stiletto_33853 Posted 20 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 20 May , 2005 Hi Mandy, Glad that you are enjoying his letters, I will post them as the dates on the letters. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 21 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 21 May , 2005 Monday, May 22nd I am still rather sleepy from a seventeen hour day, started by being on duty from 2.30am - 7.30am. In the course of it we got a few whizz-bangs over - only a very few slight hits - and in the evening the unfortunate M. tried to blow himself and two other men up with a rifle grenade - none of them serious, however, luckily. It was a case in which I might almost be accused of the evil eye, for at the moment I was standing with Sergeant B. about 50 yards away, saying, "I dislike rifle grenades. I always expect them to blow up everybody round and I never expect them to blow up the boches." Which happened the next instant. But, as I say, it was a lucky business on the whole. Having started at 2.30 on Sunday morning I came off at 3.30am this morning and slept till 12, when some bumping on the next line woke me. Still beautifully warm, and I go about with bare legs and shorts, which isn't bad in May, is it?. On the whole, this is a very nice trench and simply doesn't bear comparison with Hooge, so far as I've seen it. I am very fit - and the eyes fairly good. Here in the early morning one sees jays and Pheasants and lots of smaller birds, and green frogs, and heaps of rats, and a semi wild cat occasionally. I imagine wild life is on the increase, because the No Mans Land is becoming rather jungly, and except for the shells, of course, very peaceful. Si is the country immediately behind the trenches. One of my platoon, who was always writing home to say he was in the thick of it (when he wasn't), has been hit slightly and will be enormously happy, I think, to go home with tales of the peril. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 22 May , 2005 Share Posted 22 May , 2005 LOL - I liked the story of the man delighted to have evidence of 'being in the thick'! Robert is so DRY sometimes, isn't he? I can hardly belive that the wild life is increasing out there - somehow I always imagined a moon landscape with nothing alive at all. You live and learn! Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 22 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 22 May , 2005 Marina, I have to agree he can be very dry but do love his descriptions. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 22 May , 2005 Share Posted 22 May , 2005 Marina, I have to agree he can be very dry but do love his descriptions. Andy <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Defintely - they are excellent. But I love that dryness too - it's classic stuff! That description of the wannabe hero was BRILLIANT. Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 22 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 22 May , 2005 Here we have another officers letter, its very interesting that they both devote time for the flowers and wildlife. Rifle Brigade, B.E.F. May 13th 1916. Dear D., We are back in billets after a week or so in the trenches. We had lovely weather and no trouble, and put a lot of good work getting the trenches into order and fairly inhabitable after the winter. It gets light now at 3 o'clock in the morning, so that we have to be up before, and we see some beautiful sunrises. I get some sleep between 11 or 12 at night and 2.30am, and again from 4 to 8.30, when I have breakfast. The most coveted sleep is between 4 and 8.30 in the morning. The village we are billeted in is very pretty, with fruit tree's in blossom and some flowers in the gardens. The old lady who keeps the farm we are in supplies us with milk and butter and eggs, occasionally leeks, and tomorrow (Sunday) with four pigeons. The men are very strong and well after their long rest back at the Army school. I got your parcel containing Martin Chuzzlewit and sweets. The toffee was particularly good and much sught after.......... I am glad to see that the news in England is a bit better: it was rather depressing for a bit. Love to all from Geoff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 22 May , 2005 Share Posted 22 May , 2005 And Martin Chuzzlewit too! I've heard before about the demands for books and reading material from men at the front. A bit ironic to be saying the news from England was less depressing considering where he is... wonder if he was just keeping up a front for the people at home? Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 22 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 22 May , 2005 I find it very moving to read these letters. In the case of the letter above from Geoffrey Watkins Smith, he had less than two months left of his short life before being killed on July 10th 1916. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 22 May , 2005 Share Posted 22 May , 2005 I find it very moving to read these letters. In the case of the letter above from Geoffrey Watkins Smith, he had less than two months left of his short life before being killed on July 10th 1916. Andy <{POST_SNAPBACK}> How old was he? Do you know anything about what happened to him? Have you read Plamer and Waton's A War In Words? It's a compilation of letters and diaries from the Great War - some of them very moving indeed. There is even one where a soldier wrote his last entry and was killed - someone else wrote what happened at the bottom of the page. If you haven't seen it, I think you might well like it. Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 22 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 22 May , 2005 Marina, He was 35 years old when he died and an eminent Zoologist having been published many times in scientific publications including a small book of verse. He was killed at about 9.30pm on July 10th 1916 by a shell which killed two other Company Commanders in a German Trench which they had just taken. I have read "A War in Words" but these memorial books that I have recently got to the life of just the one man reprinting all his letters home just seem to make it so personal. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 22 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 22 May , 2005 Vernede's next letter May 23rd Another scrab, but I have such long nights somehow - only three hours sleep last night - that one dozes off most of the day and is not, as you know, particularly brilliant!. S. of the Buffs- whom I met at the technical school, came up last night and spent last night with us. I had coffee with an artillery officer at 7.30am, breakfast with S., lunch with D. - all visitors to the trenches. Its a heavy, still day - very quiet, a thunderstorm due, I think. T. has gone off (temporarily) to the Divisional Staff, but I'm afraid they'll keep him when they find out that he is good. We shall be out by the time you get this for several days - almost double the usual. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 23 May , 2005 Share Posted 23 May , 2005 Yes, it's good to follow the man right through, as with the John Pitt thread - you do feel as if you 'know' them in the end. Which is fine if they survive - you feel like cherring. terrible when thye gte killed, as with Robert. Ah, well... Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 23 May , 2005 Share Posted 23 May , 2005 Came across one of Vernede's poems in the war anthology Up The Line To Death: A Listening Post The sun's a red ball in the oak And all the grass is grey with dew, A while ago a blackbird spoke - He didn't know the world's askew. And yonder rifleman and I Wait here behind the misty trees To shoot the first man that goes by, Our rifles ready at our knees. How could we know that if we fail The world may be in chains for years And England be a bygone tale And right be wrong and laughter tears? Strange that this bird sits and sings While we must only sit and plan - Who are so much the higher things - The murder of our fellow man... But maybe God will cease to be - Who brought forth sweetness from the strong - Out of our discords harmony Sweeter than that bird's song. R.E. Vernede Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 23 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 23 May , 2005 Marina, Great stuff, I will see if I can get his picture downloaded. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 23 May , 2005 Share Posted 23 May , 2005 That would be great! Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 25 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 25 May , 2005 May 26th Just a line from camp. Very damp march. Breakfasted at 11 today and post goes at 12. Nice weather again after very sloshy night. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 26 May , 2005 Share Posted 26 May , 2005 May 26th Just a line from camp. Very damp march. Breakfasted at 11 today and post goes at 12. Nice weather again after very sloshy night. Andy <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Touching that he had no real news and so very little time, and yet sent his wife a letter anyway. Theirs seems to have been a very strong marriage, doesn't it? Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 27 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 27 May , 2005 Marina, I get the impression from reading through the whole book that they had a very very strong marriage indeed. They were married in 1902. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 27 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 27 May , 2005 May 28th As I have had a whole night in bed, being the first for about ten days, I ought to be able to write more than a mere scrab. The weather is very pleasant and the Noneysckle is coming out in the wood, and yesterday I picked a bunch of yellow Irises, buttercups, and a lot of the new young red foliage of oak and sycamore. The only drawback to being out of the trenches is the quantity of working parties, which are a bore, but roll on as the riflemen say. A.B. has been appointed to the O.C ship of C Coy in Tathams absence. A youth in my platoon who was in the ............ wrote in a letter I had to censor that he wished he was back in the .......... as the Batt. was a wash out, all wrong. I had to send for him and ask if he thought it a polite thing to say of his Batt., and discovered, of course, that he resents the stricter disciplie. I tried to explain that it wasn't done for fun entirely, but to beat the enemy, but i'm not sure if I convinced him. Discipline is an infernal bore. There is no doubt that some of the new Batts are not particular enough about really vital matters, and the men don't of themselves seem able to distinguish what you must be strict about and what you mustn't. If only one could reduce discipline to its absolutely necessary elements and insist on those only, we should be nearer the ideal. D. goes off on a gun course today which will leave us short again, with the corresponding extra work. I don't know why they can't keep an extra subaltern or two when there are such hundreds about. There is a footnote stating that the A.B is Captain Andrew Buxton, The Rifle Brigade, Killed in action, June 1917. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 27 May , 2005 Share Posted 27 May , 2005 The differing attitudes to discipline in various battalions is interesting. I had thought discipline would have been much the same everywhere. he says 'newer battialions' - does he mean newer. or is this a comment on the differnce between regular and conscipt or voulunteer soldiers, I wonder? Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozzie Posted 27 May , 2005 Share Posted 27 May , 2005 It is through these well written letters that you pick up on the thoughts and feelings of the men in the war, it expands the official papers and gives a better picture of the day to day lives while at war. Thanks for sharing these with us. Cheers Kim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 29 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 29 May , 2005 Marina, Re the last letter and the parts on the discipline, Vernedes First served in the 3rd (Regular) Battalion until he was wounded on the Somme. Upon recovery he was then sent to the 12th Battalion. His comparisons between regular and service battalions make interesting reading indeed and quite a few are not very complimentary towards service battalions. There are a few other books which make interesting reading re this subject one being "The Anger of the Guns" by John Nettleton. Another that springs to mind is Villiers Stuart goes to War which is covers another aspect of this. Some of his comments about regular battalions are also very interesting to read. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stiletto_33853 Posted 29 May , 2005 Author Share Posted 29 May , 2005 Tuesday, 29th or 30th May. Rather stupid of them to send............. to the ........, but it is the sort of thing that happens. If anyone gets hit they are quite likely to be sent out again to some different Batt., which I think is a great mistake. I didn't have a working party last night and had another good sleep instead, but there seems a fair amount doing this morning, which does not leave me very much time to write before the post gos at 2 o'clock. Mr Faviel - a copy thereof - is being passed round the Batt. with an inscription (by the D youth, I fancy): to all officers - for information and necessary action, which is one of the Orderly Room phrases attached to reports. I feel as if I wrote you the dullest letters and can't help it, and Frdk's statement that my letters are the most interesting reading he has at present is an unblemished lie, unless indeed he reads nothing else, which is quite likely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 29 May , 2005 Share Posted 29 May , 2005 Tuesday, 29th or 30th May. I feel as if I wrote you the dullest letters and can't help it, and Frdk's statement that my letters are the most interesting reading he has at present is an unblemished lie, unless indeed he reads nothing else, which is quite likely. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> There he is, being dry again! Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 29 May , 2005 Share Posted 29 May , 2005 Marina, His comparisons between regular and service battalions make interesting reading indeed and quite a few are not very complimentary towards service battalions. There are a few other books which make interesting reading re this subject one being "The Anger of the Guns" by John Nettleton. Another that springs to mind is Villiers Stuart goes to War which is covers another aspect of this. Some of his comments about regular battalions are also very interesting to read. Andy <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'll look out for those. I wonder if changing personnel around as mentioned in his letter had anything to do with poorer discipline too. I've often read about soldiers being shifted about - must have been difficult to readjust to the ethos of a differnt unit, or even just to unfamilair faces. I think it was in McCrae's Battalion that I read an account of a soldier who after being wounded and then returned to the front, 'deserted' his new unit and presented himself at his old one. he just wanted to be with the officers and men he knew. Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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