King George V's Battlefield Pilgrimage

 

As our dead were equal in sacrifice, so are they equal in honour, for the greatest and the least of them have proved that sacrifice and honour are no vain things but truths by which the world lives.

King George V, Terlicthun Cemetery

From the Royal Family Website

During the First World War, hundreds of thousands of soldiers had died on the battlefield. Many bodies were left, unretrievable, in no man’s land. Others were buried by comrades: a simple wooden cross marking their grave. The Commonwealth (then Imperial) War Graves Commission was set up with the mammoth task of commemorating every soldier who died in WW1.

There was doubt over whether these cemeteries would be well received, with many relatives wanting their loved ones’ bodies repatriated rather than commemorated overseas. However, the first "experimental: cemeteries were favourably reported by the press in 1920, and construction began on the larger cemeteries we know today.

Relatives of the fallen began visiting the battlefields and cemeteries in their tens of thousands to pay their respects, and it was as part of this wider pilgrimage that King George V and Queen Mary visited in May 1922.

As part of a State Visit to Belgium, the King undertook a three-day tour of the battlefield cemeteries accompanied by Sir Fabien Ware, Vice-Chairman of the IWGC, Field Marshal Douglas Haig, and Admiral David Beatty. This three-day tour soon became known as The King's Pilgrimage."

The King was issued with passes to allow him to visit the war graves in 1922. These passes were to enable close relatives to visit the grave of a fallen family member in France and Belgium without the need for a passport. It is not clear why two separate passes were issued other than that the King is wearing the uniform of the Royal Navy in one and of the Army in the other.

On 11 May 1922, King George V recorded his visits to military cemeteries in Belgium in his diary:

I left at 9.0 in my train with Haig & Sir Fabien Ware (Permanent Vice Chairman of the Imperial War Graves Commission), Fritz, Wigram & Seymour for Zeebrugee where I arrived at 11.0. Went to see the German cemetery where some English are buried, visited the mole & left at 12.40. Luncheon in the train. Arrived at Zonnebeke at 2.30. Left in motors & visited the British cemeteries at Tyne Cot, Ypres, Vlamertinghe, Hop Store, Brandhoek, Poperinghe & Lijssenthoek. Joined the train at Poperinghe & left at 6.10. At each I was received by the Mayor & a crowd of people. The cemeteries are very well arranged & looked after by ex service men under the Commission. Very interesting passing through all the battle area, nearly all the houses have been rebuilt…

On 13 May, after visiting the Meerut cemetery, where Indian soldiers are buried, King George V travelled to Terlincthun cemetery, where he was joined by Queen Mary and the Earl and Countess of Athlone. Queen Mary, herself laying a wreath at the stone of remembrance, recorded the events in her diary:

Motored to the British soldiers cemetery at Terlincthun where we were met by the members of the War Graves Commission & General Castelnau, etc. We walked to the cross where G laid a wreath & then made a charming speech, General Castelnau ditto. Made a short tour in the cemetery. A very impressive but upsetting ceremony.  

  

 Map showing locations of IWGC cemeteries visited by
King George V on 12 and 13 May 1922

Rudyard Kipling commemorated the King's pilgrimage with this poem:

Our King went forth on pilgrimage  

His prayers and vows to pay       

To them that saved our heritage   

And cast their own away.    

And there was little show of pride,   

Or prows of belted steel,    

For the clean-swept oceans every side   

Lay free to every keel.

And the first land he found, it was shoal and banky ground -   

Where the broader seas begin,   

And a pale tide grieving at the broken harbour-mouth  

Where they worked the death-ships in. 

And there was neither gull on the wing,  

Nor wave that could not tell   

Of the bodies that were buckled in the life-buoy's ring    

That slid from swell to swell.

All that they had they gave - they gave; and they shall not return,  

For these are those that have no grave where any heart may mourn.

And the next land he found, it was low and hollow ground -   

Where once the cities stood,       

But the man-high thistle had been master of it all,  

Or the bulrush by the flood.        

And there was neither blade of grass,      

Nor lone star in the sky 

But shook to see some spirit pass  

And took its agony.

And the next land he found, it was bare and hilly ground - 

Where once the bread-corn grew, 

But the fields were cankered and the water was defiled,   

And the trees were riven through.  

And there was neither paved highway,    

Nor secret path in the wood,       

But had borne its weight of the broken clay 

And darkened 'neath the blood.

Father and mother they put aside, and the nearer love also -    

An hundred thousand men who died whose graves shall no man know.

And the last land he found, it was fair and level ground  

About a carven stone,  

And a stark Sword brooding on the bosom of the Cross 

Where high and low are one.

And there was grass and the living trees,   

And the flowers of the spring,   

And there lay gentlemen from out of all the seas   

That ever called him King.

'Twixt Nieuport sands and the eastward lands where the Four Red Rivers spring,  

Five hundred thousand gentlemen of those that served their King.

All that they had they gave - they gave -  

In sure and single faith. 

There can no knowledge reach the grave 

To make them grudge their death    

Save only if they understood    

That, after all was done,  

We they redeemed denied their blood  

And mocked the gains it won.

Last Survivor of the Big Four: Vittorio Emanuele Orlando

Orlando: Official Portrait

Vittorio Orlando (1860–1952) was an Italian statesman and prime minister during the concluding years of World War I and head of his country’s delegation to the Versailles Peace Conference,  where he was considered one of "The Big Four", the quartet of national leaders who steered the proceeding at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919.  Though most famous for his participation at the conference,  his most lasting achievements were in twice leading Italy back from disastrous defeats: the 1917 Battle of Caporetto and the Second World War.  He outlived the other members of the Big Four (Wilson and Clemenceau died in the 1920s and Lloyd George in 1945).

Born in Sicily and educated at Palermo, Orlando made a name for himself with writings on electoral reform and government administration before being elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1897. He served as minister of education in 1903–05 and of justice in 1907–09, resuming the same portfolio in 1914. He favored Italy’s entrance into the war (May 1915). 

In October 1917, in the crisis following the defeat of Italy’s forces at the Battle of Caporetto by the Austrians, he became prime minister, successfully rallying the country to a renewed effort, gaining reinforcements from the other allies, and forcefully supporting the reorganization of the army, while reasserting civil control over it.

The Big Four in Paris

After the war’s victorious conclusion, Orlando went to Paris and Versailles, where he had a serious falling out with his allies, especially President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, over Italy’s claims to formerly Austrian territory. On the question of the port of Fiume, which was contested by Yugoslavia after the war, Wilson appealed over Orlando’s head to the Italian people, a maneuver that failed. Orlando’s inability to get concessions from the Allies rapidly undermined his position, both at the conference table and at home. He left the conference in April, returned briefly, but resigned on 23 June 1919. The fact he was not a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles became a point of pride for him later in his life.

On 2 December, he was elected president of the Chamber of Deputies. In the rising conflict between the workers’ organizations and the new Fascist Party of Benito Mussolini, he at first supported Mussolini, but when the leader of the Italian Socialist Party, Giacomo Matteotti, was assassinated by the Fascists, Orlando withdrew his support. (The murder marked the beginning of Mussolini’s dictatorship over Italy.) Orlando opposed the Fascists in local elections in Sicily and resigned from Parliament in protest against Fascist electoral fraud (1925).

After Mussolini fell, Orlando returned to politics becoming a leader of the National Democratic Union and the Constituent Assembly. He emphasized Italy’s pre-Fascist liberal and democratic traditions, seeking to embed them in the new republican constitution’s legal and political structures. A run for president of Italy at age 87 failed, however. He would die in Rome in 1952.

The Old Statesman in 1946

Postscript: One interesting aspect of Orlando's career is that with his Sicilian heritage, he endlessly accused of being a member of the Mafia. The charge—as far as involvement in criminal enterprises—was never investigated.

A Recommended World War One Author: Edward Lengel

If you have been watching Ken Burns's American Revolution series on PBS, you'll recognize historian Edward Lengel, who provides expert commentary on the war and, especially, George Washington. Ed is a leading biographer of the Father of Our Country and was once Director of the Washington Papers Project. He has also written extensively on the American participation in the First World War.  Longtime readers  of Roads to the Great War know that, over the years, we have reviewed his books, HERE and HERE, and drawn on them for articles HERE, for example 

For this article,  I'd just like to make sure that our readers are fully aware of Lengel's body of work. They are well written and have details that I've not seen in other works on the same subject. He is a superb researcher. Two of his five works are compilations of in-depth articles and resources on the AEF.  MH

Early Battles of the AEF
Order HERE

The Biggest Battle of the AEF
Order HERE

A Unique Take on the Lost Battalion's Story
Order HERE

Resource on Individual Doughboys
Order HERE 

In-Depth Material on the Meuse-Argonne
Order HERE 

U-boat Art from Germany

Whatever you think about U-boat warfare or the Lusitania, etc., Germany was really proud of its submarine fleet. It's not high art, but they seem to have put a major share of their illustrators and graphic artists to work on the project. Here are some samples from Tony Langley's collection. All can be enlarged by clicking on the image. MH

A Roads Classic: 28 June 1919, Palace of Versailles,7 December 1941, Pearl Harbor, 2 September 1945, USS Missouri, Any Connections?

Of course, the main connection is that the two end events were the ceremonial endings of the two greatest wars in history. But there is another interesting link between them. Among the group of senior American officers shown below on the deck of the battleship Missouri that day in 1945 is the only individual (sorry, I can't pick him out), who was also present at the signing of the Versailles Treaty twenty-six years earlier. That officer also has a strong connection to the 1941 event.

Click on Image to Expand

The individual is U.S. Army Brigadier General Elliot R. Thorpe (1898-1989). In the Second World War and Occupation of Japan, he was Douglas MacArthur's chief of counterintelligence. In 1919, Lt. Thorpe was an intelligence officer assigned to Paris. On the day of the treaty signing, he was attached to the security detail for the event.

Thorpe's career had some other interesting highlights. In December 1941 he was a military attache in Dutch-controlled Java when the Dutch broke a Japanese diplomatic code. One of the intercepted messages referred to planned Japanese attacks on Hawaii, the Philippines, and Thailand. Informed of the message by a Dutch general, Thorpe immediately cabled the information to Washington. But he found that his warning was not taken seriously. A week later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

Brigadier General Thorpe

Later, after the campaign through the South Pacific, when he served as General MacArthur's chief of civil intelligence in postwar Japan, General Thorpe played a major role in reorganizing Japanese society. He set up a screening system to keep militarists out of the Japanese government, supervised the release of political prisoners, and helped determine which Japanese officials should be tried as war criminals. In 1969 he wrote East Wind, Rain, an account of his years as an intelligence officer. It can be purchased on Amazon HERE.

The Supreme Failure of Conrad von Hötzendorf

General Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf, 
Austrian Chief of Staff

In all my reading during the centennial commemoration of the war, one major actor, who is featured prominently in the 1914-focused works, seems to have dropped off the radars of historians dealing with the fighting war and the final culmination of the disaster. I thought he deserves a little attention here in Roads, especially focusing on the end of the war and his legacy.

Franz Conrad von Hötzendorf was a unique star in the constellation of personalities involved in the origins and conduct of the First World War. Other countries had their prewar tacticians who advocated the offensive at all costs, prewar strategists who drafted plans for preemptive strikes against neighboring countries, generals who made grave errors in implementing war plans in the summer of 1914, and wartime commanders who persevered–for lack of a better strategy–as the First World War dragged on and casualties mounted. In Austria-Hungary, Conrad filled all of these roles. Among the men responsible for shaping the tactics, strategies, and war plans that led the old order of Europe to destruction in the bloodletting of 1914–1918, he had no equal. Austro-Hungarian soldiers who died during the Great War total 1,495,200, including 480,000 who died as prisoners of war.

The death knell for the empire was sounded with the failure in June 1918 of the last effort on the Piave River to drive Italy out of the war. The effort failed and the ethnic disintegration of the army snowballed, bringing with it the collapse of the army. Emperor Karl used Conrad as a scapegoat and again dismissed him. He spent the last four months of the war in retirement and afterward lived in relative seclusion with his beloved young wife, Gina. He never acknowledged his share of responsibility for the war, but the deaths of his sons haunted him for the rest of his life. He died in 1925 of complications from a gall bladder ailment, before finishing his multi-volume memoirs.

Reviewing the Troops in 1916

Despite Conrad's dismal wartime record, after his death, most Austrians hailed him as a great hero. The pro-Austrian Christian Social party claimed him as a great Austrian patriot, while the pro-Anschluss German Nationalist party emphasized his conclusion (however reluctant) that Austria's fate should lie in union with Germany. Meanwhile, the opposition Social Democrats condemned him as a war criminal. During and after the war he enjoyed a good reputation in Germany; Germans placed him on a par with their own Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. Eventually, the Nazis claimed Conrad as a Greater German hero, holding frequent ceremonies at his Vienna tomb during the Second World War. Because the defense of Conrad's reputation after 1918 became bound up with the defense of the honor of the old Habsburg army, he remains a controversial figure within Austria down to the present day.

While some Austrian military writers persist in excusing Conrad von Hötzendorf's faults and errors, for other historians his vocal promotion of preventive warfare before 1914 and costly command decisions during the First World War place him among the leading villains of the era. Yet his greatest transgression was not that he advocated offensive measures and aggressive solutions, but that these measures and solutions did not fit the situation of his country or the capabilities of its army. While all the other great powers of the 20th century survived defeats in battles, campaigns, or wars, Austria-Hungary enjoyed no margin for error, and Conrad's failure proved fatal. The pursuit of aggressive solutions to foreign policy problems only increased the empire's dependence on its German ally; Conrad acknowledged this dilemma as early as 1913, agonized over it early in the war, then in the autumn of 1916 conceded that Austria's future would be either as a satellite or component part of the German Reich. Thus, in helping push Austria-Hungary toward war before 1914, he set a course that would result, win or lose, with the end of Austria-Hungary as an empire.

Source: Over the Top, August 2012

Nature’s Tragic Role at the Alpine Front during World War I

 

Mauricio Nicolas Vergara, PhD

The Alpine front could be considered one of the emblematic cases of WWI in extreme environments. Indeed, many of the hundreds of thousands of people who were deployed at that front fought and wintered in some of the highest and most inhospitable mountains in Europe. Namely, many men found themselves deployed in altitudes more than 3,000 meters above sea level, where no human being had ever set foot. The Alpine front ran across peaks, glaciers, cliffs, and valleys of the southeastern Alps, in large part along the border between Italy and Austria-Hungary. In particular, from May 1915, when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, the front ran from the northwestern part of the southern Rhaetian Alps to the southern Julian Pre-Alps.  

From October 1917, after the Italian defeat in the Battle of Caporetto, to November 1918, when the Armistice was signed, the front between these two countries was shortened. Thus, from the Venetian Prealps, it turned southern into the Venetian Plain. The main armies involved at the Alpine front were the Italian and the Austro-Hungarian armies. Troops of the German Empire, allied with AustriaHungary, and of the British Empire, France, the United States, the Czechoslovak Legion, and Romanian Legion, allied with Italy, also participated in certain moments at the front.  The experience undergone at the Alps by some of these forces proved unique and invaluable for future wars.

An especially relevant study that considered personal testimonies and memoirs to increase the understanding about the relationship between people and nature at this front is the one of Diego Leoni. In his work, La Guerra Verticale; the author obtained a comprehensive picture of the characteristics of the Alpine front by focusing on the multiple aspects of the relationship of men and armies—not just with the natural environment but also with the machinery and the animals used there. In particular, Leoni compiled a significant number of personal  testimonies and memoirs as well as other kinds of sources, such as songs, poems, and official records from archives. These sources included authors with different backgrounds that conducted different activities during the war, such as soldiers, officers, nurses, doctors, workers, etc., for both the Italian and the Austro-Hungarian armies. In this way, Leoni was able to explore the various aspects  and moments of the Alpine front that he discussed from many points of view. In turn, this led him to find a more complex and detailed understanding of the front than other authors. 

Perhaps one of the biggest merits of Leoni’s book is that it tells, probably for the first time in such a well-documented way, that for people at the Alpine front the struggle to survive natural hazards and poor health and living conditions was often on par with surviving the enemy’s weapons. From this perspective, Leoni’s book represents probably the most advanced knowledge of the role of nature at the Alpine front.

Some of the casualties directly determined by mountain environments that are named in literature are casualties due to avalanches, landslides and lightning, those crushed inside huts under the weight of snow, those fallen along the sides of the mountains and into the precipices, and those who suffered from frostbite and hypothermia.  Many also were lost and resulted in missing or dead when moving through forests, fog, storms, nighttime, or whiteouts. Around Mte. Pasubio, hundreds of carriers were lost in the fog and went missing. Poor health and living conditions determined by alpine nature also led to casualties due to natural hazards. For example, frostbite was determined by low temperatures, the natural hazard, but also by poor health and living conditions.  These were at least in part due to alpine nature, such as the nutritional and physical state of the individual, inability to move freely, and the humidity of clothes, mainly footwear.

Another direct impact of natural hazards that is important to consider are psychological damages. In all the fronts of war, these were largely related to military causes and to the health and living conditions of the soldiers.  however, at the Alpine front, nature also seemingly represented a major factor of their origin. In literature, there is neither any historical medical report nor specific study that considers this impact of mountain nature. Still there are several sources, for example those cited by Leoni, which mentioned the relevance of nature for the determination of actual mental illnesses and of mental states that could lead to mental illnesses. In Alpenkrieg, Fritz Weber mentioned the occurrence of depression and considered that some mental states originated by the environmental context at the front were “very similar to a mental illness.” More recently, Alessandro Massignani also considered the presence of depression among those living at the Alpine front due to environmental conditions and Leoni also mentioned the presence of “melancholic depression.”

Nature contributed in many ways to the poor health and living conditions present at the Alpine front. One can assume that in general this effect was more adverse on the positions along the sides of the mountains and on their peaks, where the environment was more hostile, rather than in the valleys. The impact of nature on the health and living conditions included:

• Temperature, humidity, wind, slope direction, clouds, and vegetation, which contributed to excess cold and heat;

• The limitations of resources, which contributed to many deprivations. In particular, the insufficient amount of water springs represented a serious problem for drinking, hygienic practices, cooking, and performing some works in many parts of the front.  In addition to its limited presence, many of the water sources became polluted during the war, due to the putrefaction of dead bodies and the presence of human waste and of toxic chemical substances that resulted from explosions.

Particularly during the summer, when most of the snow had melted, the lack of water was considered a main cause of casualties in some cases. According to Heinz von Lichem, there were deaths from dehydration in Monte Zugna and in the Pasubio Massif;

 

• Rugged topography, which limited the potential space for building. This contributed to overcrowded camps and barracks;

• Avalanches and other natural phenomena, which produced cold or fear of an eventual imminent accident, contributing to sleep deprivation;

• Taxing physical and mental activities. Moving required significant exertion due to, for example, slopes, snow, wind, and the fact that people had to carry heavy weight because, mainly in high and rugged places, a large part of the transport of materials for living and fighting had to be done by them.  Digging trenches, caves, and tunnels in rock and ice, shoveling snow continuously during the cold season, restoring weapons, telephone and telegraph lines, cableways, and other infrastructure frequently destroyed by weather and avalanches were some of the many other ways through which alpine nature required huge exertions;

• Moods, feelings, and mental states were affected negatively due to the alpine climate. Concerning this impact of the environment, Weber referred to restlessness, agitation, desperation, oppression, anxiety, upheaval of the nervous system, and apathy among the persons at the front.  In particular, topography and weather contributed to periods of social isolation, precluding contacts with different or larger groups of persons and with civil society and relatives. This happened, for example, when the movement between different positions was impossible or when letters and news did not reach certain sectors of the front. These living conditions highly affected the troops sense of sadness, loneliness, and melancholy. Similar outcomes also created long periods of inactivity and restriction of movements caused by inclement weather. Moreover, the frequent natural hazards represented a continuous threat that “upset the nervous system” and increased the sense of precariousness and uncertainty. These conditions particularly affected those who were not used to mountain weather.

As for the health and living conditions, the efficiency of the logistic system was also affected by both human and natural factors. The human ones regarded the intrinsic malfunction of the armies and states and the factual or potential offenses of the enemy. 

Natural elements and processes represented difficulties such as:

• Slope, vegetation, kind of surface of the ground, presence of ice on the ground, hydrography, and weather created difficulties moving.  Indeed, it was reported that some positions reached 25 days of total isolation and some others more than a month. The impact of nature on transport occurred at almost every step of the supply chain in the Alps, from the snow that stopped the trains circulating along the valleys to the avalanches that engulfed the carriers and struck cableways supplying the higher positions. Weber reported on streets and paths that were impassable for seven months;

• Rugged topography, landslides, avalanches, and hydrography, which caused difficulties and lack of potential space for construction. This contributed to a shortage of adequate roads, paths, and storehouses. The difficulty constructing roads was represented, for example, by the need of the armies to build bridges over streams or dig tunnels inside mountains but also by the low temperatures and avalanches that workers had to suffer;

• Limited resources and hostile weather, which contributed to a high demand and strong dependency of the armies on the supplies coming from the plains. This led often to an overload of the logistics system. 

Despite the still-limited knowledge about the casualties due to natural hazards, the Alpine front represents a historical case of how the consequences of waging war in inhospitable environments go beyond the difficulties concerning fighting and how nature can cause great damage to armies.

Excerpted from: "Nature’s Tragic Role at the Alpine Front during World War I – The Consequences",  Journal of Advanced Military Studies vol. 13, no. 1, Spring 2022

The Kaiser's Badge for the Wounded

By 1918 there were so many wounded men still  in the ranks and disabled back in Germany—by the end of the war there were an estimated 4.2 million—that the army decided that a decoration was needed for the troops' uniforms to recognize and honor their sacrifice.  Approved by the Kaiser on 3 March 1918, the metal alloy Imperial Wound Badge displayed a German helmet with crossed swords surrounded by a wreath. They were each 1.5 x 1.75 inches and  came in three versions: (Note: I cannot find a source for the actual number of awards during WWI.)

• Black (3rd class, representing Iron), for those wounded once or twice by hostile action (including air raids).

• Silver (2nd class) for being wounded three or four times.

• Gold (1st class, which could be awarded posthumously) for being wounded five or more times.

Ernst Jünger, Wounded
14 Times During WWI,
Displaying the Wound Badge
(Presumably 1st Class)

The "progression" could be waived in the event of loss of a limb or eyesight; when such a severe wound occurred, the silver badge was awarded. Badges were made of pressed steel, brass and zinc. All versions of the Wound Badge were worn on the lower left breast of the uniform or tunic.

The badges, of course, made a comeback for the Second World War, with a swastika added to the helmet. An estimated 5 million were awarded. Civilians wounded in Allied bomb raids were also eligible for the badge. There was even a special version  awarded to survivors of the 20 July 1944 unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler. The Führer, himself, did not accept one since he had received a Wound Badge for his First World War wounds.

Sources: For Führer and Fatherland: Military Awards of the Third Reich; Wikipedia; the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Giving Satan Pause: "To the Devil on His Appalling Decadence"

 

F.W. Harvey 

 

Satan, old friend and enemy of man;

Lord of the shadows and sins whereby

We wretches glimpse the sun in Virtue's sky

Guessing at last the wideness of His plan

Who fashioned kid and tiger, slayer and slain,

The paradox of evil, and the pain

Which threshes joy as with a winnowing fan:

Satan, of your old custom `twas at least

To throw an apple to the soul you caught

Robbing your orchard. You, before you wrought

Damnation due and marked it with the beast,

Before its eyes were e'en disposed to dangle

Fruitage delicious. And you would not mangle

Nor maul the body of the dear deceased.

But you were called familiarly "Old Nick" — 

The Devil, yet a gentleman you know!

Relentless — true, yet courteous to a foe.

Man's soul your traffic was. You would not kick

His bloody entrails flying in the air.

Oh, "Krieg ist Krieg," we know, and "C'est la guerre!"

But Satan, don't you feel a trifle sick?

Frederick William Harvey, DCM (26 March 1888–13 February 1957), often known as Will Harvey, was an English poet, broadcaster, and solicitor. His poetry became widely popular during and after World War I. He was decorated for his service as an enlisted man with the Gloucestershire Regiment in 1915. After a return to England for officer training and commissioning, he was redeployed to France. He was soon captured in a German trench while on a reconnaissance mission and became a prisoner of war for the remainder of the war. It was as a prisoner that Harvey wrote a series of poems, of which this is the most famous, and remarkably managed to get them published in his home country before war's end. The work is titled Gloucestershire Friends: Poems from a German Prison Camp and can be read online HERE. 

Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War

 

By Jerry White

The Bodley Head, 2014

Reviewed by Peter Grant

This review is an abridgement of  the article originally presented on the Western Front Association website.

The title of the book comes from a fantasy novel written during the war by Violet Hunt and Ford Maddox Ford and the fear and reality of air raids features prominently. It seems extraordinary to us that until mid-1917 the government refused to allow any warning of air raids to be given as they thought they would cause unnecessary panic. The government's main advisor on this was Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Edward Henry, one of the least distinguished people to have fulfilled this role and whose ineptitude prompted his own force to strike in 1918 leading to his own resignation. The final death toll in air raids was 668 a figure that paled into insignificance compared with the 30,000 in World War Two but also with the autumn of 1918 when more than 1,000 Londoners a week were succumbing to the 'Spanish Flu'.

White is exemplary in documenting the social, political and economic changes that four years of war brought to London and the book is peppered with fascinating titbits such as the fact that cinema attendances tripled during the war and that its manufacturing economy moved westwards. His conclusions are that the war was something of a watershed if not, in Arthur Marwick's phrase, a 'deluge'. It changed the lives of millions of Londoners: women who no longer saw domestic service as their only choice of work; paupers for whom a more enlightened poor-law authority rejected the workhouse and workers who joined trades unions and the Labour Party.

One of the most obvious changes was the influx of women into jobs previously the sole preserve of men. The South Metropolitan Gas Company employed 2,000 women with housewives reportedly very pleased with the result as the women were 'neater, quieter and quicker than the men.' Though many such jobs were relinquished with the coming of peace in others, office work in the City for example, these were long-term changes to a feminized work force.

Order HERE

White is unstinting in revealing the less savoury aspects of wartime nationalism such as the morally dubious aspects of DORA (the Defence of the Realm Act) and attacks on German families and businesses which sowed the seeds of racially motivated discontent that lasted through the 1930s to the 1970s and beyond.

The 22nd Battalion CEF (the “Van Doos”) Today's Royal 22e Régiment

By James Patton

The first commandant of Canada's new Francophone 22nd  battalion was Lieut. Col. Frédèric-Mondelet Gaudet (1867–1947), an ordinance officer known as “the Arsenalist,” who since 1913 had been in Hughes’s doghouse for his criticism of the Ross Rifle.

Gaudet served until 25 January 1916 when, due to ill health, he was replaced by Lieut. Col. Thomas-Louis Tremblay CB CMG DSO ED (1886–1951), an engineer, who held the post for most of the war, although from September 1916 until February 1917 he was invalided out for a spell (more about that later), and in 1918, post-Amiens,  he was elevated to brigade command. Both of these officers were rare Francophone graduates of the Royal Military College at Kingston, Ontario.  

Lieut. Col. Tremblay

After months of training in Canada and England, the 22nd battalion finally arrived in France on 15 September 1915, a part of the 5th Brigade.  In 1962–63, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) conducted a series of interviews with veterans who were members of that brigade. They characterized the 22nd as rowdy and fearless. An officer of the 24th Battalion (Victoria Rifles), noted that the 22nd “weren’t as susceptible to discipline as we were.” Further to the point: “They scared the pants off the quartermaster in the Sandling Camp; I remember they chased him. There was some trouble over food. We went out there and here was the quartermaster running away and the whole gang after him.” 

The 22nd carried the reputation as “undisciplined” throughout the war. Nevertheless, another 5th brigade  veteran, from the 25th (Nova Scotia) Battalion told the CBC interviewers, “. . . these Frenchmen are damn good fighters.” The 25th had been on the flank of the 22nd at both Flers-Courcelette and Regina Trench during the Battle of the Somme. 

Ready for the Front

First blood was spilled in April 1916 at the St. Eloi Craters in Flanders. The eager and reckless 22nd attempted to hold on to an indefensible position in the  ghastly mess created by the mines. There were significant casualties and no territorial gains. After reinforcement, next stop for the 22nd was on the Somme, where they attacked at Flers-Courcelette in September 1916. Tremblay wrote in his diary (a translation) “This is our first significant attack; it must be a great success for the honor of all French-Canadians we represent in France."

They captured the village of Courcelette and held it for over two days despite repeated German counterattacks. There were hundreds of casualties, Tremblay was emotionally exhausted, and had to step down. His replacement, Maj. Arthur Édouard Dubuc DSO (1880–1944), was a heroic soldier but not a school-trained officer, and he wasn’t up to the job of command; the battalion suffered from serious disciplinary problems, especially absences and desertions. Brig. Gen. H.D.B. Ketchen (1872–1959), commander of the 6th Brigade, reported that “the crime of desertion . . . is very prevalent in the [22nd] Battalion.”

Upon his return, Tremblay cracked down with strict and rigid discipline. He actually opined that his men would not take him seriously until he had someone shot. Over the next ten months, 70 soldiers from the 22nd  were  court-martialed (48 for illegal absences) and yes, five men were shot at dawn.

Early Encampment in France

The two biggest battles for the 22nd were at Vimy Ridge and Passchendaele, both in 1917. Vimy was a great success for the battalion, with "light" casualties.  Passchendaele was horrific, with heavy casualties, but at the end the remnants of the intractable 22nd was holding onto the top of that ridge. 

In 1918 their finest hour came at Amiens. Recently backfilled once again, they pushed the Germans back 13 kilometers on the first day and six more on the second. There was hope and optimism, as the war of movement had resumed, and for the next three months, the battalion kept advancing. Along the way, they confronted the Germans at Arras and Cambrai, and took part in liberating several towns, including Valenciennes and finally Mons, in Belgium.

All told, the 22nd Bn. CEF earned 21 Battle Honours: Mount Sorrel, Somme 1916, Flers–Courcelette, Thiepval, Ancre Heights, Arras 1917, Vimy 1917, Arleux, Scarpe 1917,  Hill 70, Ypres 1917, Passchendaele, Somme 1918, Amiens, Arras 1918, Scarpe 1918, Hindenburg Line, Canal du Nord, Cambrai 1918, Pursuit to Mons, France, and Flanders 1915–18.

Two members of the 22nd were posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC):

Corporal Joseph Kaeble – Neuville-Vitasse, France—8 June 1918

Lieutenant Jean Brillant – near Amiens, France—8/9 August 1918

Royal 22^e Régimental Memorial by André Gauthier 

During the war the 22nd  battalion had suffered 3,961 casualties,  including 1,074  deaths. They sailed back to Canada on 10 May 1919  and were formally disbanded ten days later. However, two of the lessons learned  by Canada from the Great War experience were (1) that they needed a bigger and more effective standing army, and (2) that the French-Canadians needed to be made a part of that army.

So an elite Francophone regiment, to be depoted in Québec City, was envisioned, which would  subsume the badges and the Battle Honours of the 22nd Battalion CEF.  It was seen by some as a sort of "bookend" to the elite (and originally all-British) Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, which in the postwar period was also made regular, with the depot located in Alberta. On 1 April 1920 this new 22nd Regiment was activated, and in the Birthday Honours of 1921, the King bestowed the  appellation of Royal, in recognition of the regiment’s CEF heritage.

For its actions in the Second World War the 22nd regiment earned another 24 Battle Honours and then another for Korea in 1953. In 1956 the regiment amalgamated the militia unit Le Régiment de St. Hyacinthe as its 6th (Reserve) Battalion, thereby subsuming the heritage of that unit which included the honours for the Defence of Canada 1812–15 and the 1837 Fenian Raids. More recently,  the Afghanistan  honour was added to the regimental flag. The Royal 22e Régiment continues today; the French spelling is now official in both languages. 

Since inception, the badge of both the CEF battalion and the modern regiment has displayed the motto Je me souviens, which best translates to “I remember.” 

Modern Insignia

The man behind this motto was Eugène-Étienne Taché (1836–1912), architect of Québec’s Parliament Building, built between 1877 and 1886. Taché’s father, Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché (1795–1865), had been premier of the Province of Canada, as Québec was known in the early years (Ontario was called Upper Canada then). He had a widely varied record—a regional Patriote leader at the time of the 1837 rebellions but in 1867 called a "Father of the Confederation." Architect son Eugène-Étienne had to adorn the main entrance to the Parliament Building with the provincial coat of arms bestowed by Queen Victoria in 1868, but underneath it he added a motto, often attributed to his father, which is: Je me souviens.

Sources agree that this motto is a pledge to preserve Québec’s distinct heritage and language. 

Sources include The Canadian War Museum and the Government of Canada