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Remembered Today:

Robert Ernest Vernede - Novelist/Poet


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Marina,

Checking through The Rifle Brigade 1914 - 1918, volume 3, Honours & Awards, there is no mention of L.G. Butler being awarded anything for this.

Andy

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Marina,

Checking through The Rifle Brigade 1914 - 1918, volume 3, Honours & Awards, there is no mention of L.G. Butler being awarded anything for this.

Andy

Ah, well, too many brave ones to disinguish them all, I suppose. Thanks for looking it up.

Marina

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Coming to a somewhat critical part with Robert soon to get injured, it is said that his injury changed his personality and thought process about the war completely.

24th August, 1916.

I was so sleepy last night when I finished my letter that I don't know what I told you and what I didn't, and I'm sleepier than ever now. I'll try and write a decent letter to-morrow. I got two of your letters in the middle of the strafe.

Andy

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25th August, 1916.

I hadn't time after all to-day to write. We have been moving behind the lines, where we shall be for over a week, I fancy.

Your cake arrived, and one Lieut. remarked it was the best he had tasted since he had come out, and several others said the same.

Andy

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Coming to a somewhat critical part with Robert soon to get injured, it is said that his injury changed his personality and thought process about the war completely.

Tease! :P

It will be interesting to see what shows up in his letters. Hope his personality doesn't change too much - he;s such a delightful man. Was, I mean.

Marina

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26th August, 1916.

It's one thing to promise a letter and another to get it done, for when the fighting is done, it's not, as the newspapers make out, a rest cure, but fuss and fury and discomfort and hard work.

I don't think I told you the most miraculous part of the affray the other day. One of the D Coy. wounded, dragging himself back to the line I held, heard a shell coming and dropped into what he thought was the nearest shell-hole, but was in fact, a well 60 ft deep. Nobody saw him, but a sentry heard him call after a time. The problem was how to get him out, for the beastly thing had shelving sides made of boulders and old mortar quite loose, so that if you went near it started rolling down and threatened to bury him. We got him up six hours later at about 3.30am by means of a pick tied to a wire rope, to which he fastened himself. I was desperately afraid he would fall off half-way up or wouldn't have the strength to tie himself on, but he did. One would have had to go down in that case, but I think he would have been buried from above in the process. At least three men were ready to go after him, though it wouldn't have been a pleasant job for them either. The amazing thing was that he came up - without a bone broken - from a dry well 60ft deep.

It's rather melancholy this after the battle business. _____'s brother came over today to hear about him, also ____. You'll see a host of names.

I see the Times of 24th says it's the most successful day since the push started, and apparently the R.B.'S are considered to have done awfully well. I spoke a lot of German that night to wounded prisoners.

Andy

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27th August, 1916.

I'm still without leisure. Buxton has gone sick for two days at least.

The troops after their push are bivouacked in an open field with no cover but their waterproof sheets - constant showers - not very comfortable for men who have hardly slept and never ceased working under shell-fire for a week. Some old noodle's fault, I suppose.

My dear, some of the men are too quaint. One lad, whose brother was killed the last night in the Boche trench, came to me to ask how to write to his sister-in-law about it. He had got as far as - "My dear Lil, - Inow have great pleasure in telling you that Tom -" and there he had stuck. I had to draft a more sympathetic letter for him. The same on being asked if he would help bury his brother, "I will, if you like, sergeant." Yet he was quite upset.

The G.O.C. congratulated the Brigade to-day in the rain; it somehow seemed unecessary.

Funny that E., D., D., and I, who came out together, should all be left - with only about five others.

Andy

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28th August, 1916.

It's a fine evening and I sit in a tent with a towel over my knees to prevent the flies, which are appaling, from tickling them, and am for the moment at leisure, so I must freakly try to write you.

It's one of the errors of the Army that Q.M.S., which is a non-combatant job, is part of the upward gradation, so that you may lose a good fighting man at a critical moment because he's been made Q.M.S., or you may have an intelligent clerk step out of it to Sgt.-Major.

They have got up the tents for the men and there's a concert now going on just outside mine. They do pick up their spirits most wonderfully.

_____ has gone down sick. He was frightened to death in the trenches, yet very brave and cheerful, but saw himself there for days after, and the shells coming. I got C. to swop him for the Padre's servant, who is a fit youth, so that in future ___ won't have to go into the trenches, which he's too old for. Fourty five!

9.30pm. The concert is coming to an end. The Padre has got them to sing "Abide with me." It is rather fine-a starry night, the tents all lighted and looking like a lamp lit city in this niche of the downs. Away to the north one of those murderous battles is going on.

Andy

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29th August, 1916.

I fancy we shall go into the trenches for a bit before we rest properly, but not, I think, for an attack.

Tremendous thunderstorm to-day, which flooded our tent and the men's.

Tomorrow we go for a bathe.

Andy

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31st August, 1916.

No letter form you yesterday. We had a thunderstorm yesterday - tropical rain - with the result that all the tents got flooded. Ours being pitched on old horse lines, we spent the day om liquid manure, which does not tend to make things any cleaner - or oneself. In the evening we moved to this camp. I rode the Coy. horse till I was stiff with cold, after which I walked. We dined about midnight, and are this morning shifting our tent again.

Buxton is still away, but the Padre is till with us - i.e. C. and self - so are flies and other bougs! I fear the damp won't make the country or the men any healthier, as it washes the dirt about and probably gets into the water supplies. I am afraid we shall have some working parties the next few days, but I ought to have time to write to you.

Please order a new Aquascutum; I have lost my other and don't see a chance of getting one out here.

Andy

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Bumper crop today! Liked the quaint soldeir and his 'pleasure' to announce his brother's death - probably the only fromal phrasing he knew. And the man down the well, and the city of tents and the attle going on in the background. he realy does bring it all alive.

marina

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2nd September, 1916.

A pleasing Blighty one at last, and almost before you get this I shall, with luck, be in Angleterre with you a-coming to see me. It's shrapnel through the thigh, and hasn't been pronounced on yet by the medical authorities, who have to extract a bit of iron that didn't go quite through.

But as I plunked through the trenches knee-deep in mire for six hours afterwards, more or less, it can't be very bad; and I ought to get back before you can think of coming here.

I got it in another show suddenly forced upon us, in which I was in charge of C Coy., with C. only subaltern. A shell plumped neatly between six of us, killed Sgt. Oliver and hit the rest in divers ways. It was rather a funny sensation. I thought I'd been bruised. Handed over to C., who a little later got badly hit in the arm. So C Coy., when I last heard of it, is without officers - three platoon sergeants knocked out - two killed - both awfully nice fellows, and A. rather badly hit.

Haven't had a meal since lunch yesterday, and now it's lunch to-day; advanced to the attack in the full height of an attack of sickness and a temperature up. All the troops are that, but I never expected to e. It was very awkward.

Will let you know as quick as quick.

A Chaplain is addressing this.

(The envelope was addressed and signed "L. Maclean Watt, C.F.". If these lines should ever come to his notice, I here offer him my thanks. - C.H.V.)

Andy

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The Sergeant Oliver mentioned by Robert as having been killed by the shell was.

No 812, Sergeant, Fred Oliver, who is buried in The London Cemetery and Extension, Longeuval.

Andy

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Six hours ploughing though the trenches with a wound. As he said the other day, the ambulances don;t come whizzing up to fetch them. Gave me the horrors to think of the shell dropping between the six of them because I[ve been looking at the thread about greandes and they look fiercesome enough never mind a shell. At least he's going home.

Marina

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Hi Marina,

As you say at least he is going home for a period of time. He returned to the front on 29th December 1916 when he was transferred to the 12th Battalion until he died on 9/4/17 of wounds received in action.

I will start his diary again from the 31st December, his first letter after his return.

Andy

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Regimental account of the action in which Robert was wounded:-

After five days in a camp with all the men lying out in the open the Division went up again into the line to hold the trenches between Delville Wood and High Wood. The Battalion was in Brigade Reserve. We had received a draft of one officer and 200 men during the time we were out of the line.

On 1st September at 12 noon we were ordered to counter-attack Orchard and Tea trenches which had been lost the night before.

Knowing nothing of the ground and very little of the situation, the Battalion left Montauban at 14.30 and marched up Caterpillar Valley into the trenches.

Communication trenches to the front line were non-existent and the three attacking companies "A" "B" and "D" went over the open into the trenches whence they were going to jump off, without a shot being fired at them, from Pear Street, and Chesney Walk.

Zero time was 6pm, under 2nd Lieutenant N.C. Denton, "B" Company in the centre under Captain Hon. M. Boscawen and "D" Company under Lieutenant R. Edwardes jumped off. They lost 55% getting to Orchard trench, and Tea trench 250 yards further on, was out of the question, although "C" Company under Lieutenant R.E. Vernede had gone up to reinforce. This attack clearly proved the impossibility of making a successful attack against a strongly defended line without proper preparation. By the hour the Companies had got into their jumping off trenches it was time for them to attack as the creeping barrage was arranged for 6pm. The Germans were holding Orchard Trench very lightly but Tea Trench and Poppy Lane very strongly. Our casualties were from machine guns and rifle fire from two Tea and Poppy trenches and amounted on this day to one officer and thirty five other ranks killed, four officers and 166 other ranks wounded; five men missing. On 2nd September, we were relieved and went back to our original camp near Albert.

Andy

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This is fascinating stuff, Andy, especially when comparing Robert's accounts with those of the Regimental diaries. The official version is by obvious necessity devoid of the human touch, and, as with so many books about this period (written with a different necessity), there is no true human interest.

But Robert gives us human interest just by being himself and having the ability to write about his feelings. Though, I get the distinct impression that his words are, in their own way, just as "sanitised" of true emotion as the official version. I can't help but ask that, as an accomplished writer, is his up-beat style in his letters purposfully done to avoid C.H. from suffering too much anguish? Or a result of him being brutalised by his war experiences, is it a sub-concious attempt to block out the horrors around him and to look at this world through the eyes of a writer?

Can't wait to see his letters from 1917, written after the "psychological watershed" of 1916 and the Somme. Perhaps then I will have a definitive answer to my questions? Great work, mate, please keep it up.

Cheers - salesie.

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Salesie,

I have wondered the same, especially with references in past letters of not being able to write as one wishes with the censor etc. and the obvious deep love he had for his wife. He does seem to make light of certain matters, one can only imagine to shield his wife from the day to day horrors of this conflict. Having said that, he does deal with the death surrounding him.

Andy

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Interestingly, In late July 1916 Seigfreid Sassoon was sent home suffering from trench fever and was at the the same hospital that Robert was sent to after his wounding. I wonder if the two of them met whilst at this hospital??

Andy

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A very interesting question, Andy. With Sassoon and Vernede both being writers pre-war (though Vernede was much more noted) I would say that it was almost inevitable that they had some interaction (birds of a feather?) After all, it was Sassoon's meeting with Owen in Hospital the following year that has been credited as perhaps being the catalyst that enabled Owen's true poetic genius to emerge (though I would argue that Owen's as well as Sassoon's work was perhaps not truly representative of the thoughts of many of those who fought). Did Robert have any effect on Sassoon's work?

If we can find proof of any meeting between Vernede and Sassoon in hospital, it will, perhaps, make Robert's letters from 1917 much more interesting; maybe show them in a different context? For it was less than a year after Robert's wound (in July 1917) that Sassoon wrote to the Times with his "Soldier's Declaration.......in defiance of military authority." This piece, published in the Times, raised questions in Parliament and Sassoon would almost certainly have been court martialled if not for friends in high places. Did Sassoon have any effect on Robert? Can't wait for those 1917 letters.

Who said poets & writers are dull? I repeat, fascinating stuff!

Cheers - salesie.

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Salesie,

I cannot remember any reference to Sassoon in his letters, but will check again. You will find that his letters in 1917 are not very polite towards Service Battalions as his previous service was in a Regular Battalion, and they do make interesting reading.

Andy

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Andy, I fear that any reference to Sasson will need to come from other sources, that's if they did in fact meet? But a research path well worth following I feel.

Quite amusing, though not surprising, that a non-professional soldier should feel this way (though by that time, of course, he would have become highly professional in the art of war). Interesting how the regular battalions, though void of the vast majority of pre-war regulars by this time, still instilled an air of superiority and pride in their replacements. In many ways, times don't change that much; for example, as an ex-regular myself, I still refer to the Territorial Army as the SAS - the Saturdays and Sundays (Tongue in cheek? Maybe, maybe not).

Cheers - salesie.

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It's possible that his letters were not so much sanitised as curtailed by want of time. And a s a writer, he has an eye for the people round him and the strange events, like the dinner with the band playing or Ginger's sore tooth. It may even be that concentrating on these things was a psychological defense.

Whatever - this is facinating stuff. Great work, Andy.

Marina

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Marina,

It could well be, certainly his eye and mind were very astute and he did have a marvelous way of relating things. The part about the foliage after all the gas always got me, maybe the author in him made him look at things that others totally missed. Certainly, I can never recall such being relayed before.

Andy

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7th September, 1916.

Telegram from Robert from Southampton saying he was on his way to Oxford - where he arrived at Somerville Hospital about 6pm.

Andy

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