Cath and Mary are enjoying their walk through London’s famous streets – Clerkenwell Road, Gray’s Inn Road, High Holborn and Oxford Street – before they reach Edgware Road, the ancient road to all points north. Partly because it sounds French – a culture they realize they are going to have to come to terms with – but mainly because it looks very tempting, they decide to indulge themselves in Joe Lyons’ Maison Lyonses at Marble Arch. They order sandwiches, tea and cakes and, while they wait for their order to arrive, they gawp at the other customers. When it does, served by the ubiquitous Lyons ‘Gladys’, it is something of a curate’s egg.
‘Lovely cakes, Cath.’
‘Should be, at that price. Tea’s weak, like maiden’s water.’
‘Oh, stop moanin’. Look, they’ve cut crust off t’bread.’
‘Waste o’ a ’alf a good loaf. But they’re reet tasty, I’ll grant thi that.’
Cath becomes less and less critical of the food as she devours more and more of it. ‘ ’Ave yer ever drunk coffee, Mary?’ she asks.
‘Never. I’m told it’s reet bitter.’
‘I’m goin’ to ’ave one. I read thi drink it i’ France; thought we should get used to it.’
‘Well, I’ll ’ave one an’ all.’
When the coffees arrive, both women decide they will have a cognac to go with them. It’s not quite as good as the brandy proffered by Henry Hyndman but enjoyable all the same. By the time the café clock strikes three and the volume of customers begins to decrease, Cath and Mary are content.
‘Grand in’t it, Mary? Shall we go out t’neet? One last fling?’
‘Aye, let’s enjoy it while we can. I think it’ll all be different when us gets to France.’
Wednesday 10 March
The Cabinet Room, 10 Downing Street, London
London is enveloped in a dank morning mist, and the mood in Downing Street’s Cabinet Room is just as gloomy.
The weekly meeting of the British War Council is attended by an unusually large group, including several guests. The Prime Minister is concerned about the progress of the war, both on land and at sea, and has invited his political opponents, the Conservatives Andrew Bonar Law, Arthur Balfour and Lord Henry Lansdowne. They are also there because the Council thinks that the Allied offensive in the Dardanelles will result in the future of Constantinople being thrown into the balance and, with it, much of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The meeting demonstrates power politics at its most stark and conceited.
The consensus among Britain’s war leaders is that, once the Royal Navy and her French allies push through the Dardanelles and appear on the shoreline of the Turkish capital, the country’s leaders will capitulate, or that there will be a coup d’état. This would then persuade Greece, Bulgaria and Romania to join the Allied cause against German and Austria-Hungary. Then, with the Russian, French and British fleets controlling the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, a new front could be opened along the Danube, striking into the heartland of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
But the strategic dominoes are not as easily toppled as the theory suggests. First of all, the price required for the participation in the Dardanelles campaign of an army corps of 50,000 men from Imperial Russia is that it be granted possession of Constantinople, the Dardanelles Straits and the European parts of Turkey. At the same time, it demands that Greek participation and thus any territorial reward be denied. Secondly, and more significantly, the logic of the plan presupposes that 250,000 good-quality Turkish soldiers will melt away when the Allies attack. Never was conceit so blind.
Lord Kitchener begins the meeting with daunting statistics from the Western Front. He reports that the original BEF commitment to France in the autumn of 1914 amounted to 5,800 officers and 157,000 men, and that they suffered 113,000 casualties, killed or wounded.
Asquith fidgets as the numbers are read. He has already, the previous evening, written a long letter to Venetia Stanley and is now planning the next one, in which he intends to pen a long, self-deprecating fictional account of his own tribunal in front of Rhadamanthus, the mythological judge of men from Greek legend. His fidgeting and the peculiar flight of fancy about his own judgement day reflect his sullen mood, a worrying state of affairs for those around the table as they observe the leader of the nation. Ultimately, when Asquith’s fictitious tribunal passes judgement, Rhadamanthus will decide that, because he has not used to their full extent the prodigious intellectual gifts that God granted him, and which allowed his rise from modest beginnings to lead his nation, he will be denied the eternal peace of death when his time comes. Rather, he will be sent back to this earth but denied any gifts of intellect, insight or imagination and condemned to live a life of mundane obscurity: From birth to death you will be surrounded by, imprisoned in, contented with, the Commonplace.
As Asquith ponders his nightmarish daydream, the rest of the War Council shiver at the stark figures. Kitchener then offers more numbers, which are intended to offer reassurance but achieve the opposite effect, as they only too obviously hint at the future level of casualties. He announces that there are now over 15,282 officers and 446,467 men at the Front, supported by 1,105 artillery pieces and 1,011 machine guns. He also says that the army reserve is over 250,000, excluding the huge Volunteer Army he now has in training.
There is a self-satisfied look on his face as he finishes his headcount, a feeling that is not shared by the rest of the gathering, who, like the constituents they represent, are in shock about the sheer scale of the war and its ever-mounting death toll.
Winston gives a brief outline of the latest plan for an imminent naval attack through the Dardanelles, but even as he speaks he can detect doubt among his colleagues and barely disguised cynicism from his Tory opponents.
At noon the Cabinet disperses for a lunch of smoked-salmon terrine with cucumber and quail’s eggs, served with an expensive Puligny Montrachet. It will be followed by crown of lamb stuffed with mushrooms, accompanied by an even more extravagant Gevrey-Chambertin. Pudding will be Eton Mess with clotted Devonshire cream, washed down by a Monbazillac dessert wine. The menu is chosen by Asquith himself and embraces three of his favourite dishes and wines. Unbeknown to the Council enjoying pre-lunch drinks, the first major offensive of 1915 has been raging in France for four hours. Kitchener and his senior staff at the War Office know that the attack is imminent but not the precise timing.
Sir John French, Commander of the BEF, is under considerable pressure from his French counterpart, the redoubtable General Joseph Joffre. Joffre is dismissive of the small scale of the British Army on the ground and its resolve to mount a determined frontal attack, so French has asked General Douglas Haig to plan the offensive. The attack has been carefully planned and designed in the hope of meeting the new demands of trench warfare. Aerial reconnaissance by the Royal Flying Corps has produced several photographs, which for the first time allow the planners to see the precise layout of the German trenches.
Almost four hundred powerful weapons, the greatest assembly of artillery pieces committed to the war to this point, have been carefully positioned under cover of darkness to destroy the barbed wire in no-man’s-land, to neutralize the German machine-gun nests and to pulverize their trenches. Former residents of the locale have been interviewed about the layout of buildings, streets and houses, telephone cables have been dug deep underground and extra ammunition and supplies dumps have been created.
Haig has chosen a 2,000-yard-long section of the Front just beyond the small village of Neuve Chapelle just inside the French border in Nord Pas de Calais. It is eight miles north-east of Béthune and 16 miles south-west of Lille. Neuve Chapelle was captured by the Germans in fighting in October but is now regarded as a weak point in the German defences, which could open the way to the strategically important Aubers Ridge beyond and, ultimately, Lille. Haig believes that the German trenches he plans to attack are manned by only one and a half German battalions, perhaps 1,200 men, against which he will hurl fifteen
battalions, outnumbering them by more than ten to one.
The attack began at seven thirty with a single blast from the only 15-inch Howitzer available, nicknamed ‘Granny’. It was said that ‘Granny’s Boom’ of 10 March was heard in Ypres, almost 20 miles away. Granny is a formidable old girl, capable of launching a 1,500-lb Lyddite shell over six miles. Two and a half miles away, her opening salvo was aimed at the tower of the Église St Vaast in Aubers, which the Germans are using as an observation post. The shell missed by only a few yards but completely devastated the commune’s town hall and immolated several civilians who had gathered there to plan their upcoming spring festival.
For thirty-five minutes the British artillery pounded the German positions. It was a ferocious assault, witnessed by the British infantry lying in wait. They had been told to keep their heads down but most could not resist watching the devastating outcome. Later accounts talked of timber, sandbags and body parts cascading into the air as the wire-cutting, all-but-horizontal shells screeched overhead barely six feet above them. It was said that the upper half of one German officer, complete with his pickelhaube helmet firmly fastened to his anguished face, and with his eyes wide open, landed, bolt upright, in the mud only a few yards in front of a company of 1st Battalion Sherwood Foresters.
On the order of their company serjeant major, the Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire men briefly removed their caps as a sign of respect. The Foresters are men who had been serving in the colonies and, although they have been in France since November, this was their first major battle. The sight of a dismembered enemy officer staring at them at the moment of his death was not an auspicious start.
Haig’s infantry attacked at 8.05. The British Army’s 4th Corps, six brigades of the 7th and 8th divisions, attacked from the north, and six brigades of the Indian Army’s Meerut and Lahore divisions attacked from the west. By 10 a.m. Neuve Chapelle had fallen, but only with significant losses on both sides, after fierce hand-to-hand fighting in desolate open ground and in stifling trenches.
The British battalions pushed on beyond the village, but lines of communication began to break down, and confusion and misunderstandings hampered progress. The 5th Cavalry Brigade was committed to the attack to strike home the advantage, but General Henry Rawlinson hesitated. Several companies and platoons with open ground in front of them, and with no German defenders to be seen, are ready to push on, but no orders to advance arrive as communications between officers at the sharp end of the battle and their superiors at battalion, brigade, corps and BEF HQ break down. Chaos ensues; with telephone lines destroyed, messengers run or cycle with orders. Often they are killed in transit or their messages are rendered useless by new developments.
By one thirty German reinforcements have started to arrive and new defensive positions are being prepared. The artillery brigades are beginning to run out of shells and their use has to be rationed, meaning that infantry assaults have to be undertaken without the protection of adequate covering fire. The battle will continue into the afternoon, until the momentum subsides with dusk, leading Haig to halt the assault.
Just over a mile of ground has been gained and the deserted village of Neuve Chapelle ‘liberated’. But casualties on this day and over the coming three days of attack and counter-attacks will total 11,200 men, at which point the two sides will have fought to the point of exhaustion. Afterwards, General Joffre declared himself satisfied that the British could, after all, mount an attack from a defensive position, but said disdainfully, ‘Mais ce fut un succès sans lendemain’ (‘But it was a success which led to nothing.’).
The Battle of Neuve Chapelle brought back to all combatants and those observing from a distance the mass carnage of 1914. As then, there were many moments of sadness and madness. One of the saddest was the desertion of Private Isaac Reid, 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, on 11 March, the second day of the battle. He was found hiding in the rear area a few hours later. He was court-martialled and shot by firing squad a few weeks later.
Two of many moments of madness are worth recording. The first was the attack on the northern edge of the assault, close to what the planners called the ‘Sunken Road’. The defenders were two companies of crack German VII Corps troops, men of 11th Jaeger Battalion. They were unharmed by the early-morning British artillery barrage and were well protected in trenches bristling with machine-gun nests. The British attackers were men of 2nd Battalion Northants and 2nd Battalion Middlesex. Almost a thousand men left their trenches in the first moments of the battle; none was ever seen again.
The second, equally mad but less horrific moment was the story of Padre Wilfred Abbott. He appeared in the middle of a heavy German artillery barrage, cycling behind a line of trenches through a hail of machine-gun bullets, as if without a care in the world. When seen by an officer, who asked him what the hell he was up to, he apologized about the rickety state of his bicycle, saying that he used to own a much better one but that it had been stolen by a fleeing French refugee, for whom he now prayed every day. Moments later, a shell landed close by, obscuring the pastor in a cloud of dirt and debris. Certain that he was dead, several men rushed forward to retrieve what was left of him, only to see him emerge, still pedalling and whistling the hymn, ‘Nearer, My God, to Thee’.
The Reverend Wilfred Abbott, Army Chaplains Department, continued to live a charmed life. He cycled to and fro along the Western Front for the next three and a half years and survived the war.
Friday 19 March
HMS Flexible, off Cape Helles, Dardanelles
The prospects for success in forcing a naval breakthrough in the Dardanelles have not improved. Damage caused to Turkish forts by day is being repaired by night. Mobile howitzers are still being moved around with skill and guile by the Turks, and their minefields have not yet been cleared. Mine-sweeping actions by British and French trawlers manned by sturdy volunteers have come to nothing because of the intensity and accuracy of artillery fire from shore batteries.
In a sortie over the night of 13/14 March four of seven trawlers pulling explosive charges on mine-sweeping cables were put out of action without causing any damage to the mines. Admiral Carden had run out of ideas. Pressure from the Admiralty was mounting and Winston’s telegrams were growing blunter. Carden’s stomach ulcers were becoming unbearable and his doctors declared that he was on the point of a nervous breakdown. He telegrammed his decision to step down on the morning of 16 March. Relieved, Winston immediately appointed Rear-Admiral John de Robeck as Carden’s successor, a man who inspired much more confidence at the Admiralty and in those under his command.
De Robeck’s promotion coincided with the arrival on his flagship, the Queen Elizabeth, of Army General Sir Ian Hamilton, the newly appointed commander of military forces in the area. A good friend of Winston’s since the Boer War, Hamilton was on the horns of a dilemma. Winston wants him to commit the army to a landing as quickly as possible to neutralize the threat from the Turkish forts. His superior, Lord Kitchener, wants him to wait until the 29th Division is ready.
In the wardroom of the Queen Elizabeth on the night of 17 March de Robeck and Hamilton, supported by their senior British and French commanders, decided to press ahead with the full-scale attack that Admiral Carden had planned for the following day.
It is 10.45 a.m. on the morning of 18 March. Tom Crisp and Billy Cawson are on deck on HMS Inflexible trying to lash together some boxes of rifle ammunition that have come loose behind one of the rear gun turrets. There is a sudden lurch as all eight of the ship’s 12-inch guns fire in quick succession. Tom and Billy are deafened and knocked off their feet in the confined space between the turret and the superstructure.
‘Bloody hell! They could’ve warned us!’
Billy is furious that, as a senior petty-officer, he has had to suffer the indignity of landing on the deck on his backside. Tom rushes to help him up.
‘Here we go again, Mr Cawson.’
‘Aye, Tom, this time we’ll ’ave those Turks, mark my words.�
��
With the ammunition now secure, Tom and Billy gather their tools, ready to undertake any emergency repairs. It is a very warm day, with clear skies and little wind. Inflexible is line abreast with Prince George, Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon and Lord Nelson to her port side and Triumph to her starboard. To their rear, a second wave of six battleships, four French and two British, is followed by a third wave of four more British warships. All sixteen vessels are pouring merciless fire on to the Turkish positions. Tom looks on in wonder.
‘I wouldn’t want to be under that lot, Mr Cawson.’
‘Neither would I, lad. But it’s what’s underneath us that we should be afeared of. The word below decks is that all the Turks’ minefields are undamaged.’
‘How dangerous are mines?’
‘Much worse than a shell. Shells almost always hit above the water line and, unless they hit the weapons magazine, they won’t sink you. But mines hole you below the water, and can sink you in minutes.’
The clear skies of only minutes earlier are now clouded by pungent smoke from mammoth ships’ funnels and heavy guns. Once-placid waters become a maelstrom whipped up by giant propellers. Barren shores, moments before peaceful, full of birdsong and the hum of insect life in the hot sun, are now dotted by flaming buildings, the ground beneath them quivering from the onslaught.
The three waves of the Allied fleet sweep through the Straits all the way to the Narrows, inflicting significant damage on all the Turkish forts along the way. Sedd-el-Bahr and Kum Kale at the mouth of the Straits are in ruins. Kilid Bahr and Chanak, which guard the Narrows, are heavily damaged. By 2 p.m. almost all fire from Turkish positions has ceased. It appears that the day has been won. But there is a nasty sting in the tail of the Turkish defenders.
Ten days before the attack, under cover of darkness and in total silence, the Nusret, a Turkish mine warfare ship under the command of Lieutenant Commander Tophaneli Hakki, laid a line of twenty mines parallel to the Asiatic shore under the guidance of German mine specialist Lieutenant Colonal Geehl. They were placed 100 yards apart and submerged 15 yards below the surface. The defenders had noticed in previous attacks that the Allied battleships turned to starboard when disengaging, so knew exactly where to lay them.
The Darkness and the Thunder Page 17
