in the 18th London Regiment (The London Irish Rifles), he went to France in May 1915. He fell during the initial attack of the Battle of Loos, where his battalion was the one that dribbled and passed a football as they tried to cross No Man’s Land. The inscription on his headstone in Dud Corner Cemetery totals 257 characters, at a cost to relatives of £2/19s/6d. It reads:

One perhaps unforeseen consequence of putting the private inscription at the foot of the stone is that today, after a hundred years in place, some of the stones have tended to settle a bit, often making the complete inscription hard to read.

Source: Extracted from a longer article by Jill Stewart of  the Western Front Association.  Her full article can read HERE.  

Eyewitness: At the Front Line at Anzac

Private Cecil Malthus

By Private Cecil Malthus, Nelson Company, Canterbury Battalion, New Zealand Brigade

We went to Quinn's Post by a safe and easy route, round by Anzac Cove and up Shrapnel Gully. In passing up several open valleys we gained a much better knowledge of our new position. Quinn's Post was the most advanced corner of our line and the furthest from the sea - much nearer the sea on the left than on the right. 

Approaching the Line

From the beach at Anzac Cove the way lay through deep and winding communication trenches which had cost the Australians weeks of incredible work. Then came the comparatively safe stretches of Shrapnel Gully, where the track was not overlooked by the enemy, except at a few points where sentries were always posted to warn the passers-by. These places were crossed at the double, however weary or loaded a man might be. Even so, they provided good shooting for the Turkish snipers, as the movement of traffic, though spasmodic, was almost continual. 

From there another deep sap emerged in Monash Gully, which was really the head of the mile-long valley traversing our territory and forming the main avenue of traffic. Monash Gully too was badly exposed to Turkish snipers, who had almost a clear line of fire from Dead Man's Ridge, back between Pope's Hill and Quinn's. Up the hill to the left of Monash Gully was Russell's Top, straight at the head of the gully was Pope's Hill, with deep ravines on either side of it, and on the right, just clinging to the summit of a steep cliff, was Quinn's Post. . . 

An Australian "Digger" in the Sector Digging In

Quinn's Post was reached by a long straight staircase made, in the absence of timber, out of faggots of brushwood. This staircase was of course too steep for mules, and all the stores had to be carried up by hand. To men stricken with dysentery the daily water and stores fatigue was a cruel task. Quinn's Post itself was subdivided into six little garrisons or separate commands, requiring each about twenty men to hold them, with a good many more in supports. Nos. 3 and 4. 

At the head of the staircase, were perhaps the scene of the strangest and most terrible struggle in all history. The Turkish trenches were only 7 yards away, and at one point in No. 4. we had a listening post just 6 feet from their line. One could step out through a gap in the sandbags and touch the Turkish parapet (but one was much better advised not to). Nos. 1 and 2 joined up with Courtney's Post on the right. They were 20 or 30 yards distant from the enemy and had the great advantage, very rare with us on Gallipoli, of being on slightly higher ground than the opposing Turkish trenches. Nos. 5 and 6 were literally cut out of the face of the cliff, and No. 6 ended abruptly on the brim of a deep gully commanded by Turkish trenches at the head of it, on Dead Man's Ridge, 50 yards away. 

Looking Toward Pope's Hill from Quinn's Post

The gully caused a break in our line, but over at Pope's Hill an oblique spur, strongly entrenched, partly enfiladed it. No. 6 could only be reinforced by men passing right along the trench from No. 5 and was thus a perilously weak position. If the Turks could have captured it and built up protection from enfilading fire, they would have dominated the whole valley and all our communications. They had only to gain a few yards and hurl our men into the gully.

For more information on the fighting at Quinn's Post, see our 2020 article HERE.

Sources: Gallipoli Association; C. Malthus, Anzac: A Retrospect (Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd, 1965), 68-71.

"[You're Dead] Joseph Arthur Brown"

Our Poet: Edward Adolphe Sinauer de Stein (1887–1965) was born in London and educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He was commissioned into the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and served in France during the First World War. He wrote several war-themed poems that were published in the Times newspaper and Punch and The Bystander magazines and earned De Stein the nickname "The Trench Bard." He was promoted to the rank of major and survived the war.  His wartime poetry collection, The Poets in Picardy, was published in 1919. He later became a merchant banker and was knighted in 1946.

Joseph Arthur Brown

By  E. De Stein

The name of Joseph Arthur Brown

By some profound mischance

Was sent right through to G.H.Q.

As “Killed in action, France”.

So when poor Joseph went to draw

His bully beef and bread,

“You’re not upon the strength, my son”,

The Quartermaster said.

To Sergeant Baird then Joseph went

And told his fortune harsh,

But Sergeant Baird on Joseph glared

And pulled his great moustache.

“Have I not taught you discipline

For three long years?” said he,

“If you are down as dead, young Brown,

Why, dead you’ll have to be”.

In vain the journal of his town

Was brought by friends to please,

That he might see his eulogy

In local Journalese;

For to the Captain Joseph went

With teardrops in his eye,

And said, “I know I’m dead, but oh!

I am so young to die!”

 

And at the Captain’s feet he knelt

And clasped him by the knee.

But on his face no sign of grace

Poor Joseph Brown could see.

“Then to John Bull I’ll write”, he cried,

“Since supplication fails”.

“But you are dead”, the Captain said,

“And dead men tell no tales”.

So reckless passion seized upon

The luckless Private Brown,

And with two blows upon the nose

He knocked the Captain down.

’Mid cries of horror and surprise

They led the lad away.

Before the Colonel grim and stern

They brought him up next day.

But when the Colonel sentenced Brown

With thund’rous voice and language choice

To thirty days F.P. [field punishment],

Across the trembling prisoner’s face

A smile was seen to spread,

As he replied, with conscious pride,

“You can’t, ’cos I am dead”.

Sources: The Poets in Picardy, 1919; Forgotten Poets of the First World War.

Lonesome Memorial #10: Belgium's Appreciation of Herbert Hoover

I am that which was and is and
Will ever be, and no mortal has yet
Lifted the veil which covers me

This bronze, seven and a half foot tall statue Isis, Goddess of Life is the work of Belgian sculptor Auguste Puttemans. It was a gift from the people of Belgium in gratitude for Herbert Hoover's famine relief efforts on their behalf during the First World War. Isis wears a veil, a symbol of the mysteries of life. Her right hand carries the torch of life-its three flames represent the past, present, and future. Her left hand holds the key of life. 

An ancient Egyptian goddess and an American President are an unlikely pairing. But it provides a powerful visual link between Hoover's work in the First World War and his life's dedication to the welfare of others. It is now located at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site near the former president's birth site in West Branch, Iowa.

After the war, Herbert Hoover was sent many gifts expressing the gratitude of the Belgian people for his humanitarian efforts. Many Belgian children, refugees, and soldiers contributed to a fund to create this work of art.

When the Belgians shipped the finished statue to California's Stanford University in 1922. It remained on campus until President and Mrs. Hoover brought it to West Branch in 1939. They wanted it to be placed in a position where it was contemplating the house, which is why Isis sits in her throne-like chair facing the Birthplace Cottage. The National Historic Site annually has about 100,000 visitors.

View of Hoover's Birth Cottage from Isis

Getting to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site:

Take exit 254 on Interstate 80 to West Branch, Iowa. The Visitor Center is 0.3 mile north of I-80 at  110 Parkside Drive, West Branch, Iowa 52358; GPS coordinates: 637614, Y: 4614507.

Sources:  National Archives; National Park Service