Looting by British troops

[EDWARD1]

Just reading A Brief History of the First World War edited by Jon E Lewis. Eyewitness accounts, on page 67 a Private Frank Richards of the RWF states when collecting their dead.

"My own puttees were in ribbons, so I took the Corporal`s which were in good condition. In a belt that Corporal Pardoe wore next to his skin they found about sixty English sovereigns, beside French money. None of it went back to his next-of-kin. I could have had some but didn`t want to touch it".

Not looting, scrounging, foraging just plain theft.

Eddie

[Moonraker]

One can take the practical view that if Richards' colleagues hadn't taken the money, it would have been unlikely to have got back to his next-of-kin anyway. And how did Pardoe come by so much money in the first place?

Moonraker

[Brainybri]

My original posting was in response to my grandfather-in-law's eye-witness account of "wholesale looting by British troops". Since then, much has been posted about petty theft, pilfering from bodies, and scrounging....but it seems, from the few responses which actually touched on the subject of systematic looting by British troops, that there is little to read in accounts of the war. I had certainly never read anything about this before and was (perhaps naively) quite shocked. It would be interesting to see if, in the official diaries of his brigade, that there were any punishments handed out....or whether this was, in fact, looting officially encouraged, or ignored, to rob the advancing enemies of supplies...but the piano and 'other things that can't be mentioned' would seem to cast doubt about this.

[catfishmo]

A piano? Where would they put that....how would they explain it to their commanding officer? Love to know what couldn't be mentioned!

Don't know how historically accurate it is, but the movie The Wipers Times showed an upright piano in the officer's dugout in the trenches! The officer played it too--and I think he was the commanding officer : )

~Ginger

[Hedley Malloch]

Years ago at a training session on the situation after the next war (which has yet to happen, in the UK anyway), I had the temerity to ask what was the difference between looting/stealing and making sensible use of something that was unwanted/discarded.

Moonrfaker

Moonraker,

You should know that the verb 'to loot' is highly irregular. It conjugates in the following fashion:

I restore to its proper owner

You recycle

He loots

We manage scarce resources

You (pl) vandalise

They collect booty for personal gain.

[ss002d6252]

Don't know how historically accurate it is, but the movie The Wipers Times showed an upright piano in the officer's dugout in the trenches! The officer played it too--and I think he was the commanding officer : )

I have read a reference recently (from a war diary but shown in the divisional history) of a piano in the trenches around Armentieres.

Craig

[Guest]

I’d like to add to this interesting thread although 5 years late!  I collect antique candlesticks and have a couple of examples of Belgian and French 19th century candlesticks with inscriptions indicating that they were found/looted from the Western Front.  One is inscribed “Found on the Menin Road Ypres 31st May 1915” just after the Second Battle of Ypres.  The other reads “Peronne 1917”; this is one of the Somme towns which I understand was completely obliterated like Ypres.

[andrew pugh]

Hi

I have a copy of a hand written account by a soldier of the 24th Battalion Royal Fusiliers who wrote his account during the British retreat in March 1918 (23rd/24th) who describes some British soldiers being ordered to carry a casualty back, which they did,but on their return the had acquired new uniforms, food and were drunk. They had looted these items from the British store dumps before they were destroyed. If you want a copy let me know.

Regards

Andy 

[Guest]

Mates,

 

If I am reading this right you seam to say British troops don't loot or if so its called something else?

 

We all know thats not right as British soldiers like our own (AIF) have and do loot even if we call it something else.

 

I have so many accounts by aussie soldiers of the many name they call it like souveniouring, fosicking and many others.

 

In the late war in Bosnia, I also did it when stopped at a bombed out cafe, I saw under the burned lino what looked like paper money. On lifting an edge there under the floor and lino was hundreds of old Yugoslave money, now of no valve I passed it out to the men of my Troop, as survenours, and much I still have in a box?

 

It pays to keep your eyes open in wars.

 

S.B

[andrew pugh]

Hi S.B 

Good old Barney Hines, he wouldn't do that kind of thing would he!

Regards

Andy

[Guest]

Andy

 

Just so.

 

The most well known Aussie fossick - er I can recall.

 

mid 19th century (referring to mining): probably from the English dialect sense ‘obtain by asking’ (i.e. ‘ferret out’).

 

Also see any post battle photos of any unit, you will find almost all the men have a German Hemet and other items taken from there enemies.

 

Would they call it looting or souveniring

 

I know what I call it?

 

Cheers

 

S.B

[Ron Clifton]

It is only looting if the true owner intends to reclaim it. Google "treasure trove" for the rules relating to gold and silver, and extrapolate from there.

 

Ron

[GWF1967]

From "When the Whistle Blows". Andrew Riddoch & John Kemp. 

 

 Capt. John "Cosmo" Clark. 

 

"We got here (Cambrai area) at four o'clock this afternoon and started to fix ourselves up. - Everybody sets out to find what they can. My servant found a spring mattress for me out of a ruined house and has covered it with clean canvas - Stoves out of ruined houses to keep the tent warm. Piles of wood from the wood to keep the fires going. Chairs from the ruined houses. It's great fun pinching all you can. The great thing is to get there first. Also to keep what you have found".

( Clark. C. "The Tin Trunk. P.90). 

[Hedley Malloch]

It should be remembered that the ‘pillaging’ conducted by Allied troops as individuals or in small groups pales into insignificance when compared with the wholesale, systematic, organised and institutionalised theft perpetrated by the German army in the occupied territories in northern France, Belgium and Eastern Europe. Much of this was illegal under The Hague Convention - and it was officially condoned. These expropriations started in 1914 and not in 1918 as the Germans retreated. They help explain why reparations were such a key issue for the French at Versailles.

[Jervis]

4 hours ago, Hedley Malloch said:

the wholesale, systematic, organised and institutionalised theft perpetrated by the German army in the occupied territories .... - and it was officially condoned.

 

 

Can I ask you to expand on this - what were the Germans engaged in that was different from other armies? 

[Hedley Malloch]

The German position was entirely different to that of the Allies in two important ways. First, the Allied were fighting on their own soil; they were not fighting in 'occupied territories'. Second, the Germans had to manage the consequences of the failure of the Schlieffen Plan which envisaged a short, sharp war which would bring the French to their knees. The British were not the only ones who thought the war would be over by Christmas. There were no fallback plans, so when the Schlieffen Plan failed, they had to live off the lands which were the occupied territories.

Further they did not respect the provisions of The Hague Conventions which, under certain conditions (often ignored by the Germans), allowed an amount of expropriation of French and Belgian assets to support the army at the Front. But food and material was exported from France and Belgium to Germany to prop up the German economy. In the opinion of at least one writer the systematic destruction of the French economy had a longer term and more strategic objective in mind - to ensure that irrespective of the military outcome of the war, France would be economically crippled, finished as competitive rival to France.

Two excellent English language books I can recommend on what the Germans did in the occupied territories are Isabel Hull, 'Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and Practices of War in Imperial Germany', Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2005; and, by the same author, 'A Scrap of Paper: Making and Breaking International Law during the Great War', Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London, 2014.

[Jervis]

Thanks for the detailed response, very interesting perspective. 

[David Filsell]

I seem to recall the term"souveniring" used for the practice.

[robins2]

photo courtesy Canadian Legion Magazine

[robins2]

Photo of Bell from St. Peters Church, Ypres