Going Home, The War Illustrated, January 1919. (Author’s collection)
Though the outbreak of war was greeted with patriotic zeal throughout Europe there were also many committed pacifists who refused to have anything to do with the hostilities. These objectors were few in number (Britain held about 16,000) and they had no impact on the number of Britons in khaki prior to conscription. The ‘system’ didn’t like dissenters though; they were bad for morale, an incipient cancer that might spread.
Many ‘conchies’, such as Jim Sadler and Bert Brocklesby, were very religious. On the day war was declared Bert expostulated ‘God has not put me on this Earth to go destroying His children’. Jim never went back to church after the day he listened to the minister, in 1914, urging all who could to volunteer and do their patriotic chore. The debate is still relevant today – does a citizen have the right, in the face of a national crisis, to put conscience above civic responsibility. In 1914, most would have said not.
You’d leave me cold though this our arguing
Endured till dawn, you lack the essential thing.
Healthy and leisured, pious, gentle, learned,
‘You feel forbidden to fight’ and thus unconcerned
With that vast horror which defeat would bring.
Hence, tho’ you touched of David’s lyre the string,
Or wrote with quill plucked from an angel’s wing,
Unless you ‘gave your body to be burned’,
You’d leave me cold.
‘You feel it wrong to nurse’. While others fling
Red life in the scale, what is your offering?
Levite! In you the milk of pity has turned!
For if sore wounded, and with eyes that yearned,
I lay in the Jericho Road a-perishing,
You’d leave me cold!
H.M.W: To a Conscientious Objector (30 December 1916)
‘Conchie’ was the obverse of ‘Tommy’, driven by the same individualism and notion of a higher duty yet interpreting the path to follow very differently. They might, at the outset, expect the black spot of a white feather or some casual insults. As the war dragged into its second and third year with the body count rising dizzyingly and horribly, the conchie became a butt of oppression as well as derision. His cards were marked.
While enlistment remained voluntary, pacifists could not be said to be standing outside the law, merely the zeitgeist. When conscription was introduced in February 1916 all conchies had to appear before a military tribunal to explain why they believed they should be exempt. Most arguments fell on deaf ears; the mood of the tribunals was against them. One conchie was brusquely informed he ‘was only fit to be on the point of a German bayonet’. Some agreed to serve in non-combat roles, a half-way house compromise. The conchie wasn’t required to bear arms himself but man the logistical tail and back up those who did. This wasn’t cowardice – those who served as stretcher-bearers were as much in harm’s way as the average rifleman.
Jim Sadler saw any participation as aiding and therefore supporting war and refused to serve in any capacity. Some refused even to peel spuds in the line. It was these, the zealots, who were singled out for special treatment, thrown into solitary confinement and fed on bread and water. Some wanted these incorrigibles shot ‘pour encourager les autres’, lest the contagion of disobedience spread.
Of those who refused to participate at all, 36 were shipped out to France. Once over the Channel, their fate was beyond the pale of civilian authority. There existed a very real chance of these men being tried for wilful disobedience, punishable by death. Under King’s Regulations these men could be subjected to field punishment before facing their court martial. All 36 admitted that they had deliberately refused orders. The military court’s verdict was clear: ‘When on active service refusal to obey an order. Tried by court martial and found guilty, sentenced to death by shooting. This sentence has been confirmed by the commander-in-chief, General Sir Douglas Haig’ It was afterwards commuted by him to ten years penal servitude.
Ironically, some serving Tommies had real sympathy for conchies. It is a truism of war that one’s fervour for the cause grows steadily stronger the further back you get from the front. Some wrote to their families that they admired the faith and stance of the three dozen dissenters. In the event none of them served their full decade behind bars and most were out of prison by 1919. Herbert Asquith, former prime minister, is said to have been incensed that the army had gone behind his back by deporting the conchies to France when they were still in reality civilians, referring to their treatment as ‘abominable’.
Frederick Tait was born in Elswick, Newcastle in 1893 of good Labour stock, his father was an activist and Fred inherited a socialist vision. His grounds for refusing to serve were not based on faith but on pure politics. He wouldn’t kill fellow workers at the behest of a capitalist cabal. Some men were given hard labour. Fred Tait was sentenced to solitary confinement. His work was stitching mail bags and from the regulations he quotes in his diary ‘one learns that if the prisoner did not work, his conditions would be even more rigorous than the norm’. Prisoners were allowed half an hour a day exercise with other inmates and they could meet together in chapel, otherwise it was a punishable offence to talk to one another.
Fred began his diary when he had been in prison for a total of 21 months. He had been put in charge of the Prisoners’ Wants Book in the library and managed to take a partially used copy small enough to conceal in his single pocket, together with pen and ink, back to his cell. On 28 March 1918, he scratched his first entry. Over the page he wrote his ‘credo’: ‘Only one thing shines clearly through the mental torture, the broken hopes, the happy and sad dreams, the disappointments of the past two years. That is my ideal…. For the first time in the History of the World a body of men of all sects, and no sects, of all races, of all lands, has stood before the Peoples and proclaimed that Love, Peace and Fellowship are greater than War and Death…’
Fred’s sister Nellie wrote that ‘he was released on health grounds and joined the Friends Ambulance Corps, a body which cared only for wounded who could not be patched-up to fight again…’
The lost
Joseph William (‘Willie’) Stones was a stocky miner, classic bantam physique, 23 years of age who had enlisted at West Hartlepool in March 1915. He was a volunteer.
On 26 November 1916, 19th Battalion, DLI, was positioned before the battered shell of Roclincourt. Though the sector was nominally ‘quiet’, much raiding and counter-raiding went on. The defences overall were in poor shape. It was at 2.15am that Lieutenant Mundy and Lance-Sergeant Stones passed Post ‘A’ on a routine patrol. En route to the next position, they were jumped by a party of German raiders and shot up. The officer fell mortally wounded and Sergeant Stones seemingly bolted back to the post.
He continued along a communication trench until he reached the hub of Bogey and Wednesday Avenues. He was picked up by the battalion battle police well to the rear of the action, missing his personal weapons. Sergeant Stones was accused of ‘shamefully casting away his arms in the presence of the enemy’ and of having run away from the front line. He was tried on Christmas Eve. Counsel for the defence was provided by Captain Warmington, an experienced and mature solicitor in Civvy Street.
Lieutenant Howes testified that as the alarm was raised he saw Stones in the communication trench. This was about 150 yards to the rear. As NCO of the watch – and this was crucial – Stones should not have left his post at the front. The officer could confirm that the accused appeared to be ‘very much upset’. Howes could not recall if he still had his rifle at that point.
Important evidence now came from Private Pinkney who was in the command dugout when Stones arrived to raise the alarm. The accused had then expressed urgent need to locate the company cooks before they were overrun. It was in the course of this fruitless search that Stones became visibly unwell, having difficulty using his legs. He had been sick for some time.
Pink
ney was with Stones as the NCO tried to find the MO but, very soon after, the pair were intercepted and ordered back by the battle police. Sergeant Foster on duty that night stated that Stones was exhausted and trembling and claimed that Lieutenant Mundy, when wounded, had ordered him back. Certainly by now Stones was unarmed and, when questioned, told Foster he’d jammed his rifle and bayonet crossways in the trench behind to provide an obstacle to pursuing Germans. In the divisional war diary Willie Stones is initially described as being in a ‘pitiable state of terror’ – the word ‘terrible’ has been deleted. Foster continued his testimony as to the accused man’s state of near nervous collapse.
Captain Warmington, opening his defence, adduced statements showing that Stones had twice reported sick with rheumatic pains in both legs. He then showed that there was no hard evidence to support an accusation that Willie Stones had deliberately cast aside his rifle and that only one witness saw him without it. When he and Mundy were fired on, he claimed his rifle was loaded but he didn’t fire as not only was the safety on but so was the breech cover (designed to prevent mud and dust fouling the action). He had not fixed his bayonet. It seemed Lieutenant Mundy’s revolver was still holstered and that neither man, being on a routine patrol, had anticipated sudden attack.
In summing up, Warmington reiterated his previous points and insisted there was insufficient evidence upon which to base a conviction. Character evidence, all favourable, was then given before the tribunal came to a finding. Willie Stones was found guilty of shamefully casting away his arms in the presence of the enemy, of leaving the front line and running away. He was sentenced to death. On 18 January 1917, at 7.35am on a winter’s morning lined with freshly fallen snow, Sergeant Willie Stones was executed by firing squad – a victim of war.
Shot at Dawn memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, England. (Harry Mitchell, [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
His name, like so many others, did not appear on any memorial. It would take until the 21st century and a new understanding of the impact of war on the human psyche before Willie Stones and 305 men like him would finally receive a pardon. They have their memorial now – surrounding the ‘Shot at Dawn’ statue in the National Memorial Arboretum.
Lest we forget
Through all the land, in city, town, village and shire, the sad memorials rose, a mournful roll call of the dead, hymns to a lost generation. Yet all too soon, other names were added from the next war and are being added yet. A total of 956,703 British and imperial personnel died in World War I, more than half have no known grave. This was four times the number than had been lost in the whole of the Napoleonic wars, a period covering 22 years. Never had Britain and her colonies mourned so many. Before 1919 there were few war memorials, mostly in barracks. We can’t really imagine our cities, towns, villages, even hamlets, without their shrines of mourning. Schools, colleges, workplaces all had their beautifully inscribed brass plates with the list of names.
Sir Fabian Ware was neither soldier nor politician. At the age of 45 he was too old to fight but became commander of a mobile unit of the British Red Cross. Appalled at the immense deluge of casualties, he felt compelled to find some means to ensure the seemingly endless plains of scattered battlefield cemeteries were recreated as monuments to the fallen. Initially almost on an ad hoc basis, his outfit began recording and tending all the graves they could find. As early as 1915, the work was given official status by the War Office and incorporated into the broader army structure as the Graves Registration Commission.
The Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme was built 1928–32 and opened on 1 August 1932 by the Prince of Wales and the president of France. It has been described by architectural historian Gavin Stamp as ‘the greatest executed British work of monumental architecture of the twentieth century’. The ingenious memorial arch houses a series of panels on which are inscribed the names of 72,246 British and imperial soldiers who died in the Somme battles and who have no known grave.
Encouraged by the support of the Prince of Wales, Ware submitted a memorandum to the Imperial War Conference and in May 1917, the Imperial War Graves Commission was established by Royal Charter. The future Edward VIII was appointed president with Ware as vice-chairman. The commission’s Sisyphean task got underway after the Armistice. Once ground for cemeteries and memorials had been guaranteed, the stupendous job of recording details of all those dead began. By 1918, some 587,000 graves had been identified and a further 559,000 casualties were registered as having no known grave.
Three of the most accomplished architects of the day: Sir Edwin Lutyens, Sir Herbert Baker and Sir Reginald Blomfield – were chosen to undertake the work of designing and constructing cemeteries and memorials. Rudyard Kipling was tasked, as literary guru, with advising on inscriptions. Kipling, of course, had his own tragedy, My Boy Jack. He’d moved heaven and earth, pulled every string, to ensure his son didn’t miss out on the great adventure, despite hopeless eyesight. John Kipling, 18 years old, was killed at Loos in 1915, his parents left with the guilt and engulfing despair.
Today the seemingly innumerable cemeteries, perfectly preserved gardens of remembrance, row upon row of light-coloured Portland stones, borders and walkways immaculate, are the collective essence of memory.
After the war, in the hungry 1920s, there was much criticism of the lavish fund-raising and spending on Lutyens’ great ziggurat to the dead of the Somme at Thiepval. Many felt, understandably, that the cash would have been better spent on welfare for those veterans who were begging on street corners and pawning their medals.
The memorials speak of sacrifice and loss and yet also, almost perversely of hope, that somehow we may learn from that terrible harvest. There’s very little evidence that we do of course. It may be that the Covenant – that unwritten mutual obligation between soldier and civilian is part of Tommy’s legacy. World War I was the first fought by Britain where a true citizen army was deployed. Those who were primarily civilians and who would not otherwise have contemplated a military career rushed to join up as a collective act of civic responsibility. They came from every walk of life and they were not conscripted, they chose. All previous wars had been fought by a primarily professional army and casualties by comparison relatively low. Tommy was truly England’s son who went out to do his duty in a foreign field.
Nobody can pretend that when he came back, broken in body and/or mind, he was well cared for. He wasn’t, but there was a collective awareness of sacrifice; that the nation had to mourn its lost sons. It should have been the war to end all wars but dolefully was merely the begetter of quite a few more. All those war memorials would soon have fresh panels engraved. In the years since 1945, only 1968 and 2016 passed without UK servicemen or women being killed by enemy action.
Great War casualties didn’t just occur on the battlefield. Untold tens of thousands came back ruined in mind or body or both. John’s wife’s grandfather died of his Great War injuries, or as a consequence of them, in 1946. He’s not listed on any war memorial. But he was still Tommy.
SOURCES
The authors have drawn on research for their own previously published works: Tommy at War 1914–1918 (London, Biteback, 2013), Tommy Rot – WWI Poetry they didn’t let you read (Gloucs., History Press, 2013) and As Good as Any Man – the Diary of a Black Tommy (Gloucs., History Press, 2014).
INTRODUCTION
Kipling’s Tommy was written c. 1890 and first appears in his 1892 Barrack-Room Ballads. Victory Day first appears in The Queen’s Gift Book – in Aid of Queen Mary’s Convalescent Auxiliary Hospitals (1920). Information on the early history of the Northumberland Hussars – ‘Noodles’ comes from H. Pease, The History of the Northumberland (Hussars) Yeomanry 1819 – 1923 (London, Constable 1924) and T. L. Hewitson’s Weekend Warriors from Tyne to Tweed (Gloucs., Tempus, 2006). Detail of structure and organisation, kit and training comes from many sources but a handy short introduction is No. 81 in the
Osprey Men-at-Arms series, The British Army 1914–1918 by D. S. V. Foston and R. J. Marrion (illustrated by G. A. Embleton). Kate Luard published her memoirs anonymously as Diary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front 1914–1915, William Blackwood, 1915. The memoirs of Herbert Waugh are quoted by kind courtesy of the Fusiliers Museum of Northumberland.
CHAPTER 1
The poem by Chas Anderson is unpublished (as far the authors are aware) and is included by kind permission of Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums (TWAM.DBC.1845/362). The Pennyman memoirs (also unpublished) are featured by kind consent of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers Museum at Berwick Barracks. The family home of Ormesby Hall is now in the care of the National Trust and features a wide range of Pennyman memorabilia. The short verse from Plum & Apple, the unofficial bulletin of the 2nd Squadron, Northumberland Hussars, is from the regimental archive now in the care of ‘A Soldier’s Life’ and Tyne and Wear Archive and Museums. The recollections of the Northumberland Hussars are all extracted from the first volume of the regimental history by Pease (see above).
CHAPTER 2
The memoirs of George Hilton are reproduced by kind permission of the Trustees of the KOSB Museum; those of Herbert Waugh by permission of the Trustees of the Fusiliers Museum of Northumberland. The experiences of Robert Constantine and John Walcote Gamble appear by kind courtesy of DCRO.
Tommies: The British Army in the Trenches Page 13
