Tommy's War E-Book

Peter Doyle

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The First World War has left an almost indelible mark on history, with battles such as the Somme and Passchendaele becoming watchwords for suffering unsurpassed. The dreadful fighting on the Western Front, and elsewhere in the world, remains vivid in the public imagination. Over the years dozens of books have been published dealing with the soldier's experience, the military history and the weapons and vehicles of the war, but there has been little devoted to the objects associated with those hard years in the trenches. This book (new in paperback) redresses that balance. With hundreds of carefully captioned photographs of items that would have been part of the everyday life for the British Tommy; from recruiting posters, uniforms and entrenching equipment to games, postcards and pieces of 'trench art', this book brings to life the experience of the Great War soldier through the objects with which he would have been surrounded.

Leseprobe

TOMMY’S WAR

British Military Memorabilia

1914–1918

The harvest of war: unexploded British shells on the Somme.

TOMMY’S WAR

British Military Memorabilia

1914–1918

PETER DOYLE

FOREWORD BY RICHARD HOLMES

First published in 2008 by The Crowood Press Ltd Ramsbury, Marlborough Wiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

Revised edition 2020

This e-book first published in 2020

© Peter Doyle 2008 and 2020

All rights reserved. This e-book 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.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 764 4

Dedication In loving memory of Christopher Edward Spencer (1958–2007).

Contents

Foreword by Professor Richard Holmes

Preface and Acknowledgements

1

Introducing Tommy’s War

2

Joining Up

3

Tommy’s Uniform and Equipment

4

Up the Line

5

On Rest and at Home

6

Aftermath

Suggested Reading

Bibliography

Index

Foreword by Professor Richard Holmes

THE British soldier of the First World War is all too often seen as the victim of war’s brutality, clad in monotonous khaki, with his identity crushed by dour uniformity. In fact the army in which he served was a deeply tribal organization, its members distinguished by a variety of insignia that marked out both status in the hierarchy and function within the group; these were, in effect, his tribal markings.

Nervous study of the badges and brassard worn by an approaching lieutenant colonel would establish (long before he asked why the devil our transport was blocking his road) that he was the General Staff Officer Grade 1 of an infantry division, and thus rather an important chap. As his soldiers tramped by we could not only tell their rank from the stripes on their sleeves and badges on their cuffs or shoulders, but also identify the number of occasions on which they had been wounded, and the amount of time they had put in, from their wound and service stripes. Medal ribbons above the left breast pocket marked campaign service, or bravery that had been officially recognized. A long glance at a man would tell the canny observer a good deal about his background and past performance and thus, for a man’s courage in one battle sometimes stands surety for his behaviour in another, point to his future conduct.

It might also tell us a good deal about his unit. Serious-minded adjutants ensured that their officers wore dark khaki shirts, while the more relaxed tolerated straw-coloured confections. Cavalry officers liked khaki stocks secured by a gold pin. Leather tunic buttons were de rigueur in some units but banned in others, and even those Foot Guards officers who were allowed leather buttons still wore them grouped according to regimental practice: singly for the Grenadier Guards, in pairs for the Coldstream, and so on. Cunning quartermasters (was there, indeed, any other sort?) did their best to ensure, by bribery, barter and sometimes simple theft, that their men all wore the same type of equipment, with no eye-jarring mix of webbing and leather.

At the beginning of the war, regiments could be identified by cap badges worn by all ranks, and brass shoulder titles pinned through the epaulette by all non-commissioned personnel. Even when, early in the summer of 1916, the steel helmet replaced the service cap, Glengarry or tam-o’-shanter for wear in the field, shoulder titles still survived. A young soldier recently exhumed from the cutting of the old Ypres to Roulers railway line near Tyne Cot cemetery was marked out, in death as in life, by his Lancashire Fusilier title.

For Territorial units and some of Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ battalions, shoulder titles did more than identify a man’s regiment. They also drew attention to a specific battalion, for example, the ‘city battalions’ of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, raised through the patriotic energy of Lord Derby, or the sportsmen’s battalions of the Royal Fusiliers. There were times when soldiers personalized even their shoulder titles. The T that topped Territorial titles was often filed down to make a 1, showing that the man who wore it was not just any Territorial, but one who had volunteered for foreign service and constituted the first-line battalion of his old unit. Badges were not confined to the army, but were worn by munitions workers and others on essential war service. ‘Sweetheart badges’, usually a brooch in the form of a regiment’s cap badge, were worn by wives and girlfriends.

As Peter Doyle’s wonderful book so graphically shows, the material culture of the war was not confined to the braid and brass that men wore on their uniforms. It spread in a myriad of ripples at the front, through the rear areas and back in Britain, with items such as photographs, postcards, posters, trench newspapers and journals all helping to bind the nation to the army that served it. This was a society that knew the difference between a brigadier and a bombardier, had some inkling what an officer might have done to wear the purple and white ribbon of his Military Cross, and understood a good deal about the iconography of the regimental system. This volume is as rich and varied as the culture it describes, and shows us Tommy, as he might have wished to be remembered, in colour and not in drab.

Richard Holmes

Preface and Acknowledgements

This book is intended to illustrate the average life of the British soldier of the Great War through an exploration of the surviving objects, artefacts as diverse as trench periscopes and bully beef tins, which together illustrate just what it was like to fight this most peculiar and intimate war. Other authors have successfully described the soldiers’ war in intricate detail: Dennis Winter’s Death’s Men, Malcolm Brown’s Tommy Goes to War, John Ellis’s Eye-Deep in Hell, and, more recently, Richard Holmes’ Tommy have all attempted to paint a canvas of the life of the soldier in the trenches, a picture that is sometimes at odds with the outpourings of the literary generation of soldier-poets in the post-war era of disillusionment. The soldiers themselves, writing in later life, also appear vividly to recall exact details of their everyday life – what they ate, smoked, drank and did – mundanities recalled perhaps to cover the deeper memories of the assault on the senses they encountered in the trenches.

What is missing from all these works, understandably, is an appreciation of what the objects so closely associated with four years of warfare ‘in the trenches’ really looked like, how they were used, and what they meant. This book attempts to fill this significant gap, providing a visual reference that is usually filled only by the contents of museum cases.

This book is not an exploration of Grand Strategy. It is not a discussion of the rights and wrongs of the war, the conduct of the generals, or the outcome of battles. It is about the mundanity of warfare, the life of the average soldier of the ‘poor bloody infantry’, or PBI – what he ate, where he slept, what he wore and how he endured. The cavalry also endured where it was deployed – either in the open conditions of the Middle East, or where deployed as supplementary infantry on the Western Front – but the Great War is seen primarily as a ‘footslogger’s’ war. In this war, the engineer created the longest fortifications in history, and the artilleryman tried to break them, using latter-day siege engines in the form of howitzers and mortars. But, ultimately, the infantry would inevitably have to rise from the protection of the trenches to take by force of arms their enemies’ version of the same fortress.

Through the objects of Tommy’s life, this book tells the story of what it was really like to serve as an infantryman in the Great War, principally on the Western Front, but also in the other ‘sideshows’ across the world. Through an exploration of what anthropologists and archaeologists call ‘material culture’, it recounts this story – the story of holding the line and enduring – and creates a visual encyclopaedia of the time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In writing this book I have drawn upon a wealth of experience gained from a lifetime’s collecting, and I would like to thank all those who, through the years, have added to my knowledge and supported my interest. I am particularly indebted to Laurie Milner, who has generously opened up his collection to inspection by a wide-eyed enthusiast, and who has proved to be an effective sounding board for ideas. A number of the objects illustrated here are his; most of the others are mine.

Other people who have aided in this project, providing either ideas or access to material include: Richard Archer, Peter Barton, Bella Bennett, Martin Brown, Steve Chambers, Peter Chasseaud, Sheila Dellow (for details of her Auntie Win and Uncle Bert), Paul Evans, Chris Foster, Adam Forster of Worldwide Arms (for permission to photograph his SMLEs), Taff Gillingham, Steve Henderson, Malcolm Hole (for the photograph of his grandfather, Sapper John Ablitt MM, DCM), Kristof Jacobs, Alain Jacques, Simon Jones, Ted Peacock, Len Ray, Paul Reed, Andy Robertshaw, Eric Robinson (for details of his father, J. T. Robinson), Nick Saunders, Libby Simpson, Jane Staff, Tom Stafford, Nigel Steel, Tom Tulloch-Marshall (for help with On War Service Badges), Johan Vandewalle, Julian Walker (for details of the service of his grandfather, Pte Frederick Walker, KOYLI), Stephen Wheeler and Nick Wright.

Finally, none of this would have been possible (for a life-long collector) without the love and support of my parents, now sadly passed, and the belief and love of my wife Julie and son James.

Peter Doyle

NOTE ON NOMENCLATURE AND CONTEMPORARY VALUES

Throughout this book, and to avoid repetition, the terms ‘First World War’ and ‘Great War’ are used interchangeably. Both were in use during and after the war, the former reflecting the first time that war had erupted with such a wide geographic spread, the latter reflecting the scale of the conflict. To most people of Tommy’s generation, the term Great War was the most widely used – on posters, in magazines and on the reverse of the inter-Allied Victory Medal, for example. With the eruption of a second, arguably greater World War, the term fell out of favour, to be replaced by ‘First World War’. Despite this, the term ‘Great War’ has since seen a revival among historians and researchers, its language perhaps in keeping with an event that demarcates the close of the Edwardian period.

A number of abbreviations are used throughout: AOC (Army Ordnance Corps); ASC (Army Service Corps); BEF (British Expeditionary Force); Lt (Lieutenant); Pte (Private); RAMC (Royal Army Medical Corps); RE (Royal Engineers); RFA (Royal Field Artillery); RFC (Royal Flying Corps); RGA (Royal Garrison Artillery); Sgt (Sergeant).

Monetary values are given throughout in their original pounds, shillings and pence (£ s. d.) denominations. Until Britain’s currency was decimalized in 1971, one pound (£) was worth twenty shillings (s.) and each shilling was worth twelve pence (d.). Today, one shilling is the equivalent of five new pence (p.); however, in 1914, its buying power was almost equivalent to five pounds today (and probably more in real terms), a function of the rapid rise in inflation experienced throughout the twentieth century. Linear measurements were all in Imperial at the time: feet and inches, with twelve inches to a foot. One foot is equivalent to approximately one third of a metre; an inch, around two and a half centimetres. In the British sector, trenches were laid out in Imperial; in some cases, metric was also used, where, for example, original French or Belgian maps were employed.

1 Introducing Tommy’s War

‘TOMMY Atkins’ – the time-honoured name for the British soldier, a shorthand for the average man in uniform – reputedly dates back to Wellington’s day, when, in a different, but equally momentous war, an appropriate name was needed for the model enlistment forms. Although it was not always to the liking of the soldiery, the name stuck, and was used universally throughout the Great War as an affectionate moniker for the man in the trenches. Other names reflected regional origins – Scots were usually ‘Jock’ and Welshmen, ‘Taff’, for example – but, despite these variations, ‘Tommy’ was still a name applied to all British soldiers. The Germans used it in an even wider sense: for them, Canadians, Newfoundlanders, Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans were undoubtedly lumped together under the universal appellation of ‘Tommy’.

Tommy’s trenches: preserved British trenches in Sanctuary Wood, Belgium.

THE BRITISH SOLDIER IN THE GREAT WAR

It is a common perception that the average British soldier of the Great War was a volunteer, often underage, who was swept up in the great patriotic fervour of August 1914, and who joined the army to fight for King and Country. Disillusionment was to set in. The truth is somewhat more complex. For a modern audience brought up on the poems of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon, on Oh! What a Lovely War and, more recently, Blackadder Goes Forth, the war seems an object lesson in futility, with thousands gassed and blown apart, ‘hanging on the old front line’, all in order to ‘move Douglas Haig’s drinks cabinet closer to Berlin’. For a growing number of historians, this is a gross oversimplification, and for many, a distortion of the facts. Indeed, a recent book Mud, Blood and Poppycock set out to explode, laboriously, many of the long-held tenets of the war, from ‘the lost generation’ to the ‘needless slaughter’ of the Somme. The pendulum has swung, perhaps, too far.

‘Tommy’ was the term used universally to describe the British soldier. Here, a propaganda leaflet, left behind in the last retreats of the German army in 1918, hands over possession of the once-occupied territories of France to ‘Tommy’, courtesy of ‘Fritz’.

‘Tommy Atkins’ was the subject of popular songs in wartime but, as pointed out by Rudyard Kipling, his bawdy reputation in peacetime meant that he was less welcome.

Tommy Atkins – a studio portrait of the typical British soldier of 1914–18, a gunner of the Royal Field Artillery in c.1917, with the 1903 pattern leather bandolier commonly used by mounted troops, and the 1917 pattern soft trench cap.

Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from 1915, and the subject of much controversy. Haig has been portrayed in the past either as a ‘butcher and bungler’ or an ‘educated soldier’. Military historians now mostly accept that he was the architect of victory in the west in 1918.

The Battle of the Somme, July–November 1916, has often been portrayed as the graveyard of innocence, following the heavy casualties taken by the British volunteer battalions (the ‘Pals’). Like Passchendaele in 1917, the Somme has become a byword for the suffering of the Great War, but some historians now see it as a necessary test in the development of the British ‘art of attack’, which was to win the war in the west in 1918. This book, written by John Buchan in 1917 when he was Director of Information for the British Government under Lord Beaverbrook, was intended to explain the battle for an American audience.

The British declaration of war came on 4 August 1914, following the German violation of Belgian neutrality. This postcard, sent to the United States from Britain, trusts to the luck bestowed by a sprig of Scottish heather.

The currency of the day: shillings and pence. The average British Tommy would be paid a shilling a day, plus allowances, but minus stoppages; pay would be issued at a formal parade, with the amount being recorded in his pay book.

Typical cap badges of the regular British Army. The King’s Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment had the unique distinction of bearing the lion of England on its head dress. This infantry regiment was typical in having two regular battalions; the Duke of Cambridge’s Own (Middlesex) Regiment had four. The Royal Regiment of Artillery, distinguished by its distinctive gun, was one of the largest military units, its badge carrying the battle honour Ubique, meaning ‘everywhere’.

Cap badges of Territorial regiments. Rural Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire were less populous than some counties, and had only Territorial regiments, both of which served with distinction in the Great War.

Much ink has been spilt in both attacking and defending the actions of the Generals – the ‘donkeys’ or ‘butchers and bunglers’ of popular historians – and many more pages will be written on the subject. For British and Commonwealth readers, books on major operations such as Gallipoli (1915), the Somme (1916), Vimy Ridge (1917), Passchendaele (Third Ypres 1917) or even the ‘Forgotten Victory’ of 1918 continue to flow from the presses as the anniversaries – and the last survivors – pass. Questions of whether the Somme was a catastrophe, or a phase of the ‘learning curve’ that ultimately led to Allied victory in 1918, or whether Passchendaele was a ‘mincing machine’ – an attritional battleground like that of Verdun – or a series of more or less successful bite-and-hold battles under difficult conditions, are typical of the accounts that line the shelves of most booksellers today.

But for the ‘average’ soldier, these issues were above the parapet or behind the lines. Often, Tommy had to write home for some indication of how the war was going (or read it in out-of-date newsprint sent to the front), as the routine of trench warfare was such that concentrating on that patch of sky observable from a six-foot, six-inch deep slit in the ground was all that was possible. These soldiers joined the army in the early war period for their own reasons – to escape, for adventure, from a sense of duty or from peer pressure. Later, from January 1916, they were compelled to join. Volunteer or conscript, all endured; most wrote home at some point or other to say that they were OK, ‘in the pink’ in the language of the day, and waiting for the war to end. In 1918–19 they came home, to get on with their lives and to forget. While the soldier-poets were putting pen to paper in the post-war period of ‘disillusionment’, the old soldiers were attempting to rebuild their lives.

THE BRITISH ARMY

When Britain went to war in 1914, it had a small but highly trained professional force. In 1881, the Army had been overhauled to create a distinctly regional feel. Reforms by Lord Cardwell, then Secretary of State for War, had created county (regional in Wales, Scotland and Ireland) regiments throughout the United Kingdom; in some of the more populous areas of England, there was often more than one county regiment. Before Cardwell, there were 108 regular infantry regiments, and separate militia and volunteer battalions. After the reforms, there were sixty-one regiments, each allied directly with a county or region, and each given a home depot, and two regular battalions per regiment – although, following the Boer War, a few were to raise four regular battalions. All recruited locally, and the basic system of two regular battalions meant that one stayed at home while the other was away forming the Garrison of Empire, from Guernsey to India and far-flung Burma. A recruit could be expected to serve the first two years of his five-year term of service with the Home Battalion (generally under-strength), the last five being with the overseas battalion; this meant that the home-service battalions had less experienced troops overall.

Following a further set of reforms in 1908, instigated by a new Secretary of State for War, Lord Haldane, in addition to the Regulars, each regiment gained a third Special Reserve Battalion, whose purpose was to gather recruits for the regular battalions. This was not a force that was deployed in the field. In fact, Special Reserve Battalions replaced the Militia that had served the same purpose prior to the Cardwell reforms. Men joining this battalion could enlist, receive six months’ training, and be released to their civilian occupation on reduced pay, to be called to the colours in time of war. The fourth, fifth and sixth battalions of a regiment were territorial battalions, locally raised and under the control of county Territorial Associations, who were to manage recruitment through drill halls set up in different parts of the county. Irish regiments (the whole of Ireland was then part of the United Kingdom) were never to have territorial battalions, given the concerns simmering over home rule throughout the period. In addition, there were to be five all-territorial regiments, the multi-battalion County of London Regiment (distinct from the Royal Fusiliers, or City of London Regiment), and the Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Monmouthshire and Cambridgeshire regiments – these last four from counties whose population did not warrant a full-blown two-battalion regular infantry regiment.

Men serving as Territorials did so on the understanding that they were destined to serve as part-timers engaged on Home Defence, with no overseas commitment. The cavalry had its own equivalent, the Yeomanry, but, rather than battalions tied to regular cavalry units, these operated as separate regiments. When territorial recruits signed on, service was restricted to regular attendance at their local drill hall – earning them the not altogether flattering title of ‘Saturday night soldiers’ – and a regular field encampment. There were territorial gunners, engineers, RAMC, ASC, and so on. Although part-timers, the ‘terriers’ were liable for full-time service on the outbreak of war, the implication being that they would serve at home, while the Regulars proceeded overseas. However, on the outbreak of war, the vast majority of Territorials volunteered for overseas service.

Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum – not a man to be trifled with – took over as Secretary of State for War in August 1914, replacing Haldane, who was widely suspected to have some German sympathies. Kitchener had little time for the Territorials, an organization that sat outside his direct line of control. He understood that the war would be costly in manpower, and that the eighty-four regular infantry battalions available at home – with seventy-three overseas – would be inadequate in a developing situation that he expected to last for at least three years. He therefore set in train a process whereby a direct appeal to the public would lead to the recruitment of enough men to support the war effort. Initially, the men of ‘Kitchener’s Army’ joined as individuals in tranches of 100,000, but, following a request from the City of London to raise a whole battalion of stockbrokers, a plethora of ‘City’ and ‘Pals’ battalions were to be raised of men with similar backgrounds and circumstances. These new battalions started life with unofficial titles such as the ‘Sportsman’s Battalion’, the ‘Liverpool Pals’ and the ‘Grimsby Chums’, but were soon assimilated into the military machine as additional battalions, numbered after the regular Special Reserve and territorial battalions of a county regiment – 23rd Royal Fusiliers, the 17th–20th King’s (Liverpool) Regiment and the 11th Lincolnshire Regiment, respectively. In this way, recruitment avalanched in the early weeks of the war, with 300,000 men enlisting in August 1914 alone; by the end of the year that number had risen to 1,186,357.

Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, Britain’s most famous soldier, and a man not to be trifled with. Called to Government in 1914 as Secretary of State for War, he appealed for volunteers to what was to become known as ‘Kitchener’s Army’. He was lost at sea in 1916 when HMS Hampshire, a cruiser en route to Russia, hit a mine off Orkney.

The regular battalions available at home in 1914 were to form six infantry divisions; each division was to have three infantry brigades, and each brigade in turn composed of four infantry battalions (later reduced to three following the manpower shortage that began to bite in 1917). Brigades rarely had more than one battalion from a given regiment, and a typical division would have men wearing a very different cap badge, the traditional identifier of regimental identity of the British soldier, even today. The typical infantry division of 1914 would also have a significant artillery presence, and an attached cavalry squadron, as well as components from all the other arms and services required to keep the division operating in the field, a massive undertaking with around 15,000 men in a typical, full-strength British division. Of these, it has been estimated that around 40 per cent of the strength were young soldiers with no more than two years’ service; the remaining 60 per cent would be recalled Reservists, men who had served their five years but who were liable to recall for a further seven years.

The six original divisions were to form the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in 1914, the first four of them taking part in the Retreat from Mons in 1914, the other two being present in France by September 1914. The British Army was destined to grow in size to seventy-five Infantry Divisions, sixty-five of which would serve overseas as an effective fighting force, distributed between the various Corps and Armies engaged on all fronts. Of these, twelve would be Regulars, one would be raised from Royal Naval Reservists (the Royal Naval, later 63rd Royal Naval Division), thirty would be ‘New Army’, raised originally from volunteers during Kitchener’s direct appeal to the public in 1914–15, and the remainder would be Territorials.

The volunteer spirit declined as the war progressed; although still vibrant in 1915, by 1916 the Army was facing a shortfall in manpower, with the inevitable consequence that conscription was to loom on the horizon. An interim scheme introduced by Lord Derby, Director General of Recruiting, in October 1915, whereby men would ‘attest their willingness to serve’ before returning to their civilian occupation, was not sufficiently enticing. By the end of 1915, more than one million available men had failed to register. With casualties increasing, it was inevitable that conscription would be required if losses were to be sustained. In January 1916, all men between the ages of eighteen and forty-one were liable to call-up, single men first, followed by married men in March 1916. Conscripts were to serve in all Divisions by the end of the war, whether originally ‘Regular’, ‘New Army’ or ‘Territorial’. Of the 7.5 million men of the right age available during the war, a third would volunteer in 1914–15, a third would be medically unfit or exempt from service, and a third would be conscripted. It was on the ‘conscript armies’ that the German hammer blows of 1918 would fall, and it was these men, and the survivors from the early war, that would drive the Advance to Victory, the ‘Hundred-Day’ battles, commencing with Amiens on 4 August 1918, that would finally end the war in the West.

THEATRES OF WAR

The Great War was a world war, with campaigns fought by British troops on three continents – Europe, Asia and Africa. For the most part, the Western Front, situated in Western Europe, was to both demand most attention and consume in ever-increasing numbers men and matériel. This front became a continuous line of trenches from Switzerland to the North Sea, 475 miles (285km) across varied terrain; and by the end of the war British and Commonwealth troops were to occupy 120 miles (190km) of the front, in the historically strategic zone that straddled the Belgo-French border, extending south, deep into Picardy. Engaged from August 1914 at the Battle of Mons, the British Expeditionary Force was to grow in size and stature to become the backbone of the Allied effort in the closing months of 1918, in campaigns that defeated Imperial Germany. At Mons (1914), First and Second Ypres (1914), Loos (1915), The Somme (1916), Arras, Messines, Third Ypres and Cambrai (1917), the German offensives and Allied advance of 1918 were all to take their toll of casualties on the BEF – but, for the most part, the British soldier went about his business in the trenches never seeing his enemy.

Commercially available map, published by George Philip and Son, illustrating the British battle lines on the Western Front at the close of the Great War. Seven other maps, depicting the battle fronts in all other theatres of war, were also published. This one belonged to Captain F. L. Turnbull of the American Corps of Engineers.

Post-war cigarette cards illustrating some of the formation badges used by British Divisions in the Great War. From 1917 onwards these were used as uniform sleeve insignia, but were also painted on vehicles and used at headquarters to avoid writing out the name of the unit in full.

Elsewhere, Tommy was engaged at Gallipoli, in a costly and unsuccessful attempt to defeat the Ottoman Empire on its home territory in European Turkey from April 1915–January 1916. That short period of time was none the less long enough to claim the second-biggest number of total British casualties, at 205,000 (still only a fraction of the losses suffered in France and Belgium). Here, trench warfare was all too quickly established, and the drip-drip-drip of casualties and losses to disease contributed to the decision to beak the stalemate through ignominious withdrawal in December 1915–January 1916. The Ottomans were engaged across the Middle East – in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), which saw an initially successful advance past Basra lead to a crushing surrender at Kut-al-Armara in 1916. This would be reversed only in 1918. Palestine and the Arabian Peninsula – the scene of the exploits of ‘Laurence of Arabia’ – would be more successful, and the Ottomans were to sue for peace in late October 1918 after Allenby had taken Jerusalem.

‘V Beach’, Gallipoli, taken from the line of the Ottoman defences in April 1915, with the Dardanelles in the distance. Here, the British 29th Division disembarked from the River Clyde, a collier converted as a landing ship, run aground. The Ottomans, in position at Sedd ul Bahir castle and in carefully prepared defences, pinned the experienced regular British troops on the beach until the following day.

At Salonika in mainland Greece, facing the Bulgarians and their German allies from 1916, more men were lost to disease than battle casualties, although here the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (MEF) was to participate in the offensive that would see the first of the Central Powers capitulate (Bulgaria, in September 1918). There were numerous other theatres – in South West Africa, for example, and to bolster the hard-pressed Italians in the valley of the Isonzo. Farther afield, in the opening days of the war, there was Tsingtao, in China; and, at its close, Archangel, in northern Russia. Tommy would go wherever he was needed.

In all, the British Empire would suffer 3,190,235 casualties out of the 5,336,879 who enlisted, comprising 908,371 died, 2,090,212 wounded and 191,652 taken prisoner. The majority would be from the UK.

TRENCH WARFARE

Trench warfare came as a surprise to High Command, who in 1914 had expected a war of movement. The battle plans of the major powers, based on the experience of other European conflicts, such as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, predicted a rapid deployment of troops that would over-run their enemies. At the heart of German plans for a coming war was a similarly rapid deployment of troops westwards, exploiting the rail network, an operational necessity in view of the might of the Russian ‘steamroller’, a vast potential of manpower that could engulf the German armies in the east. The effectiveness of the Schlieffen Plan in the west – intended to engulf the French quickly and capture Paris using a pivoting ‘closing-door’ movement with its army – was compromised by operational issues and indecisiveness, and, although the French and their British allies were to reel back, the line was to hold.

Daily Mail war postcard showing British soldiers in a captured German trench on the Somme. Based on one of the most famous pictures of the war, this tinted photograph gives some idea of the depth of the trench systems in 1916. The Daily Mail postcards, which proved very popular,were published in colour, black and white and sepia formats from 1916.

Yet, after fighting in open fields during the first desperate battles of 1914, for the British retreat from Mons to the Aisne, the establishment of entrenched positions was determined, in the British Sector at least, following Sir John French’s order in late 1914. Running snake-like through Europe, this simple line of entrenched positions would eventually extend from the Swiss frontier to the Belgian coast. Desperately, both sides fought to gain the advantage by outflanking movements in the so-called ‘race to the sea’; the flooding of line of the Yser from Dixmuide to Nieuport ordered by Albert, King of the Belgians, would do much to stem the invasion. From the winter of 1914–15, the war took on the flavour of that already seen at Petersburg, Virginia in 1864, and at Port Arthur in the Russo-Japanese War of 1902: an extended siege. For the British, this siege was to be played out in a Salient around the Belgian town of Ypres, in French Flanders, and south to Picardy and the Somme.

Preserved trenches at Sanctuary Wood, in the Ypres Salient, Belgium. These trenches, based on the British lines, have been in private hands since the end of the war, and have been repaired many times. Nevertheless, they still provide something close to the feel of the originals.

Trench warfare has assumed an almost mythical status today, the phrase ‘in the trenches’ being almost synonymous with service in the First World War. For most British and Commonwealth (then Empire) soldiers, trench warfare was to be the norm, even in far-flung theatres such as Gallipoli and Salonika. Despised by the High Command as a ‘phase of warfare’ that would soon be transformed into open warfare, ‘the trenches’ would exist from their first inception in September 1914 through to the opening of the Battle of Amiens in August 1918, and the final Advance to Victory. The Western Front became an entity once the opposing forces had entrenched across northern Europe, in late 1914, and it was on the Western Front that trenches became the dominant feature of warfare. Trenches varied according to use, and their construction became more sophisticated as the war dragged on. In Flanders, the construction of trenches was mostly a battle with the prevailing geological conditions. The combination of water-repelling clay and overlying water-retaining sands meant that, when it rained, the heavily shelled ground became the muddy quagmire that is associated with the Great War today. Elsewhere, such as on the Somme, trenches could be founded in startlingly white chalks, overlain by sticky clays and silts, which would dry to a choking dust in summer and would be churned to a cloying mud in winter.

The French fortress town of Belfort, situated at a natural gap between the Jura mountains and the Rhone Valley, was effectively the southern end of the Western Front.

Geology had much to do with the conditions in the trenches. The Ypres clay, similar in all ways to the clay on which London is built, throws off water, leading to waterlogged conditions, particularly in the rainy season. Here, a contemporary postcard makes light of the miserable conditions.

Archaeological investigations in Flanders in 2005, at the site of the British front line of 1915–17 on Pilkem Ridge. Here, the 1917 trenches were constructed using inverted ‘A’ frames, with the cross-piece of the ‘A’ forming the support for duckboards. This type of construction raised the trench floor above the saturated ground level.

The simple purpose of the trenches was, of course, to provide protection to the front-line troops and their supporting arms in the face of small-arms fire (rifles, machine guns and the like) and artillery. Once the trench lines reached practically unbroken from the sea to the fortress of Belfort on the Swiss border, outflanking movements were no longer an option, and the stalemate of ‘the trenches’ became the norm for four long years of war. In their simplest sense, trenches were linear excavations of variable depth that were mostly open to the sky. Sometimes (but rarely) they were roofed for the purposes of concealment, usually with close-boarded timber. For the most part, they were between six and eight feet deep; the prescribed depth, according to High Command, was five feet nine inches in dry soil, with a further nine inches of soil built up as a parapet.

In some places it was impossible to dig down more than a foot or so before reaching water-saturated ground, especially in the Ypres Salient, with its underlying foundation of water-repelling clay. There, the trenches were built up rather than dug down, creating what was known as ‘High Command’ or ‘Parapet’ trenches, usually with walls of the ubiquitous sandbags filled with whatever was closest to hand – preferably clay. In other situations, boxes or gabions were used as the basis for the parapet. In order to achieve this, in 1917, specially constructed, inverted ‘A’ frames were manufactured to support both the sloping walls of the trenches and the duckboard flooring.

Most trenches were ‘floored’ with wooden duckboards, which were built up to allow drainage beneath – in fact, it was common for successive levels of duckboards to be laid one on top of another to combat the difficult conditions encountered. In rare cases, bricks and rubble were used, when trench lines snaked through destroyed villages and houses. Trench sides (known as slopes) were supported or revetted with whatever was available: sometimes wattle, often corrugated sheeting and expanded metal (xpm), sometimes chicken wire. Timber was universally used to hold these materials in place, and layers of bonded sandbags strengthened the whole. Recent archaeology in Flanders has uncovered the remains of these in situ, and has supported the notion of a constant battle between man and nature in keeping the trenches in some kind of order – essential for the maintenance of morale.

The function of trenches varied. In the main there were two consistent types: fire trenches, which formed the front lines, and communication trenches, which joined them. Fire trenches (in other words, fighting trenches) were divided into a regular pattern of fire bays and traverses, which meant that no soldier could walk in a straight line for long, without having to switch back on himself. This was intended to limit the effects of shellfire, or the possibility of rifle and machine gun fire along the length of a trench – with inevitable consequences. British and German fire trenches were alike in this respect; the French version often had a more leisurely, curved zigzag. The spoil removed in digging a trench was used to form a parapet (a mound of earth in front of the trench on the enemy side) and a parados (a slightly higher mound at the rear). In areas where groundwater was close to the surface, ‘borrow pits’ were dug on either side of the trench to supply the extra earth needed to build up a sufficient height to protect the troops. Each fire trench was equipped with a fire step, ideally of the regulation two feet high and eighteen inches wide, which made it high enough to raise an average man’s head above the protection of the parapet, when he was required to do so.

Corrugated sheeting used as a revetment of the slopes (sides) in the reconstructed trenches at Sanctuary Wood, in Belgium. Corrugated sheeting was combined with other materials, such as wattle and expanded metal (xpm) sheets. In reality, duckboards would have formed the original trench flooring, as long planks were favoured by the Germans.

Fire bays in the British front-line trenches excavated in 2005 at Pilkem Ridge. These were intended to limit the effect of exploding shells and grenades, as well as to prevent the possibility of an enemy firing his weapon the length of the trench, known as ‘enfilade fire’.

Fire trenches were usually arranged in successive parallel rows, with the front line, support line and reserve line all connected by the communication trenches, which were the main thoroughfares of trench warfare. In well-established trench systems the front line consisted of a fire trench and ancillary support trench, with deeper dugouts providing accommodation for the troops. Throughout the war, dugouts were to evolve from simple scrapes in the trench slopes, providing little more than limited cover – and often requiring the occupant to stretch his legs out into the main trench line – to deeper affairs, dug or ‘mined’ to provide protection from the attentions of howitzer shells and trench mortars.

Due to the complexities of the growing trench systems, it was possible to get hopelessly lost, and trench signboards had to be fixed up to allow newcomers to a particular stretch to get oriented. Trenches were named or numbered, according to the preference of the commanders in charge, and were often themed. This complex system would grow throughout the war, and would be recorded on equally complex trench maps. The purpose of communication trenches (or ‘CTs’) was to link the forward or fire trenches, and to allow men, munitions and supplies to travel up to the line. They also had to allow wounded soldiers to come out of the line and, for this reason, they were wide enough for stretcher-bearers to carry out their duties. Very often these long trenches bore names such as ‘alley’, ‘lane’ or ‘street’, indicating their intended purpose. Running from the rear areas and connecting all the forward trenches up to the front line, they offered protection for supply and troop movements from the rear. They were usually dug in a zig-zag or wavy pattern and in Flanders, where the geological conditions meant that revetment was essential, they had similar dimensions to a fire trench. In some cases (as at Arras, and Nieuport on the Belgian coast), CTs were replaced by underground subways, which provided much more protection from the searching of enemy artillery.

Contemporary Mackain postcard depicting movement up the line; starting with duckboard tracks in some cases, troops would enter the line through communication trenches, or CTs. This card was sent home from a soldier in France.

The miserable conditions – and inadequate cover – of a typical early British trench dugout, as depicted by cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather. Later on, dugouts would be deeper, to escape the intense artillery fire. Like his contemporary, Fergus Mackain, Bairnsfather had experienced front-line life and was able to comment on its conditions. Both illustrators were admired by the average Tommy.

A roll of German barbed wire found on the Somme. With its robust stands and long barbs, German wire was a formidable obstacle.

Mackain postcard, illustrating sentry duty at night. To look over the parapet by day was suicidal.

Between the front lines of the opposing trenches was ‘no man’s land’, a strip of contested ground that varied in width from a few feet to tens of yards. The forward trenches on both sides were protected by belts of barbed wire, an American invention that had seen some limited use in earlier wars, but which was to reach the apex of its achievement in the Great War. No man’s land was crossed when soldiers went ‘over the top’, climbing out over the parapet to face the enemy. For the most part, no man’s land was observed by day through trench periscopes set up for the purpose; putting his head above the trench was virtually suicidal for a soldier, and head injuries were common in tall soldiers and the curious, especially before the advent of the steel helmet in 1915–16. By night, sentries were expected to look out through no man’s land, and working parties were also to move forward into the contested zone, to repair barbed wire, carry out patrols, and so on. They had to be vigilant – star shells and opportunistic bursts of fixed machine guns were a threat, as were nervous sentries on their own side. Forward extensions of the trench systems were also created, with saps digging out a short way into no man’s land in order to give advance warning of impending attack.

THE ROUTINE OF TRENCH WARFARE

From the advent of trench warfare in late 1914, there emerged a routine that would come to encompass the world of the average soldier. It was a routine that would provide some order to the otherwise bizarre experience of living in a ditch, during which time the normal civilized code of activity during the day and rest during the night would become reversed. Soldiers inhabiting the trenches were expected to wear their equipment at all times, night and day, so it was hardly a comfortable existence.

For both sides, there was a trench routine that usually commenced with ‘stand-to’ (from ‘stand to arms’) at one hour before dawn, when all troops in the front line would stand upon the fire step armed and ready to confront an attacker – the theory being that most attacks would take place at dawn. Stand-to would last at least an hour and a half, and would finish when the enemy parapet could be seen through the periscopes set up along the line of the trenches. Following stand-to, most men were stood down, but sentries were left on duty, one per platoon, to man the fixed box periscopes. With stand-down, a tot of rum would be issued to each man, a welcome respite from the often freezing conditions.

Breakfast would follow, a meal comprising rations that had been brought up at night, which were meant to last a forty-eight-hour period. Tea, bacon and bread were the staples, but often it could be simply bully-beef and biscuits. After breakfast, it was time for platoon commanders to make their inspection of rifles, which the men had cleaned during their meal. Attention was given particularly to the breech and chamber, the parts of the gun that were most liable to fouling from mud and dirt. Such fouling would put paid to the delicate mechanism of the Canadian Ross Rifle, replaced from 1916 by the Lee Enfield. Those men not on ‘sentry-go’ were detailed for fatigues to repair trenches and engage in similar activities that went on throughout the day, breaking for lunch at midday and an evening meal at around 6pm.

Bairnsfather postcard, illustrating the sensation felt by the average sentry in putting his head above the parapet at night – a suicidal action during the day.

The night routine would commence with another ‘stand-to’ before dusk, and another officers’ inspection. The trenches then came alive to a routine of repair, supply and patrol, with men engaged on endless trench improvement. Patrols and wiring parties ventured out into no man’s land, keeping an eye open for star shells that could catch them starkly silhouetted against the sky, targets for watchful sentries and searching machine guns. Night sentries, with a round in the chamber ready for an alert, were detailed to look over the parapet – dangerous when the enemy had his guns trained at head height for the same reason. Sleep on sentry duty was a capital offence; experienced NCOs made it their business to visit their charges every fifteen minutes, and officers would also be vigilant in their duties. Other men would sleep, if they were lucky, or be detailed to go on endless carrying details, bringing up supplies from the rear along communication trenches.

On average, men spent a period of four to eight days in the front-line trenches, but this depended very much on circumstances, with some battalions spending longer in hard-pressed areas. While some were in the front fire trenches, others would occupy the support lines behind, ready to provide reinforcement when hard pressed in an attack or raid. There was to be a rhythm to trench warfare, with, typically, five days in the front line, five in reserve, five at the front again and, finally, five days in reserve. Relief when it came saw the battalion removed from the front-line trenches and taken to the rear areas, where they were billeted in farm buildings. There, they received their pay and were able to buy such comforts as egg and chips, café au lait and beer. During this period, reinforcements and replacements for losses sustained would arrive, and men would be trained in the use of new weapons, gas procedures, and so on.

Going over the top – or ‘over the bags’ – was quite a rare occurrence in the life of an average soldier. Major attacks were relatively scarce; larger artillery-supported trench raids were uncommon and, in most cases, getting to grips with the enemy meant small-scale stealthy raids with pistol, knife and club. These were intended to keep the enemy on his toes, and to provide information on who was occupying the trenches across no man’s land through the capture of prisoners, or the removal of identifying insignia, such as shoulder straps, from enemy dead. The value of these raids still remains a controversial question today.

Sepia Daily Mail war card, depicting a practice attack by British soldiers.

Bullets and Billets, Bruce Bairnsfather’s celebrated war memoirs, published in 1916. It outlines the birth of his war cartoons, the 1914 ‘Christmas Truce’, and his role as an infantry officer in Belgium.