Letters from the Front ..... my family in the Great War

We have little in the way of documents from the men of my family who fought in the Great War.  Now given the class they came from and the distance of time that is not surprising.

And so we have just a few photographs, a handful of letters home and some military records which is not much to sum up the contribution of my immediate family.

We sent six off to fight for King and Country.  Along with two uncles, two great uncles, and my grandfather there was also my great grandfather.  http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/stories-of-great-war.html

Now I have written about the experiences of my great uncle Roger before who ran off and joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the August of 1915 and even quoted from his letters and these I have brought out again.

The letters reflected the routines of army life.
“I was shooting on the ranges a day ago. We are in huts and it is fearful muddy all around, we have bayonet fighting, physical drill etc.”

There was the usual preoccupation of waiting for pay day followed by the comment that “the Canadian Government put half our pay in the bank so that of our $33 a month $16 go in the bank”

In some ways army life was suiting him, “I have” he wrote “put a bit of flesh on since you saw me last.”  But his inability to get on with authority led him to the first of his court-martials for refusing to follow orders. And in all of this there was that ever present knowledge that at some point soon he would be shipped to France.

There are no letters from his time on active service but there are his military records which track him across the three years he served and the regimental war diaries. Both are an invaluable insight into the life of a young soldier. His records cover everything from his state of health, further infringements of army discipline and his eventual discharge and journey from France to Britain and back to Canada.

But it is the war diary which best I think opens up the life of my great uncle. Now these regimental diaries had been introduced after the South African war and were meant to help assess how successful army units were under fire and so draw valuable lessons about how to improve performance. They do not record individual soldiers but describe the daily routines, including the periods of rest and recuperation, time in the front line, unit strength and even the weather. Here in great detail are descriptions of attacks and the losses incurred. So armed with these it is possible to know something of his life during those years.

So on October 15th 1917, “weather fine. Battalion carried on with musketry and squad drill during the morning. Afternoon Recreation. Attack in the north continued, all objectives gained”

So here is the usual mundane and routine of army life, but mixed in are the reports of planned actions, real fighting and the casualties. On the morning of October 30th 1917 the diary recorded that
“Barrage opened at 5.50 am sharp. Enemy artillery opened up immediately. Our troops left trench at 5.54 am. At 6.00 am covering fire became intense. At 6.20 am supporting platoons of “A” and “C” Coys left the trench. On account of smoke it is very difficult to see any movement beyond Woodland Copse. At 6.25 am, “B” Coy, went over the top. A considerable amount of our shrapnel in bursting short at this time, some bursts occurring right over our trench.”

These were made in the heat of battle and only later typed up. This particular entry was timed at 6.30 and signed by Captain W.J. Atherton. Shortly after wards the diary continued with
“one of the runners bringing the report was wounded enroute and the other runner Pte, LeMarquand, stopped and bandaged his comrade’s wounds before delivering the report."
A little over an hour later “C” Coy had reached its objective and the men were “digging in”

Later after the fighting was over the diary attempted an assessment of the attack which reported that the artillery barrage was “generally faulty and unsatisfactory. Many causalities being inflicted by our own artillery barrage on our men before they left their trenches for attack”
“The going was extremely heavy on account of the marshy nature of the ground over which the attacking troops had to pass. In many cases men could only advance by helping one and another long.” **
And concluded with the list of causalities which amounted to 400 men killed, missing or wounded out of a total of 590.

I guess this pretty much sums up what the rest of my family went through somewhere on the Western Front.  But nothing much else has survived.  Although we do have a short letter from my uncle to my dad in the December of 1918 and it came with a Christmas postcard which well reflects the prevailing propaganda.

The Great War had ended just a month before and uncle Fergus and his battalion of the Black Watch were in Cologne.  He wrote that “Cologne was a lovelly city with some fine cinemas” but they were prohibited from fraternizing with the civilians which for a young man of 21 was a bit of a bore given the attractive young women he came across.

But duty was never far away and preparations were being made because “we are crossing the Rhine tomorrow” and there was a determination “to show the rest of the division the way as we proved to be the finest marchers during the trek to Germany.”  In its way it is as telling as that written my my great uncle in the midst of the war. There is no sense if triumphalism just pride at the job done and the one yet to do and a respect for the German city they were occupying.

So there you have it letters home from two young men , one just eighteen and the other twenty-one.

Pictures; letter from James Rogers[Roger James Hall] February 1916, and With Best Wishes for a Happy Christmas and Victorious New Year, December 1918 from the collection of Andrew Simpson