Brothels on Western Front in 1914?

[sneakyimp]

Ahem .

I'm wondering if anyone might help me determine where brothels might have been concentrated near Estaires and Steenvoorde in France in late March / early April 1914. I can tell from the CEF 7th BLN war diary that shelling happened occasionally in Estaires at this time so I wonder if the brothel proprietors would risk setting up shop there. Steenvoorde on the other hand appears to be quieter in the war diary. I expect Steenvoorde would be a more likely location for such a business.

I'm also very curious about any details of these establishments and their culture, jargon, and protocol. I believe Robert Graves in 'Goodby to All That' referred to red and blue lights, but I don't recall the significance of the colors (or whether this was even explained).

Any help would be much appreciated.

[keithmroberts]

I think your timing, relating to pre-war circumstances make it unlikely that you will get anything much from UK sources. I don't think the Canadians reached England until October 1914, and am not sure how quickly they moved to France. I presume that any brothels at the beginning of the war would have been geared only to what had best be described as French civilian requirements or circumstances. How quickly things changed as the war developed I would not know, but I doubt if there would be much time for substantial change before the front lines had stabilised.

Keith

[Strawb67]

I have read somewhere, that the Red Light establishments were for the enlisted men and the Blue light for officers!

I can't remember where I read it and therfore I am unable to support it by fact! it just sticks in my memory for some reason.

Cheers

John

[Moonraker]

Ahem .

I'm wondering if anyone might help me determine where brothels might have been concentrated near Estaires and Steenvoorde in France in late March / early April 1914. I can tell from the CEF 7th BLN war diary that shelling happened occasionally in Estaires at this time so I wonder if the brothel proprietors would risk setting up shop there. ..

Unlikely, as war wasn't declared until August, point out I, having just corrected a typo in a post I made last night. I was about to add some details about the "recreational facilities" available to Canadian soldiers on Salisbury Plain (well, not actually up on the Plain but in the nearby towns and villages) between October 1914 and February 1915, but have resolved not to wander off topic quite so much as in the past.

Moonraker

[sneakyimp]

Drat! I meant 1915! Certainly after the war started. From the arrival of Canadian 7th Bln around Feb 15, 1915 to just before 2nd Ypres, around mid-april 1915.

Moonraker, salacious temptations on salisbury plain would also be of interest. Contemporary sources greatly appreciated!

I've read Skindles in Poperinge was a place to get a good meal and to enjoy the company of 'loose women' (per John Keegan in 'The First World War' on page 183).

[Guest exuser1]

Popularly known in France as House of Tolerance ? Amiens had a well known area pre Great War as would many garrison towns in a similar way to the UK such as the notorious Military Road in Chatham Kent , at what point the UK military decided to take a hand in these establishments is a excellent and interesting question .

[Muerrisch]

I have tried very hard [in the distant pas]t to get the truth out of the Red Light/ Blue Light story, even reading Town Majors' War Diaries.

I concluded the Blue Light for Officers was an urban myth .......... and highly unlikely too, given that officers, with their extra money, better clothing, better facilities for leisure, and all the other "rank hath its privileges" aspects would have little trouble in getting a leg over, so to speak, without recourse to vulgar organisation. Certainly the many officers I have served with had no problems when the urge took them.

I would be absolutely delighted if my conclusions could be proved wrong, but I mean PROVED by a primary source.

Robert Graves, a hero of mine, never let the facts get in the way of a good story of course.

[Guest exuser1]

Being that officers had a higher disposable income the higher class establishments would have been a matter of course , then there would have been the amateur element of the business as practiced also back in the UK , interestingly in WW2 the USA did a report of prostitution in Italy which makes interesting reading if true?

[Steven Broomfield]

Ref post 7, I thought it was a well-established fact that all officers in the GW were toffs and therefore gay.

On a serious note, there's a memoir called, IIRC, "The Bells of hell go ting a'ling" by (again, IIRC) Eric Hiscox, which mentions his experiences in a red light establishment as a very young (under-age?) Tommy. Years since I read it, but I recall it was interesting.

[Scalyback]

Did the French still have offical establishiments by the GW?

Was it myth that Haig paid a visit to such an establishment and was kept in the dark about its TRUE purpose for officers? I'm sure Richard Holmes had a chapter on sex and the Tommy?

[Muerrisch]

On a less serious note:

The authority on the subject is, it may be supposed, was Major Denis Bloodnok, 4th Armd Thunderboxes, attd. Mobile Bath, Laundry and Brothel unit [as relief Piano Player]. He must have seen some sights and heard some tales.

[johnboy]

Was it myth that Haig paid a visit to such an establishment and was kept in the dark

Probably not. Dressed in a nappy and blindfolded.....................

[Guest exuser1]

In the book the Walls come Tumbling Down ,it has a map of Amiens that shows the red light area and establishments ,I would assume they were in operation during the Great War , on the French side official trips to brothels were still being organised in 1950s Algiers , one young transport officer describes his duties in a very funny book titled My War in Algiers .

[dycer]

From the book "A Bloody Picnic(Tommy.s Humour,1914-18) by Alan Weeks.

Paying for it.

"Cities and Towns had their brothels.One,in the Rue de Gaillennes in Le Havre,featured a prostitute who dressed up as a British captain.She couldn't keep up with demand(March 1917).

An estaminet in Armentieres doubled up as a house of ill-repute at 5 francs a time(1915).

In December 1915 the 6/Queens were at rest in Bethune.When the red lamp was fixed to the door dead on 6 p.m.a line of about 150 men waited patiently outside it.

A brothel in Calais in October 1916 also had queues of 150 or thereabouts.The women of the house served a whole battalion a week until they were worn out.The assistant provost-marshal calculated that the usual limit was about three weeks,after which the lady concerned retired to live on her earnings "pale but proud".".

George

[sneakyimp]

I found this article fairly interesting and have read Robert Graves. I saw Grumpy's other post trying to get to the bottom of the matter. I'm inclined to believe in the establishments being separate because so many other things kept officers and O.R. men separate: dining, trains, etc. The typical class difference was much more of a thing before and up to the war.

I would be most grateful if we could start a list of literary references by town? It would be most helpful if I end up time traveling to 1914.

Location: Poperinge (or "Pop")

Source: The First World War by John Keegan, p 183.

Citation:

"Pop" became a place of mixed attractions to the BEF: the famous Talbot House, Toc H, run by the Reverend Tubby Clayton for the high-minded and churchy who were prepared, as he insisted, to shed rank once inside its doors; the infamous Skindles for officers who wanted a good meal and the company of loose women. Skindles is scarcely identifiable, but Toc H survives, its chapel, "the Upper Room" breating the Anglican relgiosity of suburban volunteer soldiers pitched headling into the hell of early twentieth-century warfare. The dim, stark chapel under the eaves remains a deeply moving way-station to any pilgrim to the Western Front.

[Scalyback]

Interesting stuff. Squaddies will find sex at a sniff, be it paid or unpaid.

A mention above about OR and officer split. What happened after 1916 when you had monies gentlemen joining the ranks? If the wallet talks!

[Moonraker]

... Moonraker, salacious temptations on salisbury plain would also be of interest. Contemporary sources greatly appreciated!

When the Royal Canadian Dragoons were billeted in the Shrewton area, William Lighthall (memoirs held at the Imperial War Museum): "noticed a furtive gathering around the kitchen door [of a house near Shrewton church] …. we looked through the kitchen window and there saw the reason for the crowd. Stretched out on the kitchen table, stripped bare as the day of her birth, lay a daughter of joy serving the line of eager applicants who had paid a fee to Archibald at the door. And above – the church organ played a moving hymn to lead the devout to their weekly prayer meeting. A few weeks later, a constant stream of invalids attended sick call and deeply regretted their participation."

The organiser of this entertainment, like many of the Canadians, had become lousy and, after sleeping with the vicar's daughter, passed on his lice to her and her family, claimed Lighthall, who added: "He also passed on something far harder to get rid of and the unfortunate damsel soon found she was pregnant – made so by a man who had one wife in Canada and another in England." (I treat the bit about the vicar's daughter with suspicion.)

On 2 November 1914, Charles Thurlow, an engine driver of 27 Sheep Street, Devizes, appeared in court charged with living wholly or in part on the immoral earnings of his wife, Minnie. She was known to be a prostitute and soldiers had been seen visiting the house in the evening and at night. Henry Trout, the appropriately named owner of a fried-fish shop at 115 Sheep Street, testified that he had enquiries for Number 27, mostly from Canadians. Thurlow claimed that he had been offering the men merely refreshment but he was sent to prison for two months. Superintendent Brooks stated that this was 'a case of a class that fortunately very rarely comes before a Bench of magistrates in this county [of Wiltshire]'.

Perhaps this was so, though barracks such as Bulford and Tidworth would have provided a market for prostitution and there must have been houses similar to Thurlow's in nearby towns, though there were few related court cases reported in the pre-war local press.

On the same day that the Wiltshire Advertiser was wishing the Canadians well as they left the Plain, it was recounting a "terrible story of immorality, which is, of course, not suitable for reproduction in these columns", though again there were reassurances that such cases were very rare in the district. A young widow, Mary Ann Watts, of Church Lane, Urchfont, was charged with keeping a disorderly house there with her sister, Nellie Stokes, aged 20, who was similarly charged. The police had been observing the house since 25 October (shortly after the Canadians had arrived at Pond Farm Camp, three miles away). A soldier had been seen wearing women's clothes, in the company of Nellie Stokes in a soldier's uniform. Lieutenant Frederick Green, of the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade, billeted in the village, said that he had arrested a man there on 19 January and that NCOs had complained about the house. Watts was sent to prison for three months, Stokes for one, both with hard labour.

Moonraker

[dycer]

Was it myth that Haig paid a visit to such an establishment and was kept in the dark

Probably not. Dressed in a nappy and blindfolded.....................

From "A Bloody Picnic(Tommy's Humour 1914-18) by Alan Weeks.

Commander-in-Chief.

"Soon after his appointment as CIC,Sir Douglas Haig had lunch in the Rue de Bon Enfants in Armentieres,the best restaurant in town.Perhaps he was unaware(or his entourage was)that upstairs was also the classiest brothel in town".

George

[Ghazala]

Reminds me of the Sergeant Major who went into a brothel in Amiens and asked the resident lady... How much for my company? Five francs, she replied. He went outside and shouted... COMPANY, march in....!

[sneakyimp]

Good grief, Moonraker! Those are some rather pungent episodes. Good work!

Dycer, is that factual? Or just humor?

[dycer]

Si,

I quoted from a printed Book you would have to contact the Author to find out his source.

George

[healdav]

I came across a file in the Archives here that described the US army forbidding their soldiers to go into brothels! (this is the country that banned alcohol, remember).

They posted sentries outside all the brothels they knew of, to stop US soldiers going in. Inevitably.....................................

And they complained to the government! - about the brothels and that the local police didn't stop the sentries going in!

[Moonraker]

France's military brothels

which apparently still existed until quite recently.

Moonraker

[edwin astill]

Ahem .

I'm wondering if anyone might help me determine where brothels might have been concentrated near Estaires and Steenvoorde in France in late March / early April 1914. I can tell from the CEF 7th BLN war diary that shelling happened occasionally in Estaires at this time so I wonder if the brothel proprietors would risk setting up shop there.

Given the rapacious tendencies of these "proprietors",I'd not be surprised. One reads accounts of French farmers stoically tilling their field under shell fire.

Edwin