If War Should Come E-Book

Philip Macdougall

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 377

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

When Britain declared war on Nazi Germany in 1939, it did not come as a surprise. Hitler's remilitarisation and repudiation of the Treaty of Versailles sounded a warning bell for what was to follow. Philip MacDougall here examines what steps the British Government took to prepare the country for the war they knew was coming. Focusing on the front-line counties of Hampshire, Sussex and Kent, he looks at how they learnt lessons from the effect of war on civilian populations during previous conflicts; the public perception of war on the home front as evidenced by Mass Observation; plans for the emergency services, food supplies, the ARP, dispersal of industry and government, and control of enemy aliens; and how effective these preparations were after the outbreak of war. This is a must-read book for anyone interested in British history during the late thirties and early forties, and for local historians in these three counties.

Leseprobe

IF WARSHOULD COME

IF WARSHOULD COME

DEFENCE PREPARATIONS ONTHE SOUTH COAST 1935–1939

PHILIP MACDOUGALL

To my mum who, as a civilian wartime worker, sparked my interest in twentieth-century social history

Cover illustrations. Front, top: Spitfires take to the skies as a loudspeaker sounds the alarm (iStockphoto).

First published by Spellmount, an imprint of The History Press, 2011

The History PressThe Mill, Brimscombe PortStroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved© Philip MacDougall, 2011, 2013

The right of Philip MacDougall to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9667 2

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Preface

Abbreviations

Part One: Historical Experience

Introduction

1  Defence & Military Recruitment

2  The Civilian Dimension

Part Two: Preparing the Passive Defences

Introduction

3  Perception

4  Air Raid Precautions

5  Trenches, Sirens & Blackouts: The Munich Crisis

6  Hoses, Pumps & More Pumps

7  Evacuation

8  The Land Front

Part Three: Preparing the Active Defences

Introduction

9  Defeating the Bomber

10  Airfield Expansion

11  Coastline Defence

Conclusion

Bibliography

Preface

In wars that involve the British Isles, the south coast invariably takes on an important front-line role. In earlier centuries this was automatically assured, given that any clash was likely to involve the nearby states of mainland Europe, with Kent, Hampshire and Sussex conveniently placed both to provide a springboard for offence and to be a key area in the defence of the island. The Romans, Saxons and Normans all used this geographical area to establish an initial presence, while the Spanish, French and Germans also planned similar footfalls. Such experiences are the foundations upon which this book is set. It is not, primarily, an examination of this area of coastline during such periods of hostility, although this cannot be ignored, but looks at how those who lived in and administered these counties prepared for actual war or, more precisely, one particular war.

It is a book that looks at preparations made in the years immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. Unlike most wars, this particular conflict had been expected, with its likely date of commencement, give or take a year, accurately predicted. That there is a concentration on the period from 1935 is easily explained. While predictions of war did precede 1935, there are events that occurred in 1935 that are of particular significance. On 1 March Hermann Goering officially announced to the world that the Luftwaffe not only existed, but was a fully fledged organisation, with twenty land and seaplane squadrons. In other words, Germany, through the Luftwaffe, now had the clear ability to inflict great pain upon those who lived on the south coast of England. A second event in that year was when the government established the bones of a Civil Defence scheme by announcing to local authorities that defence of the population against air attack was to be one of their primary responsibilities.

The opening chapter will view the earlier experiences and resulting perceptions of war. Such experiences heavily influenced the ideas and plans that were to be implemented in the months and years leading up to the declaration of a second major war with Germany on 3 September 1939. To this extent, concentration is upon both actual conflicts as well as times in which war was seriously seen as threatening. Here, historical precedent begins with the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815); this was a global conflict that saw an isolated Britain very much threatened by a south coast invasion. Indeed, it was this war that set the yardstick for home defence, with income tax, beachhead defences, a nascent home guard and plans for mass evacuation all generated at this time. Plans created for that war were seemingly dusted down and reintroduced during the opening months of the First World War (1914–18) and also seriously re-examined during the years preceding the Second World War. However, the effect of other wars and threats of war are also examined. Less, of course, will be said of the Crimean (1854–56) and Boer (1899–1902) Wars, as they were fought at a much greater distance from the south coast area. But three specific invasion scares cannot be so easily ignored, all caused by imagined expansionist threats made by the French during the middle years of the nineteenth century. Occurring in 1847, 1851–52 and 1859, they resulted in a searching examination of the nation’s preparedness, with particular attention once again directed to the south coast, where any invasion or incursion was thought most likely to occur.

Primarily, this is a book about the Second World War. It is about how the south coast counties – the area over which much of the Battle of Britain was subsequently fought, and where many of the resources for D-Day were secretly prepared – were readied for that future conflict. It is not about the entirety of those counties that border the south coast, but of those areas most directly connected with the coastline, including significant parts of its adjoining hinterland. An area, in itself, without strict definition, I have picked out the part of the coastline that was most exposed to hostile attack from a European enemy. It is also this area of the coast that, over a long period of time, has seen extremely high levels of expenditure on its defence, resulting in many permanently positioned military structures. Geographically, and for these reasons, my defined area encompasses the entire coastline of Kent and Sussex, together with a short stretch of Hampshire that incorporates both Portsmouth and Southampton. The latter will be referred to as the east Hampshire littoral. In addition, and administered as a county separate to Hampshire from 1890 onwards, I have included the Isle of Wight.

Purists might contend that the area of coastline chosen does not technically represent the entirety of the south coast (and might even be seen as taking in parts of the country that are not normally viewed as lying on the south coast), but then most other users of the term can find themselves similarly criticised. It is, however, an easy shorthand expression that encapsulates an area of the British coastline that is most frequently in danger during times of European conflict. More debateable is how far inland this coastal area should be seen to stretch. Here, I have been directed by the relative importance of the coastline to any particular area. Much more of Kent is included, being surrounded on three sides by water, while Sussex (both East and West) and the included area of Hampshire are seen as having a coastal hinterland which is appreciably less affected by occurrences in and along the Channel. As for the inclusion of the Isle of Wight, this seems beyond contention, considering its past importance to the defence of the south coast and its value in the hands of either an invader or forces opposing a potential invader.

A point of significance is this: most books devoted to Britain’s involvement in the Second World War begin with, or have at an early stage, the words ‘and consequently this country is at war with Germany’. This book does not. Indeed, while these words appear – or rather reappear – they are reserved for pages much nearer to the end of the book. For, once war broke out, the south coast was no longer preparing for war; hostilities, albeit in the form of the ‘phoney war’, had become a reality. Admittedly, there is some delving into actual wartime events, but this is for the purpose of analysis and allows for the answering of one simple question: were preparations made during the late 1930s truly fit for their purpose?

Abbreviations

AFS

Auxiliary Fire Service

ARP

Air Raid Precautions

CD

Civil Defence

CID

Committee of Imperial Defence

CH

Chain Home

CHL

Chain Home Low

CPRE

Campaign to Protect Rural England

ESRO

East Sussex Records Office

FANY

First Aid Nursing Yeomanry

HO

Home Office

IFF

Identification Friend or Foe

IWM

Imperial War Museum

KAO

Kent Archives Office

LDV

Local Defence Volunteers

LNU

League of Nations Union

NAAFI

Navy, Army, Air Force Institutes

NFS

National Fire Service

OC

Observer Corps

PPU

Peace Pledge Union

RAF

Royal Air Force

RAMC

Royal Army Medical Corps

RDF

Radio Direction Finding

ROC

Royal Observer Corps (formerly Observer Corps)

TNA

The National Archives (Kew)

VTC

Voluntary Training Corps

WAEC

War Agricultural Executive Committee

WAAC

Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps

WEE

Wireless Experimental Establishment

WLA

Women’s Land Army

WO

War Office

WRAF

Women’s Royal Air Force

WRNS

Women’s Royal Naval Service

WSRO

West Sussex Records Office

WVS

Women’s Voluntary Service

Part One

Historical Experience

Introduction

The war that broke out in September 1939 had been long feared and expected. Those with a reasonable level of prescience could well have predicted, even as early as the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919, that a future European war was inevitable. Germany, on being forced to lose all of her imperial colonies, together with substantial amounts of European land, and required to pay £6.6 billion in reparations while forfeiting the right to possess all but the smallest of military forces, was bound to react. Furthermore, even those not gifted with such prescience would be aware of the likely consequences of a future war; a conflict that would be fought with weapons so devastating that Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, in November 1932, felt able to claim that it would wipe out ‘European civilisation’.1

It was this clear forewarning of a major European war and its predicted consequences that made the 1920s and ’30s so different from other periods preceding an outbreak of war. At such times, when a major conflict was seen as possible, or even likely, such heightened levels of fear and foreboding were simply lacking. Instead, past wars, and certainly those of the last few centuries, were invariably seen as an opportunity to improve the nation’s standing, by extending the empire or gaining some other specific advantage. Admittedly, this was not always the outcome, but most certainly it was the prevalent belief at their outset. As for the war that was being predicted in the 1930s, this was seen as something very different. In particular, Britain would no longer be in a position to rely on her island status for protection. Aerial bombardment and a possible invasion were the more likely and immediate outcomes. In either eventuality, the south coast would take the brunt, likely to be devastated by the former and, if the latter, turned into a battleground.

In preparing for this war, a number of important templates could be used by those given responsibility for ensuring that the south coast was ready to fight and survive. Of particular importance was the experience of earlier conflicts, especially those fought against the Emperor Napoleon and Kaiser Wilhelm II. In both cases these were major European conflicts that had also taken on a global importance. More significant for the south coast, these same wars had been accompanied by the very real threat of invasion, with the latter conflict, through the emergence of the aeroplane, introducing indiscriminate death from the air.

In assembling the means to survive a future European war, members of the Committee of Imperial Defence (the government body responsible for co-ordinating overall military strategy), together with various home defence committees, looked back to the Napoleonic and First World Wars. Therefore, that same template, of steps taken in previous conflicts, must be the starting point for this study. Without an awareness of how the south coast had confronted earlier wars, the context of the story would be lost. Decisions taken in the late 1930s were clearly rooted in actions taken and lessons learnt previously. Although a historical slippage to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries might appear a flight of fancy, the similarity to developments undertaken in the 1930s will become readily apparent. And for once, so it would seem, the lessons from history were being learnt and, if somewhat parsimoniously, occasionally acted upon.

Note

1. Hansard, 10 November 1932.

1

Defence & Military Recruitment

In time of war the south coast was among those areas given prioritisation for improvements in the general state and efficiency of coastal defences. This was the time-honoured response to any external threat of invasion or attack, the coastline of the south being generously endowed with a considerable collection of castles, fortified towers and hastily dug entrenchments. Significant periods of threatened invasion, either real or perceived, often gave rise to a dramatic increase in the quantity, if not quality, of such additions to the shoreline. In particular, the quatrefoil castles of Camber, Deal and Walmer, the seventy-three Martello-style towers that stretch between Folkestone and Eastbourne, together with an intricate series of fortifications built around Portsmouth and at a number of other strategic points during the 1860s, all resulted from such threats.

The First World War ensured that further attention was given to the shoreline defences. Temporary gun batteries, pillboxes and entrenchments were placed around both smaller harbours and isolated beaches, existing defences were generally strengthened, while barbed-wire entanglements and trenches dug on the upper part of beaches became commonplace. Dover and Folkestone in particular came in for considerable attention, the surrounding hills covered with field works to give protection to troops embarking for the Western Front, and providing a defence in depth should a concerted enemy effort be made to destroy these essential port facilities. Newhaven and Littlehampton, further embarkation ports, were also given upgraded defences during this period, with the former, during the first three months of war, witnessing troops and civilian labourers working on the open ground that lay in front of the fort, clearing gorse bushes from the field of fire, putting in place barbed-wire entanglements, and filling and carrying sandbags. Given that any successful landing would have as its ultimate objective the capital, a further line of defences was constructed inland. This consisted of pillboxes and entrenchments constructed in 1915 between Maidstone and the River Swale, and were reinforced in 1917 by a number of heavier guns to provide artillery support.1

Even during the last months of 1918, when the possibility of a German invasion had long receded, the various defences were still heavily manned, with the future author Neville Shute among those who awaited the arrival of just such an invader. Shute, one of whose later novels was to investigate the impact that a future war would have on the south coast, had been posted to the Isle of Grain. Situated in north Kent, and equally valuable for preventing an attack on the royal dockyard at Chatham or an incursion upon London, this was a location that had been heavily fortified in the 1860s and, in 1915, was honeycombed with barbed-wire entanglements and communication trenches. ‘For the last three months of the war,’ Shute notes in his published autobiography, ‘I mounted guard at the mouth of the Thames estuary against Germans who could hardly have invaded at this stage of the war.’2

In times of national emergency, both the army and navy made huge demands on the manpower of the south coast, undertaking significant efforts to draw vastly increased numbers into the ranks. Over time, the methods of recruitment had varied, with enforcement, monetary reward or reliance on patriotism among the approaches most frequently adopted. For those inclined towards the colours, there were normally two available options: full-time commitment to a long-term military career or enrolment into a part-time force that required only limited commitment and relatively easy disengagement. Only at the outset of war did these conditions of service markedly alter, due to the need to retain those already enrolled while encouraging others to enlist. As a result, those entering the army might do so for the period of hostilities only, rather than for a fixed number of years.

Of those who chose to enter the professional army, the choice offered was quite extensive and included a myriad of infantry and cavalry regiments, together with a number of more specialised support regiments that included the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, the connection between a county and a particular regiment was not especially strong. Consequently, regiments were inclined to recruit from wherever they were situated at the time, with recruiting sergeants a familiar sight along the entire length of the south coast, attempting to ‘drum up’ interest through the offer of a lump sum of money.3 Thus, a great many men from Hampshire, Kent and Sussex were drawn into any one of a number of regiments that were situated in these counties. It was not until 1881 that permanently mustered regiments acquired an undisputed territorial connection. Militia and volunteer companies, already closely associated with particular counties, were merged with regular line regiments, so achieving this local connection. Emerging at this time were the Hampshire, the Royal Sussex, the Royal West Kent and the Buffs East Kent regiments. The purpose was to create local pride and thereby boost recruitment.

The navy also recruited in these counties, both for the Royal Marines and for seamen on board warships. The latter, up until the introduction of a proper career structure, were normally undertaken for either a wartime period or for the time a vessel was in commission and at sea. A feature of naval recruitment, up until 1815, was the use of the press gang, whereby captains of naval warships in need of crewmembers would send out a gang of sailors under an officer with the purpose of forcibly taking any person deemed suitable for sea service. Those larger townships around the coastline and wider rivers were most likely to receive the attention of the press, although the artisans and labourers employed in naval shipbuilding and replenishment facilities were automatically exempt.

A wartime-only practice, impressment ceased to be used after 1815, with a shortfall in seamen at the outbreak of the First World War made good by patriotic volunteers, the 30,000 men of the Royal Naval Reserve and (from 1916 onwards) conscription. Impressment into the army had, at one time, also been permitted, but this had ceased in 1780. In contrast with the Royal Navy, impressment into the army had been restricted to ‘able-bodied idle and disorderly persons’.4

Additional means by which the navy gained recruits included the payment of bounties, a county quota and magistrates giving a convicted felon or vagrant the choice of prison or joining the services. At the beginning of the French Revolutionary War, when the government used bounties, £5 was offered to a man rated as an able seaman, with £2 10S to an ordinary seaman and £1 10S to an inexperienced recruit who would be rated a landsman. To this might be added an additional sum provided by a local source such as a parish vestry or patriotic organisation. In Southampton, for instance, a 3-guinea payment over the royal bounty was offered to every able seaman recruited in the town, with 2 guineas for every ordinary seaman and 1½; guineas for every landsman.5

But even when combining volunteers with those impressed or avoiding a prison sentence, the numbers joining the navy did not match the numbers required. For this reason the government devised a new scheme to augment recruitment: that of the quota system. This obliged each county to recruit into the navy a specific number, with fines imposed upon those counties that failed to achieve its given target. To operate the new scheme, magistrates throughout each county assembled for the purpose of devising how many men were to be raised from each parish, with churchwardens and overseers of the poor specifically tasked with finding the necessary individuals to fulfil the county quota. Under the quota schemes introduced in 1795 and 1796, Sussex was responsible for bringing 314 men into the navy, while Kent recruited approximately 800.6

Returning to the part-time militia and volunteer companies, it has already been noted that they had a much closer territorial association and were only mustered during periods of hostility. At other times, those who had been recruited into the militia and volunteers assembled periodically for drill and manoeuvres. The numbers who freely joined usually fell far below that of actual need, with the majority during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars made up of conscripts chosen by ballot from each parish. For Kent, divided between the West Kent and East Kent militia, this resulted in the mustering of just over a thousand men spread over fifteen companies, while the South Hampshire militia was centred upon Southampton. The actual process of balloting was a public affair, usually undertaken in a superior hostelry in the larger towns and cities in and around the south coast. The balloting for the Rape of Chichester, one of the four divisions into which Sussex was divided, was undertaken at Chichester in the Swan Inn, with 772 names having to be drawn. Later, as the war became even more threatening and the fear of invasion intensified, a supplementary militia, to be held in reserve, was also formed. In Kent this secondary force was embodied in 1798, but in Sussex it was not raised until 1803. Again, the process of balloting was identical to that of the original militia force, with 772 men once again required from the Rape of Chichester. This supplementary force was to be called out only ‘in case of actual invasion or appearance of the enemy in force’. To prepare them for this eventuality, they were mustered, for purposes of training, on two occasions every week between April and December:

That they are liable to be called out to exercise on every Sunday from the 25th March to the 25th December or if they have any religious scruples concerning being exercised on Sunday, then they are to be exercised on some other day, to be fixed upon by their commanding officer but are not to receive any allowance for such Sunday or other days’ exercise, and they are to be exercised at least one other day in each week to the amount of twenty days at least, and for such additional days not being more than twenty in a year, they are to be allowed one shilling per day provided they have been exercised on the previous Sunday or other day in lieu thereof.7

Although muster rolls were maintained as late as 1820, the compulsive element was abandoned, with the militia transformed into an entirely voluntary force. Men would volunteer and undertake basic training at an army depot, before returning to civilian life under the agreement to continue regular training and attend an annual two-week camp. In compensation, they received a retainer.

A further form of military service was that of the volunteer movement, with many patriots upon the outbreak of war in 1793 enrolling themselves into spontaneously formed companies of soldiery. In Sussex, the Duke of Richmond raised a voluntary yeomanry cavalry that was restricted to the most influential of the county. Only slightly less elitist were companies of volunteer infantry, usually formed of affluent merchants. Of the latter groups, there were few coastal towns that did not see such bodies raised in their midst, with William Pitt, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and resident at Walmer Castle, during the time he was out of office as prime minister, raising three companies.

The volunteer movement once again emerged during the mid-nineteenth century as a result of a series of invasion scares. In 1851, for instance, a number of volunteer companies were formed but quickly disbanded. In 1859, however, due to a more serious perceived threat, those joining the volunteer movement were not only greater in number but were attracted to companies that took on a greater degree of longevity. The number recruited in 1859 along the south coast was in excess of 4,000, with more following over the next few years. Those who joined these county-wide rifle companies were normally expected to supply their own weapons and design of uniform. In addition, some companies admitted women as honorary members, their uniform a sash or scarf of the uniform colour.

Virtually every town or geographical area within the south coast region gave rise to a volunteer company, these bearing a variety of names, some of them quite fanciful. On the Isle of Wight, for instance, the volunteers became Princess Beatrice’s Isle of Wight Rifles, a name they were permitted to take because of that particular royal personage’s connection with Osborne House. For the most part, these volunteer companies were connected in some way with the War Office; an exception were those founded by the artisans and labourers of Chatham, Portsmouth and Sheerness royal dockyards – these were more closely connected to the Admiralty. As time passed, the independence of these volunteer companies was eventually forfeited through their merger into the county regiments and the creation of specific volunteer battalions.

The First World War saw a similar spontaneous movement towards the formation of volunteer bodies, these being primarily orchestrated by a central body in London, the Central Association of Volunteer Training Corps (CAVTC). Unlike the volunteer companies of the nineteenth century, membership was limited to those who, through either age or other restriction, were prevented from joining the regular army. In other words, it was not to be seen as an alternative to the colours, but as a means of giving support to the army by the more general populace. However, in common with those earlier volunteer movements, there were no government subsidies towards the cost of equipment, with local councils frequently asked to give their support to fundraising activities. In Brighton, where two Volunteer Training Corps were formed, they were known as the Home Protection Brigade and were only briefly affiliated to the central association. Instead, and as a means of securing financial support, both battalions were accepted into the 4th Volunteer Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment.8

The main tasks assigned to these volunteers involved replacing the army and regular police in the mounting of road patrols, guarding designated buildings and stretcher-bearing. They were also supposed to be available for service in the event of invasion, but some initial confusion existed as to their legitimacy. In Chichester, where the volunteers were known as the City Guard, the senior military officers of the area pointed out that their use in any military situation might result in them being seen as ‘non-belligerents’ and, if captured, ‘not entitled to the same treatment as uniformed soldiers’. Most certainly it was an issue that could not be ignored, for in the first few months, those who joined were indistinguishable from any other member of the public. Only with the introduction of a red armband and the letters ‘GR’ (George Rex) in black was the situation regularised. In Kent, by March 1915, some forty-eight such companies had been formed, with another thirty or more in Sussex and littoral east Hampshire.9 Later, in March 1916, the War Office took responsibility for administering the Volunteer Training Corps, and eventually provided army issue uniforms and weapons.10

The urban centres of the south coast saw particularly heavy recruitment into the volunteer movement. Here were large numbers of men employed in both the numerous naval facilities and munitions works, who were automatically exempt from military service. Indeed, the government actively discouraged them from enlisting as it was considered they were already undertaking essential war work. While it did not place these workers on the military front line, it did at least allow them to become more visibly committed to the national cause and undermine some of the criticisms that were levied in their direction. The Daily Sketch, for instance, in December 1914, openly suggested that such workers, in failing to enlist, lacked patriotism. A remark clearly resented by those employed in the armaments industry, it naturally elicited an angry response from the central committee of the General Labourers’ Union. An apology was demanded from the Daily Sketch, it being pointed out that many of those employed in the dockyards at Chatham, Portsmouth and Sheerness had actually been refused the right to enlist. It was further pointed out that some had still left to join the army, but in doing so forewent both a relatively secure job and a future pension.11

Social standing was an important influencing factor when choosing the fighting force. Certain regiments were considerably more prestigious than others, with those of an aristocratic or more decidedly middle-class background being drawn to them. At the top of the tree were the guards and cavalry regiments while, decidedly lower, were the infantry regiments, including those that formed the basis of the county regiments of the south coast. The same was also true of the voluntary battalions. The militia raised at the time of the French wars, for instance, was very much an association of agricultural labourers, drawn in the ballot, who were not of such a background to be able to relinquish themselves of their duties through payment of £10 or £15, thereby exempting themselves for five years. For those of particularly high social standing there was the much more acceptable alternative of joining the yeomanry. The word ‘yeoman’ refers to small farmers, with the officers drawn from the nobility and the ordinary recruits made up of their tenants. Often characterised as play soldiers, they normally undertook a few hours of training each week and spent much of the rest of their time strutting around in expensive uniforms. Among these, of course, was the Duke of Richmond’s voluntary cavalry, with those who joined required to provide their own horse and accoutrements.

The importance of class was a continuing factor in recruitment throughout the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century, with those who joined the ranks being overwhelmingly working class. Private C. Jones, a recruit to the Royal Sussex Regiment at the outbreak of war in August 1914, who in civilian life had been employed as a clerk, in letters regularly written to his mother commented on some of his fellow recruits, whom he first met at the barracks in Chichester and with whom he clearly felt socially distant:

Their degree of intelligence was obviously of the lowest. They were just drink sodden, unclean and foul mouthed brutes lacking the mental capacity of even a decent dog – but you must by no means run away with the idea that this applies to the whole collection, some were of a very good class, others were poor and ill kept but yet decent fellows enough and anxious to do well. Again, there were the countrymen simply and badly educated but muscular and healthy who will, with training, make a better soldier than I can ever hope [to be].12

Recruitment into the county regiments in the late summer of 1914 was helped by the knowledge of friends and fellow townsmen or villagers also joining. Among early recruits to the 7th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment, for instance, were virtually the entire membership of both Eastbourne Football Club and the Sussex Cricket Club. Indeed, playing on such homogeneity of membership were the very locally recruited ‘Old Pal’ battalions. One such example was the Southdowns, subsequently forming the 11th, 12th and 13th Battalions of the Royal Sussex Regiment. Conceived and sustained by Claude Lowther, Conservative MP and the occupant of Herstmonceaux Castle, they were recruited by local men working informally in their villages and encouraged by the idea of camaraderie. A further feature of the Southdowns was its distinctiveness from the more normal military tradition, with its endorsement of friendlier relationships between officers and men, greater opportunities for promotion and comfortable billets.

A patriotic surge of recruitment saw thousands of men from the towns and villages of the south coast volunteering into the army within six weeks of the First World War being declared. Enrolled into Kitchener’s New Army, they were enlisting only for the duration of the war. Helping to bring about this high level of recruitment were hundreds of local meetings held in town halls, village centres and pubs. Among them was one held at Horns Cross, near Dartford, in September 1914, its typicality serving to represent the meetings held throughout this rural hinterland of the south coast:

Arriving at the appropriate place shortly before the time announced, there was nothing to shew that only a few hundred miles away the nation with her allies was at death’s grip with a powerful foe, while the gallant men of our Navy are as courageously yielding up their lives for the Motherland.

A small knot of young men had assembled and an onlooker might have been excused for thinking that the great sacrifices that have been made were too highly considered but as the time for the speaker’s arrival drew near so the crowd increased, and quite a crowd, and an enthusiastic one, had assembled.

A glow of light some distance along the road presently announced the advent of a car, to be followed at a short interval by others adorned with words and posters bearing the words –

Kitchener’s Recruiting AgencyEnlist Here and Now

Out of the car sprang several well-known gentlemen, accompanied by strangers, some in uniform. A car drew to the front and the Revd Recrore of the village invited the crowd to draw near. In impressive tones he explained the purpose of their meeting and he wished he had a dozen tongues to speak what was in his heart. Five hundred thousand men were wanted and were wanted at once.13

One village, not far inland from the eastern Kent shoreline, saw such a high level of recruitment that it was declared ‘the bravest village in the United Kingdom’. This was the result of a competition held by The Weekly Dispatch to find the village with the largest proportion of men who had, by 28 February 1915, volunteered to serve. Over 400 villages entered the competition, with Knowlton deemed to win: from a population of thirty-nine, a total of twelve (31 per cent) had enlisted. Judged by Lord Birkenhead, the Attorney General, the prize given to the village was a 17ft-high cross of Aberdeen granite, with figures of a nurse, soldier and a casualty at the top and a roll of honour on the plinth. Unveiled on 1 September 1919, it is located just outside the village on the south side of the Sandwich Road.

Providing a dramatic boost to the numbers in khaki was the mobilisation of the reserve battalions of each regiment. Composed of the Army Reserve, the Special Reserve and the Territorial Force, these were part-time soldiers who were only called up during times of mobilisation. Their immediate value, of course, depended on levels of training, with the Army Reserve being the most highly trained. Consisting only of men who had formally served at least seven years in the regular army, it had been a condition of their original recruitment that they also serve in the Army Reserve for five years.

Separate to this was the Special Reserve, made up of men who need not have formally been in the regulars and who, upon first joining, had been given six months of full-time training followed by a further four weeks every year. The Territorials were a force first created in 1908, following reorganisation of the militia and volunteers; they received a limited amount of training each year. A particular condition of their service was that they were not obliged to serve abroad.

Despite the continuance of a high level of recruitment throughout the opening months of the war, it failed to keep pace with the high rate of attrition witnessed on the Western Front. In order to boost recruitment, the upper age limit for volunteers was raised from 38 to 40 in May 1915, but this was no real solution. Later, in October, following the appointment of Lord Derby as director-general of recruitment, a new volunteer scheme was introduced whereby those registering their names would only be called upon when necessary. Known as the ‘Derby Scheme’, it placed married men into separate groups from single men, with the inducement to the former group that they would only be called up when the supply of single men was exhausted. Call-up under the Derby Scheme began in January 1916, but overall the numbers coming forward were not as hoped, resulting in the Military Service Act of March 1916, which specified that all men aged between 18 and 41 were liable for military service. Within this there were several exemptions that included those who were married (or widowed with children) or were in a reserved occupation.14 The act also permitted conscientious objectors to be absolutely exempted, allowing them to perform alternative civilian service or to serve as non-combatants in the army. However, to do so an objector had to prove their right not to fight by attending a tribunal, established by their local council, that assessed the sincerity of their claim. On their website, the Peace Pledge Union (PPU) says of these tribunals:

The government meant well: these tribunals were intended to be humane and fair. But it was left to local councils to choose the people who actually sat on the panels, and they often selected themselves. They were a mixed bunch: businessmen, shopkeepers, landowners, retired military officers, civil servants and the like, most of them too old to be called up. Most were also strongly patriotic and therefore prejudiced against anyone whom they thought was not. Often they were people ‘of not very great depth of vision or understanding’, genuinely confused about their task and its complicated guidelines.15

In their choice of language, the PPU is clearly making an attempt to understand the savagery that assailed the conscientious objector when he stood before one of these tribunals, and is defending their choice not to fight in a country that had always prided itself on preservation of individual freedom. Standing as a single example of what could beset such a claimant is the example of Walter Abnett. An 18-year-old who appeared before a tribunal in Gillingham in March 1916, Abnett was seeking full exemption from military service. He gave as his primary reason his conscience, believing ‘that war was against the teachings of Christ’. Unfortunately for Abnett, he considerably weakened his case by adding a further reason, that of working with his father as a boot maker, a business that he suggested was in the national interest. Nevertheless, this was no excuse for his treatment by those who attended the tribunal, and especially by its two leading members, Alderman Featherby and William Henry Griffin, the Mayor of Gillingham:

The Mayor: I do not think that any of us believe that war is taught by Christ. I am myself definitely a Christian believer and I hold that this war is the war of the devil, and a Christian has to fight the war of the devil.

The young man, in reply to questions, said he was himself the proprietor of his business and it was in the national interest that it should be kept on, as it enabled people to economise by repairing their own boots (laughter).

Alderman Featherby:You don’t refuse to work for soldiers and so enable them to fight?Applicant: I can’t very well help that (laughter).Alderman Featherby:You can just as well as you can refuse to fight.The Mayor:Would you join the RAMC [Royal Army Medical Corps]?Applicant: If I did it would cause someone else to join the infantry.The Mayor: But your refusal in any case would mean that another would have to fight for us. Men engage on warships to secure food for you and if you object to the services you must object to eat their food.Applicant: We have no alternative (laughter).The Mayor: Then you speak of conscience?

Although Abnett was a member of the Gospel Union and held devout religious beliefs, he was given no chance to explain these. Instead, it was simply assumed that the reason for his appeal was his wish to remain in the business of boot making. Quite simply, those who were members of the appointed tribunal had little understanding of Abnett’s conscientious objections, but had a good understanding of business. Indeed, if Abnett had appealed entirely on grounds of business, his appeal might well have proved successful. Most certainly, that same tribunal allowed full military exemption to several local businessmen, but not one single Christian on grounds of conscience. As regards Abnett, he was permitted to take his appeal to the next level, that of the West Kent Appeal Tribunal. However, by that time he had rethought his position, recognising the inflexibility of those who composed the membership of such bodies, indicating that he would no longer object to serving with the RAMC. As a result, he was given partial exemption, required to enlist with that particular military body.

Apart from their harshness towards those who appealed on grounds of conscience, these tribunals often lacked consistency. Portrayed in comical terms, the Southampton Times reported on the failure to gain an exemption by one appellant:

A man told the court that a girl could not do his work. He could shift very heavy weights.General Shone [a member of the tribunal panel]: Just the man for heavy guns!16

Only five months later, the same tribunal gave exemption to two engine drivers of the South Hampshire Water Company, when it was revealed that their muscular strength was required for shifting heavy drainpipes.17 Were they not just the men for heavy guns, too?

The First World War also saw the recruitment of women into the services, permitting the movement of more men to the front line. By the end of the war, all three fighting services had separate female units, namely the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC), the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF) and the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS). Primarily, the work they undertook was that of driving, office work and cooking. In addition, many women served in the military as nurses, through the Queen Alexandra’s Nursing Service, the Territorial Force Nursing Service, Voluntary Aid Detachments and the more aristocratic First Aid Nursing Yeomanry (FANY).

Parodying the employment of women through the establishment of specialised military units were the foreign labour corps, which were made up of non-British citizens who would work alongside the army undertaking general labouring work. Many, for instance, were recruited in China and based at Folkestone in a large camp beside Cherry Garden Lane. From here, they were employed in local hospitals, labouring in the docks or redirected to France for similar work. In all, 94,000 Chinese labourers passed through the town of Folkestone between 1915 and 1919.18

A problem attached to the rapid expansion of the military at a time of emergency was that of the pressures placed upon both available accommodation and the need to quickly train the new intake. Prior to a major scheme of barrack construction during the French Revolutionary War, troops had been billeted at local inns and hostelries. However, when large numbers of troops were involved, it not only ensured that all accommodation was taken, but led to a dramatic rise in the price of local food stocks. Innkeepers and local inhabitants throughout Kent and Sussex submitted petitions to the Home Secretary, Henry Dundas, requesting that proper military barracks be built. One, submitted from the innkeepers of Chichester, read as follows:

Your petitioners have suffered exceedingly by the experience attending thereon and the very insufficient allowance established for the supply of forage, they therefore most earnestly entreat, that the very heavy burden they are subject to may be taken into consideration of His Majesty’s ministers and they may be indulged with barracks sufficient for the accommodation of cavalry and such other forces of the kingdoms which may be thought necessary to be stationed in this part of Sussex.19

Similarly, from Southampton, a petition from the town publicans requested a barracks for their relief, as ‘they were oppressed by the number of soldiers quartered at their houses, while their families suffered considerably’.20

Dundas, for his part, was not unsympathetic to such petitions, declaring that he had received ‘many applications’ and was ‘sensible [that] the subject must undergo the consideration of government in a general point of view’.21 A barrack department had already been created with the task of either renting or overseeing the building of new barracks. This resulted in the establishment of military accommodation at a number of south coast locations, including Brighton, Chatham, Chichester, Portsmouth and Walmer, together with a large number of more temporary structures and training camps at additional points along the coast. Other barracks, such as those of the Royal Marines at Chatham and Portsmouth, together with the Royal Engineers at Brompton, were to be of significant value for the recruiting, training and assembly of troops in future periods of emergency. To these, over time, additional barracks were also established, including one for the Royal Marines at Deal and further facilities in the main military towns, especially those of Portsmouth and Chatham.