The Darkness and the Thunder

by Stewart Binns

  Major Vernon Hesketh-Pritchard, 38, from Hertfordshire: explorer, adventurer, big-game hunter and marksman who made a significant contribution to sniping practice within the British Army during the Great War. He was concerned not only with improving the quality of marksmanship; the measures he introduced to counter the threat of German snipers were credited by a contemporary with saving the lives of over 3,500 Allied soldiers.

  William Arthur Cawson, 45, from Stratton, Cornwall: Chief Ship’s Carpenter, HMS Inflexible.

  Richard Fortescue Phillimore, 51, from Shedfield, Hampshire: Royal Navy officer who went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, promoted to Admiral and knighted. He took part in the response to the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. He was given command of HMS Mohawk in 1903 and then led the Naval Brigade Machine Guns in Somaliland the next year. He was then given command of HMS Juno in 1907 and the battlecruiser HMS Inflexible in 1911.

  General Sir Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton, 63: senior officer in the British Army, most notable for commanding the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force during the Gallipoli campaign. Politically a Liberal, he spoke English, German, French and Hindi, and was considered charming and thoughtful. He appeared frail, yet was full of energy. He was twice recommended for the Victoria Cross. On the first occasion he was considered too young, and on the second too senior.

  He was wounded in the wrist in the First Boer War at the Battle of Majuba, leaving his left hand almost useless. His left leg was shorter than his right, as a result of a serious injury caused by falling from a horse. People came to hold differing opinions of him. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith remarked that he had ‘too much feather in his brain’, whereas Charles Bean, war correspondent covering the Gallipoli campaign, considered he had ‘a breadth of mind which the army in general does not possess’. He opposed conscription and was considered less ruthless than other successful generals.

  Rupert Chawner Brooke, 28: English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the Great War, especially ‘The Soldier’. He was also known for his boyish good looks, which were said to have prompted the Irish poet W. B. Yeats to describe him as ‘the handsomest young man in England’, and for his infectious charm and warmth.

  Richard Raymond Willis, 39: English recipient of the Victoria Cross and a captain in the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, when the following deed took place:

  On 25 April 1915 west of Cape Helles, Gallipoli, Turkey, three companies and the Headquarters of the 1st Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, when landing on W Beach, were met by a very deadly fire from hidden machine guns which caused a large number of casualties. The survivors, however, rushed up and cut the wire entanglements, notwithstanding the terrific fire from the enemy, and after overcoming supreme difficulties the cliffs were gained and the position maintained.

  Captain Willis was one of the six members of the regiment elected for the award (immortalized as the ‘Six VCs before Breakfast’), the others being Cuthbert Bromley, John Elisha Grimshaw, William Keneally, Alfred Joseph Richards and Frank Edward Stubbs. Willis later achieved the rank of Major. He died in Cheltenham on 9 February 1966 at the age of ninety.

  Kemal Mustafa, 35: Turkish army officer, reformist statesman and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey. His additional surname, Atatürk (meaning ‘Father of the Turks’), was granted to him in 1934 and forbidden to any other person by the Turkish parliament. Atatürk was a military officer during the Great War, during which he distinguished himself on several occasions, showing great resolve and leadership. Following the defeat of the Ottoman empire in the war, he led the Turkish National Movement in the Turkish War of Independence. Having established a provisional government in Ankara, he defeated the forces sent by the Allies. His military campaigns led to victory in the Turkish War of Independence. Atatürk then embarked upon a programme of political, economic and cultural reforms, seeking to transform the former Ottoman empire into a modern and secular nation-state. Under his leadership, thousands of new schools were built, primary education was made free and compulsory, and women were given equal civil and political rights, while the burden of taxation on peasants was reduced. His government also carried out an extensive policy of Turkification. The principles of Atatürk’s reforms, upon which modern Turkey was established, are referred to as Kemalism.

  Edward Unwin, 52: in 1915, when planning began for the amphibious landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula, Unwin proposed beaching the 4,000-ton collier SS River Clyde on the narrow beach beneath Sedd-el-Bahr at Cape Helles, V Beach, thereby allowing 2,000 troops to be landed together. Unwin was promoted to acting Captain and given command of the River Clyde for the operation. The plan called for a steam hopper to form a bridge from the ship to the shore. However, the Dardanelles current swept the hopper away, so Unwin, accompanied by Able Seaman William Charles Williams, who had been ordered to stay by his side, dived overboard and manhandled two lighters into position, lashing them together to form the bridge. All the while, Unwin was under fire from the Turkish defenders. When Williams was mortally wounded, Unwin went to his aid, and the lighter he was holding was swept away. Unwin collapsed from cold and exhaustion, his place being taken by other men. After an hour of rest, he returned to the lighters, until he was wounded and collapsed again. Once the attempts to land had ceased, Unwin went out a third time to attempt to recover wounded from the beach; according to one account, he retrieved seven men. For his actions, he was awarded the Victoria Cross. When British forces evacuated the peninsula in December, Unwin was aboard the last boat to leave the beach. When a soldier fell overboard, Unwin dived in to rescue him. Observing this act, General Julian Byng, the new IX Corps commander, remarked to Commodore Roger Keyes, ‘You really must do something about Unwin. You should send him home; we want several more little Unwins.’

  Lieutenant General Sir Aylmer Gould Hunter-Weston, 51: British Army general who served in the Great War at Gallipoli and in the very early stages of the Somme offensive. He was also a Member of Parliament. Nicknamed ‘Hunter-Bunter’, Hunter-Weston has been seen as a classic example of an incompetent Great War general. He was described by his superior Sir Douglas Haig as a ‘rank amateur’ and has been referred to as ‘one of the Great War’s spectacular incompetents’.

  Lieutenant Colonel Godfrey Estcourt Matthews, 50: his pre-Great War career was dominated by service as a marine with the Egyptian Army, to which he was seconded in January 1897. With the exception of a few months, he served in Egypt for sixteen years. When the European War broke out he was commanding the Royal Marine Depot at Deal. He commanded the Plymouth Battalion, Royal Naval Division, in the Gallipoli campaign. He was wounded in December 1915 and made CMG. Matthews was promoted to brigade command in June 1916 as GOC, 198th Brigade, 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division TF. 198th Brigade did not go abroad until February 1917. Brigadier General Matthews was wounded by a shell explosion at Cambrin on 12 April and died the following day. He was the thirty-second British general to be killed in action or to die of wounds on the Western Front.

  Mary Fitzgibbon, 36, from Cork, Ireland: nursing sister, QAIMNS.

  General Sir Frederick Stopford, 62: British Army officer commanding the Suvla Bay Landing in August 1915 during the Battle of Gallipoli. The younger son of James Stopford, 4th Earl of Courtown, and his second wife, Dora Pennefather, Stopford was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards in 1871. He was blamed for the failure to attack following the Suvla Bay landing. However, responsibility ultimately lay with Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, who had appointed the elderly and inexperienced general to an active corps command, and with Sir Ian Hamilton, who had accepted Stopford’s appointment. Stopford had chosen to command the landing from the sloop HMS Jonquil, which was anchored offshore, but slept as the landing was in progress. He was quickly replaced by General Byng. He retired in 1920.

  The Regiment: Royal Fusiliers

  Maurice Tait, 35, from Leyton, London: career soldier, Serjeant, C Company, 4
th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (designated ‘Z’ Company during the Great War).

  Harry Woodruff, 35, from Leyton, London: career soldier, Serjeant, C Company, 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers.

  Billy Carstairs, 43, from Plaistow, London: career soldier, Company Serjeant Major, C Company, 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers.

  George O’Donel, 31, from County Mayo, Ireland: Captain and Adjutant, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. He died on 16 June 1915 at Bellewarde Ridge. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Menin Gate at Ypres.

  The Politician: Winston Churchill

  Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, 40: son of Lord Randolph Churchill (Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1890s under Lord Salisbury) and Lady Randolph Churchill, the American heiress Jennie Jerome. Veteran of several conflicts around the world, including the Boer War and the Battle of Omdurman. He was Liberal MP for Dundee and First Lord of the Admiralty. He is known as Pig, Pug and Amber Dog to his wife, Clementine.

  Clementine (Clemmie) Churchill, née Hozier, 29: wife of Winston Churchill and daughter of Sir Henry Hozier and his wife, Lady Blanche. Known to Winston as Cat, Kat and Puss.

  F. E. (Frederick Edwin) Smith, 33: lawyer, Conservative MP for Walton, life-long friend of Winston.

  Diana Spencer-Churchill, 6: Winston’s first-born child, known to the family as Puppy.

  Randolph Spencer-Churchill, 4: Winston’s second born, and eldest son, known to the family as Chumbolly.

  Sarah Spencer-Churchill, born 7 October 1914: the third of Winston’s children (who were often referred to by their father as ‘kittens’).

  John Strange (‘Jack’) Spencer-Churchill, 35: younger brother of Winston. Veteran of the Boer War, in which he was badly wounded, he was very close to his brother.

  Lady Gwendoline (‘Goonie’) Theresa Mary Churchill (née Bertie), 29: Jack Churchill’s wife.

  John George Spencer-Churchill, 6: Jack Churchill’s first-born child.

  Peregrine Spencer-Churchill, 2: Jack Churchill’s infant son, known to the family as Pebbin. (Winston nicknamed Jack’s family the ‘Jagoons’.)

  William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, 43: Liberal politician and Governor of New South Wales between 1899 and 1901. He was a member of the Liberal administrations of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and H. H. Asquith between 1905 and 1915 and leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords between 1924 and 1931.

  Harold Herbert Asquith, 62: British Liberal Prime Minister. Nicknamed ‘Old Block’ or ‘OB’ by Winston.

  Margot Asquith (née Emma Alice Margaret Tennant), Countess of Oxford and Asquith, 54: married Herbert Asquith, Prime Minister from 1894 until his death in 1928. She was Asquith’s second wife. (He had five children with his first wife, Helen, who died in 1891, and five with Margot, but only two of them survived infancy.)

  Anthony Asquith, 13: son of H. H. Asquith, Prime Minister, and Margot Asquith.

  Beatrice Venetia Stanley, 28: British aristocrat and socialite. The youngest daughter of Edward Lyulph Stanley, 4th Baron Sheffield. Venetia met Asquith through her close friendship with his daughter, Violet. Asquith, who was an avid letter writer, especially to attractive society women, began his correspondence with Venetia in 1910. During the next three years, Asquith wrote voluminously to her, even during Cabinet meetings, while Venetia responded almost as often. However, Asquith destroyed Venetia’s letters on a regular basis to maintain confidentiality. The letters Asquith wrote during Cabinet meetings are often the only record of those meetings and a crucial source of historical information on British strategy during the war.

  Sir Edward (‘Eddie’) Grey, 53: British Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916. It was Grey who remarked on 3 August 1914 as he stood at his window in the Foreign Office watching the gas lamps being lit: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.’

  Admiral Sir Herbert William Richmond, 45: officer of the Royal Navy during the Great War. Having specialized as a torpedo officer, he was employed intermittently at the Admiralty between periods of sea-duty.

  Admiral Sir Sackville Hamilton Carden, 58: British admiral who, in cooperation with the French Navy, commanded British naval forces in the Mediterranean Sea during the Great War. In September 1914 he was appointed Commander of the British Squadron operating in the Mediterranean under the leadership of a French admiral. In November 1914 Carden was asked by the British Admiralty to develop a strategy to force open the Dardanelles Straits in January of the following year.

  Commander-in-chief of British naval forces during the Dardanelles campaign, Carden was successful in early offensives against Turkish defences from 19 February until early March, when he was relieved of command due to his failing health and replaced by Admiral John de Robeck.

  Admiral of the Fleet John Arbuthnot ‘Jacky’ Fisher, 1st Baron Fisher, 76: known for his efforts at naval reform, and often considered the second most important figure in British naval history, after Lord Nelson. He first officially retired from the Admiralty in 1911 on his 70th birthday, but became First Sea Lord again in November 1914. He resigned seven months later in frustration over Winston Churchill’s Gallipoli campaign.

  Admiral of the Fleet Sir John de Robeck, 53, born in Ireland: commanded the Allied naval force in the Dardanelles during the Great War. He was second-in-command, to Admiral Sir Sackville Carden, of the Allied naval forces at the Dardanelles from February to March 1915, when he succeeded Carden in command.

  Admiral of the Fleet Sir Arthur Knyvet ‘Tug’ Wilson, 75: served in the Anglo-Egyptian War and then the Mahdist War, being awarded the Victoria Cross during the Battle of El Teb in February 1884. Appointed by Winston Churchill as an adviser at the start of the Great War, he was an early supporter of the use of submarines.

  Herbert Horatio Kitchener, 65: victor of the Battle of Omdurman and hero of the Boer War; Secretary of State for War. ‘K’ is Winston’s nickname for him.

  David Lloyd George, 42: Liberal politician, and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1908 to 1914.

  General Sir William Birdwood, 55, born in Kirkee, India: saw active service in the 2nd Boer War on the staff of Lord Kitchener. He saw action again in the Great War as Commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915, leading the landings on the peninsula and then the evacuation later in the year.

  Sir Charles Hobhouse, 43: Liberal politician, and Post-Master General between 1914 and 1915.

  Henry Charles Keith Petty-Fitzmaurice, 5th Marquess of Lansdowne, 70: British politician and Irish peer. In 1915 he was leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords.

  Andrew Bonar Law, 57: born in the colony of New Brunswick (now in Canada), he was the only British Prime Minister to have been born outside the British Isles. In 1915, he was leader of the Conservative opposition.

  Reginald McKenna, 42: Liberal politician, and Home Secretary from 1911 to 1915.

  Sir John French, 62: renowned cavalry officer, Boer War veteran, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force.

  Douglas Haig, 54: veteran of the Sudan and Boer wars, General and Commander 1st Corps, British Expeditionary Force.

  Horace Smith-Dorrien, 62: veteran of Egypt, Sudan, the Zulu and Boer wars; General and Commander 2nd Corps, British Expeditionary Force.

  Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), 61: mother of Winston and Jack Churchill and wife of Lord Randolph Churchill, who died in 1895. Lady Randolph married George Cornwallis-West in 1900.

  John Gough, 36: Serjeant, Special Branch, Metropolitan Police; Winston Churchill’s protection officer.

  Admiral of the Fleet John Rushworth Jellicoe, 55: fought in the Egyptian war and the Boxer Rebellion; commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916.

  Valentine Fleming, 35: son of wealthy Scottish banker Robert Fleming. He joined the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars (Winston’s and Jack’s regiment), rising to the rank of Major.

  Sir Edward Marsh, 42: British polymath, translator, arts p
atron and civil servant. He was the sponsor of the Georgian school of poets and a friend to many poets, including Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. In his career as a civil servant he worked as private secretary to a succession of Britain’s most powerful ministers, particularly Winston Churchill. Marsh was a discreet but influential figure within Britain’s homosexual community.

  Charles (‘Sunny’) Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, 43: British soldier and Conservative politician, and Winton’s cousin. He was an officer in the Queen’s Own Oxfordshire Hussars, fought in the Boer War and was subsequently appointed Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Roberts, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in South Africa. He returned to active service in the Great War, when he served as a Lieutenant Colonel on the General Staff.

  Consuelo Vanderbilt, 37: member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. Her marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, became an international emblem of the socially advantageous but loveless marriages between American heiresses and European aristocrats common during America’s so-called Gilded Age.

  Major General Sir Alfred William Fortescue Knox, 45: career British military officer and later a Conservative Party politician. Born in Ulster, he joined the British Army and was posted to India. In 1911 he was appointed the British Military Attaché in Russia, where he served as a spy. A fluent speaker of Russian, he became a liaison officer to the Imperial Russian Army during the Great War.