Who Was Pompey Elliot?

Brigadier General Pompey Elliott

Everyone expected the whole thing to fail, 

but something desperate had to be done.

Pompey Elliott After the Capture of Villers-Bretonneux

He was one of Australia's outstanding combat commanders in the Great War. Born in Victoria in June 1878, Harold Edward Elliott was nicknamed "Pompey" by his men. He was not pleased about it, but it stuck. Elliott was a huge and powerful man, a footballer and champion athlete.

He served with distinction in the Boer War before returning to Melbourne to study law and then work in his own legal practice. In 1909 Elliott married Catherine Frazer Campbell and they had two children, Violet and Neil. At the outbreak of war, Elliott was appointed to command the 7th Battalion at Gallipoli and he was later promoted to command the 15th Brigade on the Western Front.

He was known to be a fierce disciplinarian, whose strong character and energy established him as a character of the AIF. Stylish dress was not a priority for Elliott, who quite often looked scruffy and was once arrested for impersonating an officer. But he was a brilliant tactician and fierce fighter, immensely brave and held in extremely high regard by his men.

Larger Than life

He has been described as a larger-than-life character, full of exuberance and vitality and "irresistibly quotable." He regularly wrote remarkable letters to his children, still toddlers when he was at war. Here is an excerpt to his son, written in 1916 from the Western Front:

It is very, very cold here and the Jack Frost here is not a nice Jack Frost who just pinches your fingers so you can run to a fire to warm them but a great big bitey Jack Frost and he pinches the toes and fingers of some of Dida’s poor soldiers so terribly that he pinches them right off. Isn’t that terrible?

It has been said that Elliott could do things with his troops that no other officer could do. However, forced to attack at Fromelles against his recommendation, his troops suffered a third of all the Australian casualties in the attack. He resolved to work even harder to protect the lives of his men. After Polygon Wood (1917), he wrote to this wife about his men:

It is all due to the boys and the officers like Norman Marshall... It is wonderful the loyalty and bravery that is shown, their absolute confidence in me is touching—I can order them to take on the most hopeless looking jobs and they throw their hearts and souls, not to speak of their lives and bodies, into the job without thought.

You must pray more than ever that I shall be worthy of this trust, Katie, and have wisdom and courage given me worthy of my job.

In 1918 he was one of two brigade commanders credited with halting Germany's Operation Michael at Villers-Bretonneux and helped lead the pursuit to the Hindenburg line during the summer. By war's end Elliott had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the French Croix de Guerre and been mentioned in dispatches seven times.

A Life Cut Short

However, he had been overlooked for promotion to divisional command, a position he had long hoped for, and this became an enduring grievance. On returning to Australia at the end of war, Elliott focused on re-building his law practice but soon re-joined the militia as a commander. In 1919 he stood for the Senate as a Nationalist, topping the Victorian poll and was re-elected in 1925. He never held a post in government but spoke on many topics, particularly on defense matters.

Elliott was sharply critical of British high command, blaming it for the heavy Australian casualties during the war. He became deeply involved in the affairs of returned soldiers. In 1927 he was promoted to major general and threw himself into training with great enthusiasm, despite his disappointments still gnawing at him.

Elliott's continued sense of injustice together with the effects of his war service and his concern about the welfare of returned soldiers during the Great Depression combined to undermine his health and in 1931 he committed suicide, aged just 52.

Source: Website of the Australian Broadcast Company.

Remembering a Veteran: Private Albert E. Scott (The Brookline Newsboy) 101st Infantry (KIA)

The memorial shown above is located at the Town Hall of Brookline, MA, and is dedicated to the local lad who is believed to have been the youngest American soldier killed in the First World War, Albert Scott.  Scotty, as he was known in his hometown, enlisted at age 15 and was killed in action at age 16 on 23 July 1918 during an advance by the 26th Yankee Division north of Château-Thierry.  To his mates in his unit, Company H,  he was known as the "Brookline Newsboy."

Scotty's fellow newsboys raised $2,000 for a plaque in his honor. Brookline native Theo Alice Ruggles, well known by then for her war memorials, was chosen to create the Scotty memorial, which was dedicated in 1921.  A year later his body was disinterred from France and he was buried locally.

1922 Funeral of Pvt. Albert Scott

An unidentified member of Scotty's company later described the action for which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and lost his life.

Pvt. Albert Scott

Of the many deeds of bravery and self-sacrifice in this one battle, I want to mention just one. That was the heroism of Albert Scott known as "The Brookline Newsboy" He was an automatic rifleman. He had distinguished himself in various ways, since our first entrance to the trenches, but he had never had a chance to lay [into] the Boches. Mounting to the highest position, he placed his rifle, I lay down beside it and opened fire on the enemy. I do not know how many clips of ammunition he fired, but it's safe to say at least thirty of the enemies fell. My attention was not upon him wholly, so I could not witness all of his work.

After some time had elapsed, I glanced in his direction and noticed that he had ceased firing, and that his face was buried in his hands. I said, What's the matter, Scottie?" There was no response. Then I crept nearer to him and noticed that his his hands were covered with blood. I withdrew below the parapet, took him by,the feet and unbuttoned his blouse and shirt.  He had two very fatal wounds, one in his shoulder and the other to his head.  Having been facing the enemy, the bullet striking his helmet could not have glanced off, but passed through and into his brain.  In a few minutes he was dead, having paid the supreme sacrifice.                                           

Episode 5 of BBC's Great War Series

 

This Business May Last a Long Time

“Enemies” by Siegried Sassoon

Commentary by David F. Beer

We can all probably recall what first got us interested in the Great War. In my case it was a literature course many (too many) years ago, where I first encountered Wilfred Owen’s 1918 poem “Strange Meeting,” with its haunting account of death and loss in war. I later learned that Owen’s poem might have been inspired by one written the previous year by his friend and fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon titled “Enemies.” Both take us into a mystical, otherworldly existence where the dead appear to the poet as transfigured beings who are still close to the living. Here is Sassoon’s poem:

Enemies 

He stood alone in some queer sunless place

Where Armageddon ends. Perhaps he longed

For days he might have lived; but his young face

Gazed forth untroubled: and suddenly there thronged

Round him the hulking Germans that I shot

When for his death my brooding rage was hot.

He stared at them, half-wondering; and then

They told him how I’d killed them for his sake—

Those patient, stupid, sullen ghosts of men;

And still there seemed no answer he could make.

At last he turned and smiled. One took his hand

Because his face could make them understand.

                          (6 January 1917)

What is going on here? Sassoon is the observer/narrator. A soldier who meant a lot to him has been killed but now appears in that strange alternate universe where the dead may go, a place without war. Although possibly a place of regret, it is also free of anxiety—where no one is troubled any longer. Soon the soldier is joined by other dead who were killed by the narrator in revenge for his death: “Germans that I shot/When for his death my brooding rage was hot.”

None of the ghost soldiers can fully understand that they are dead or even why they had to die. Even the British soldier is not sure at first, but then, Christ-like, his young and now untroubled face smiles and the hand of his former enemy unites with his, offering acceptance, peace, and reconciliation.  Mystically, the face of love in an alternate existence has brought understanding that is not available to the living.

The poem conveys a great deal in two short stanzas of iambic pentameter and a regular rhyme scheme. For some reason it’s not often found in the selections of Sassoon’s work in war poets anthologies; however, I did find it in Martin Taylor’s 1989 collection, Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches, where it comes right before Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting.” LINK

The August 2020 St. Mihiel Trip-Wire

Don't Miss 

Our August 2020 St. Mihiel Trip-Wire

http://www.worldwar1.com/tripwire/smtw.htm

Main Focus: 

America's Medal of Honor Recipients

• Editor's Introduction: My 2018 Medal of Honor Tour
• Lieutenants Harold E. Goettler & Erwin R. Bleckley, 50th Aero Squadron, By Steve Ruffin
• John H. Pruitt, 6th Marines
• Nels Wold, 138th Infantry
• Wearing the Medal

• Willis W. Bradley, USS Pittsburgh
• WWI Film Classic: Sergeant York
• "Raindrops on Your Old Tin Hat" by Lt. J. Hunter Wickersham
• Alvin York: "After the Action"

General Pershing Awarding Medals of Honor 

Other Topics:

• 100 Years Ago: Denmark Regains Some Lost Territory
• More World War I Vandalism
• Plus all our regular updates and features

Next Month:  Belgium's 1914 War

Have a great August,

Mike and the Editorial Team