Letters from the Trenches: The First World War by Those Who Were There

Introduction

What’s the use of worrying?

It never was worthwhile, so

Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,

And smile, smile, smile

(First World War marching song)

On the rare occasions when my grandfather, Edwin Wood, spoke about his time in the trenches, he told this story. Every morning he and his friends would pass a dead man’s arm sticking out through the trench wall, and each morning they would shake its hand: ‘Alright mate?’ One hundred years later this may sound rather disrespectful, but for the men who lived through those grim times, what better way of coping than by allowing themselves an ironic smile?

This down-to-earth stoicism made a big impression on me as I carried out my research for this book. While we bow our heads in sorrow when we contemplate the awfulness of the war, there was no place for such indulgence then. Soldiers may have hated being forced to march miles in the sleet and rain to flooded and stinking trenches, only to see their comrades being blown up by shells. But that was life – it was their ‘normality’ – and they just had to get on with it. The same was true for women back in Blighty, who had to look after their homes and families whether their men were alive or dead.

Most of the material in this book was contributed by people who contacted me after I appealed for First World War letters through newspapers, magazines and family history groups. Initially I had assumed that correspondence would come mainly from museums and archives (and they have certainly played their part). But the response to my request from individual families was overwhelming – people got in touch from all over Britain and as far away as Australia, South Africa and the United States. My own uncle produced photographs and letters that I had no idea existed! Everyone was keen to share not only letters, diaries, notebooks and photographs, but personal stories and memories too. Therefore, this book is as much about those who wrote the letters and kept the diaries as the documents themselves.

By far the most ‘popular’ theatre of war was the Western Front, however I made sure that correspondence from Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, Italy and northern Russia was included too. Similarly, most of the letters were written by soldiers, but I have not forgotten seamen and aviators, nor women who are featured in several chapters to illustrate the vital role they played in factories, hospitals and in keeping the home fires burning.

I have made no mention of military decorations, although some men in the book did receive them. My view is that there must have been an enormous number who deserved recognition but went unnoticed, and I thought it fairest to present everyone as equals.

The book opens in Bristol – a typical provincial city where the early excitement whipped up by war reflected what was going on all over the country. I chose Bristol for two reasons. Not only was it where my grandfather and his brother, Edwin and Fred Wood, grew up and enlisted (their story is included), but I also live on the outskirts of the city, so the reference library and record office were near at hand. Observant readers will spot clusters of letters and newspaper reports from these marvellous archives dotted through the book.

Letters from the Trenches has been the result of team-work. Although those who have contributed letters and diaries may not know it, their help and interest provided me with a great deal of support as I sat in my small study ‘bashing out’ the chapters. They shared their own First World War research, sent me photographs, checked text relating to their relatives, and were always encouraging. On more than one occasion my spirits were lifted by a bright and breezy email asking ‘How’s it going?’

So in return, in a special section called ‘Lest We Forget’, I have listed every man, woman and child whose letters and diaries appear in this book – a small tribute to our forebears who lived through and died in the war that should have ended all wars.

Jacqueline Wadsworth, 2014

Chapter 1

War is Declared

The Home Front Prepares for Conflict

‘None of us imagined what this little war was going to lead to’

Maude Boucher on hearing Austria and Serbia were at war, July 1914

‘Bristolians are on the tip-toe of excitement’

The Bristol Evening News when war was declared, August 1914

‘He could only be called fat, and I must confess he looked a brute’

Second Lieutenant Stanley Booker’s impression of Lord Kitchener

On the eve of the Great War, under the warm summer sunshine of 1914, Edwardian Britain was going about its daily business. Elegant women strolled beneath their parasols in well-kept city parks; miners sweated underground in hot, airless tunnels; noisy children played tag in the streets outside their homes; farmers harnessed up their horses for the fields; hungry dockers queued for work at dawn; weary mothers hung out the family washing to dry; and journalists monitored the newswires for the latest reports concerning Europe.

Tension had been rising on the Continent since the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo on 28 June. Austria-Hungary had declared war on Serbia, which in turn triggered alliances between other European countries: Germany sided with Austria-Hungary, while Britain and France supported Serbia’s ally, Russia. Armies were mobilised, war plans activated, and the effect was like a falling pack of cards. Events moved so quickly that they were beyond the control of any single government and the crunch came in early August, when Germany declared war on France and Belgium. Britain warned Germany to stay out of neutral Belgium. Now the world waited to see what would happen.

The crisis took the British public by surprise. They didn’t know what to make of it and certainly could not have predicted the terrible events that would follow. People took each day as it came and at first they enjoyed the novelty of it all – it added interest to their routine lives. The following scenes from south-west England reflect what was going on all over the country on the eve of the conflict and when war broke out …

On St Stephen’s Street in Bristol city centre the windows at the Times and Mirror office were open wide to let in the evening breeze. Staff perched on the corners of their wooden desks, sleeves rolled up, chatting with anticipation as they waited for the news that was expected at any time. And then it came: on 4 August at 11pm, Great Britain declared war on Germany.

Next morning the Times and Mirror flew out of the street vendors’ hands – but there was no mention of war on the front pages. Edwardian newspapers were organs of record, in which everything had its order, so the first pages as usual were taken up with small advertisements and local news: ‘Alarming Prevalence of Indigestion and Dyspepsia’, followed by a small item that would have amused readers with a dry sense of humour, ‘Funeral of Mr A.W. Stiff’. The sports pages were next, and cricket fans had reason to celebrate with ‘After many days! Gloucestershire win a match at last’. Then, on page eight, came the momentous headline: ‘England declares War on Germany’.

The effect upon the city was immediate and was described later that day in the Bristol Evening News:

5 August 1914

‘Bristolians are on the tip-toe of excitement. And no wonder, for in every direction khaki-clad men are to be seen hurrying hither and thither, and the word WAR is on everybody’s lips. All the Territorials are mobilising, and are practically ready to answer the call of duty. Crowds of people assembled early this morning outside the various HQs to watch the arrival of the men, and during the day the numbers grow considerably. The sight of soldiers, with fixed bayonets, marching up and down outside the HQs seems to imbue everyone with a patriotic, if not martial, feeling.’

Similar scenes were being observed by Bristol housewife Maude Boucher, who recorded in her diary:

‘The excitement was tremendous! … Mobilisation all over the country was taking place, and suddenly there seemed to be hundreds of soldiers everywhere, motor lorries of all descriptions in strings of nearly 50 or more one after the other, either filled with soldiers and baggage, or else quite empty, went racing up Whiteladies Road by night and day on their way to Avonmouth and Bristol was quite a transformed city. On the walls of the Artillery Grounds in Whiteladies Road were soldiers sitting day after day ready with their kit to go to the front or to different parts of England to guard the coast and to do extra drilling and training when their orders came.’

Maude Boucher was a 43-year-old mother, who lived with her family in the well-heeled area of Clifton. She was married to Charles, a pharmaceutical chemist who ran a business called Ferris and Co. in the centre of Bristol, and the couple had four children: Joyce, 16; Audrey, 11; John, 8; and Anthony, 5. Although comfortably off, Maude still led a busy life and took a keen interest in what went on in the world around her. She documented the entire war in a scrapbook-journal, carefully cutting out and glueing in newspaper cuttings, then adding her own commentary in a flowing hand.

By 1919 she had compiled 21 volumes and they give a fascinating insight into how war affected the domestic life of her family. In the first volume she describes the tension in the days leading up to the conflict:

28 July 1914

‘The summer term was just completed and the holidays commencing, when on Tuesday, July 28th 1914, the evening newspaper boys were shouting in the streets War declared. We had all been wondering and speculating as to whether there would be war in Ireland or not, as there has been much quarrelling and many disturbances there in connection with the Home Rule Question, so naturally one jumped to the conclusion that it had been decided at last to have war, but much to our surprise, we found that it was not in connection with Ireland at all, but it was a little war between Austria and Servia [the pre-war spelling of Serbia] which seemed, at the time, as though it would not affect us in any way. Mabel called to see us and told us what a shock it had given her when she heard the newsboys calling out War Declared … She said I was so relieved to find that it was only a little war between Austria and Servia. We none of us then knew or imagined what this little war was going to lead to.’

Maude’s friend Mabel was not the only one who thought the news wasn’t worth worrying about, her father too thought the whole thing was simply an invention of the press:

31 July 1914

‘Charlie came home to lunch, and he told us that the whole of Europe seemed to be one big blaze. I went round to see my father later in the day and when I told him what Charlie had said, he was very indignant and said These newspaper fellows! What do they know? They just make up something to write about. I also told him that I had just met a man who told me that the cable wires at Weston were being guarded, some of the telegraph wire had been cut there and also at Cardiff. Father would not listen to anything of the kind, however.’

The Bouchers continued their lives as usual but when they drove to pick up their son from boarding school on August bank holiday Monday, war was the topic on everyone’s lips:

3 August 1914

‘There was a great talk and feeling on that day that we might go to war ourselves … and one kept hearing people say If we have war etc. I said to Stella You don’t really think we shall have war do you? and she said From what the papers say this morning it looks as if there was every likelihood of doing so.’

Uncertainty about the future made people nervous. Many cancelled their summer holidays and those who were overseas rushed to get home, although not everyone was successful. ‘Some who could not leave in time were stranded abroad for many weeks and months, and some were made prisoners of war,’ wrote Maude. ‘Many had long and adventurous journeys home and some were treated in the most barbarous manner.’

Families began laying in emergency stores, just in case, which soon led to shortages in the shops. The Deputy Lord Mayor of Bristol, Mr C.J. Lowe, was forced to issue stern instructions through the local newspapers: ‘As scarcity can be caused by excessive buying, the Public are strongly urged to buy, and the Retailers to sell, USUAL QUANTITIES ONLY. If this is done, there is plenty of food for all.’

Maude followed the news intently, desperately hoping that Europe could resolve its differences without resorting to war. But eventually she had to bow to the inevitable: ‘When we found that Naval Reserves had been called up, we all felt that things were looking very serious indeed,’ she wrote. Not long afterwards, war was declared.

Britain was ill-prepared for conflict with her neighbours. For the last 100 years she had maintained generally peaceful, though sometimes awkward, relations with Europe, while concentrating efforts and resources on the Empire. Troops were deployed around the world to police her territories, and the Royal Navy patrolled the oceans to protect British interests. This left a small army of around 120,000 men on home shores in case of emergency and it was these men who would form the initial British Expeditionary Force (BEF) despatched to France when war was declared. The numbers were tiny compared to Germany where almost 4 million men, raised largely by conscription, were ready to fight in the summer of 1914. The Kaiser saw Britain’s army as no threat to his own and sneeringly referred to it as a ‘contemptible little army’, prompting the BEF’s proudly-held nickname ‘the old contemptibles’.

The BEF would soon be joined by more battalions brought home from India and other parts of the Empire, but still there would be nowhere near enough men to fight in the looming conflict. As a result, two big changes were made to Britain’s armed forces. First, members of the part-time Territorial Force, whose pre-war role had been limited to home defence, were asked whether they would be willing to serve overseas; nearly all of them said ‘yes’.

The second change became apparent when big bold advertisements began appearing everywhere, with the urgent message: ‘Your Country Needs You’. These were the work of Lord Kitchener, the newly-appointed Secretary of State for War, who believed that the conflict would last for at least three years, and that huge numbers of troops would be required. Many in government thought the fighting would be over by Christmas, but despite opposition Kitchener won approval from Parliament to raise a New Army of 500,000 volunteers to supplement the Regulars and Territorials.

The call for recruits began immediately and met with great success. In the first week of September alone 175,000 British men volunteered – many in response to the moustachioed face of Kitchener staring out at them from the posters.

Like many of the military top brass who made names for themselves during the war, Kitchener cut an impressive figure and knew how to make an entrance. One young officer from Bristol, Second Lieutenant Stanley Booker, stood in awe as the great man reviewed troops of the 61st Division at Chelmsford, Essex, in 1915. However, in a letter to his mother, Booker hinted at a less appealing side of the great man too:

8 August 1915

‘Lord Kitchener had a large staff with him, between 20 or 30 altogether I should think … He was riding a splendid horse, pure white: he was in khaki with heaps of gold lace on his cap and collar and of course he had the red band of the Staff: he wore a triple row of ribbons among which I especially noticed the Egyptian medals. He was much stouter than when I saw him five years ago. In fact he could only be called fat, and I must confess he looked a brute. He looked as if he had a very bad temper: his face was red like all these high officers and puffy and he had a large double chin. But he looked very determined and masterful and he was evidently a man who had his own way in his own affairs and he seemed as if he would look after everybody else too. He was a fine looking man but spoilt by looking bad-tempered.’

Less than one year later Kitchener was dead. He drowned en route to a conference in Russia when his ship was sunk by a German mine. Stanley Booker, who served with the 7th Battalion, the Worcestershire Regiment, was killed in action in October 1916 as he rescued an injured comrade from no-man’s-land.

Many of the young men who responded to Kitchener’s call would not normally have considered a life in the army, but in 1914 they did so for a variety of reasons. Some believed it was their patriotic duty to serve; others saw it as an opportunity for adventure; for those who lived in poverty it was an escape from circumstances that were barely tolerable; and some simply joined up to be with their friends.

Edwin Wood, a 20-year-old clerk from the Easton district of Bristol, waited two months before enlisting in November 1914. He lived with his parents, his teenage brother and two younger sisters in a Victorian terrace and worked for a firm of scale-makers. At school he had been a prize-winning scholar, and in different circumstances he would no doubt have set his sights on university. But, as in so many working class homes, his family needed a second wage, and Edwin’s father would have been grateful for his son’s earnings to supplement his own as a shoemaker.

Edwin enjoyed the company of his friends, especially playing football for the local side at weekends, but life would change as they began leaving for the Front and perhaps it was this that prompted him to volunteer. He was posted to the 4th Battalion, the Gloucestershire Regiment and served as a signaller for the entire war. Many of his friends served in the trenches alongside him (see plate 8), and it was to them he would turn when tragedy struck in 1916.

The decision to enlist seems to have been much easier for Wood’s teenage brother, Fred, who had just turned 17 when war broke out. Sociable like his brother but not weighed down by the responsibilities of an eldest son, he was eager to sign up as soon as he could, even though he was under-age. Volunteers had to be 18 to enlist, and 19 to serve abroad, but many recruiting officers turned a blind eye to this requirement and Fred was duly