Anonymous

“ The Ravine certainly looked pretty now, with the feathery snowflakes glistening on the trees, and here and there an icicle giving the genuine Christmas-card impression. No Man’s Land, too, has rarely looked more picturesque with the festoons of barbed wire daintily picked out in white. Yes, it was a beautiful scene on a moonlight night in January 1917, but the sentry on the firestep in the front line, with feet frozen, nose, ears and hands feeling as though they were about to drop off, had no eye for such beauty. ”

“ The night of the 15th September presented a very striking contrast to the previous night, when peace and quiet had reigned in High Wood. The heavy artillery, with which the enemy was so well supplied, pounded away continually at the new trenches and at the supporting field gun batteries on the edge of the wood. Amid the noise of the shells could often be heard the groans of the wounded who had not yet been brought in, the shouts of the search party of stretcher bearers, and the curses of a ration or carrying party who had got lost. ”

“ The Divisional withdrawal from Annam, the assault on which place had not been entirely successful, was now in full swing, and the majority of the Armenian population of Es Salt, terrified at the prospect of the return of the terrible Turk, was hastily evacuating the town. The road, which had been churned up by men, horses, guns, and wheeled transport, was inches deep in liquid mud, and was packed with refugees. Old men and boys, women and children of all ages, with their household goods in large bundles on their backs, staggered along obsessed with great fear. ”

“ Then came the furnishing of a draft of about 100 strong to the 1st Battalion in France, and this in the minds of many sealed the fate of the Battalion. Never would the 2nd Battalion take its place as a fighting unit in the Great War.
However the horizon brightened, and all those men who had only volunteered for home service were ordered to be transferred to the 3rd line unit. It is not for anyone to comment upon the actions of others; circumstances alter cases, and during the war to act up to the dictates of one’s own conscience was the duty of all. ”

“ No man could have worked harder for the welfare of a Battalion than he did, nor could anyone be more fearless and unselfish than he was. He had been with the 1st Civil Service Rifles continuously since the Foreign Service Battalion was formed, and throughout he had devoted himself wholeheartedly to the Regiment, whose members he was ever ready to help in any way he possibly could. He was a magnificent soldier, a thorough gentleman, and an ideal friend, and his loss has left a gap in the Battalion which can never be adequately filled. ”

“ So many oranges were eaten on that march that, later on, drafts marching up from Gaza were known to have followed this trail of orange peel and found their way across Palestine to Jerusalem.
Marching is a thirsty business in any country and when for the most part the march is made enveloped in clouds of dust, it becomes even a still thirstier business. We had had long training in that fine art of marching from dawn to dusk without having recourse to the water-bottle, and that training stood us in good stead in those November days. ”

“ As a leader of men he was unrivalled, and his zeal and enthusiasm were a constant inspiration to the men he loved so much and who in turn loved him. As a parade N.C.O. Sergeant Knapp was once described as a “Ragtime” soldier, but his enthusiasm and sterling work in the face of danger endeared him to the hearts of all men in the Battalion. All members of the 1st Civil Service Rifles were justly proud of “Knappski”—a leader whom the men would follow anywhere. ”

“ Big guns, howitzers and field guns seemed to be firing from everywhere behind us, and one could not help feeling overawed by the magnificence of our artillery. The machine guns joined in the fun, and the whole thing inspired every one with great confidence. No human beings could possibly withstand such a bombardment. ”

“ The month of May, 1916, opened with a pleasant picnic in Bouvigny Woods, followed by a restful spell in the trenches on Lorette Spur. Here there was an excellent view one night of the explosion of six British mines in rapid succession on Vimy Ridge, accompanied by an unparalleled display of fireworks of all descriptions. As the men watched the display from a comfortable distance at the top of Notre Dame de Lorette, not one had the least suspicion that it was very soon to be the cause of the most severe blow that fortune had so far dealt to the Civil Service Rifles. ”

“ Onwards the Battalion struggled, mile after mile, through this awful morass of mud and the pelting rain. Every one longed for a halt, but this was not to be; not until the Battalion arrived on the outskirts of Karasuli did that precious whistle break the silence. Then every one just sat down in the middle of the road. The men had marched for six hours without a halt or even taking off their packs. Remarkable to relate, the number of men who fell out was practically nil; there were no estaminets here, and to fall out would mean a lonely night in the desolate wilds of northern Greece ”

“ Of the many trying journeys of an infantry battalion, none is worse than the “hesitation march” along a communication trench. The floor of the trench is uneven and is full of holes, there are numerous obstructions across the top, causing the weary soldier to go down almost on all fours; there are numerous momentary halts for no apparent reason, and whenever the party does seem to get moving, sure enough the cry will come along, “lost touch in rear.” ”

“ Company, who went so far as to say that the tension had been so great for a short period that, on knowing himself to be out of immediate danger for the time being, he felt as if he could have marched fifty miles, with full pack and blankets thrown in!
“Every force has a recoil,” he continues, “and most men feel tremendously bucked on leaving the trenches for a spell out of the line.
“It was thus with feeling of great relief that the Battalion 101 marched to Calonne Ricouart on the 25th of May, there to forget their sorrows in the work of training and reorganisation.” ”

“ Messines, with its memories of four years’ fighting, passed into British hands again, and this time for good. There was, indeed, little else than memories, save the jagged cairn which had been the church, the ruined houses which had been made into concrete blockhouses, some of them left intact, or nearly so, and a few broken tombstones on the site of the cemetery. The Messines Ridge in the chill of a misty, late September morning, when you have been fighting since dawn the day before, and do not know where in the mist the enemy is hidden, provides neither time nor the place for philosophising. ”

“ Private soldiers or humble subalterns do not presume to understand the ways of an Army Commander. They have, in the famous game of war, not even the status of a pawn, but nevertheless are for ever weighing the pros and cons of each and every movement they are required to make and thus if anyone had, but two short months ago, been rash enough to suggest that Beersheba was the opening move of a game that was to end in the capture of the Holy City, they would have suggested that the unfortunate one had been disobeying divisional orders and by not wearing his helmet had caught a touch of the sun. ”

“ In the late afternoon the Kensingtons came up on our left, and soon cleared the ground of these irritating machine guns, and by the evening everything was quiet except for an occasional shell from a Turkish battery which could be seen some couple of miles away across the Jordan Plain, well out of the range of our guns. Just before dark we had a splendid view of the Jericho Plain.
No other valley in the world presents such extraordinary 330 physical features, none other has been the subject of such various theories as to its origin and character. ”

“ I saw men in their madness bayonet each other without mercy, without thought. I saw the hot life’s blood of German and Englishman flow out together, and drench the fair soil of France. I saw men torn to fragments by the near explosion of bombs, and—worse than any sight—I heard the agonised cries and shrieks of men in mortal pain who were giving up their souls to their Maker. ”

“ As you pass, the edifice is lit up grotesquely and ghostlike by the pale light of a distant trench flare, and you catch a fleeting glimpse of the ruined interior where now the rude winds roar over the heaps of debris and round the tottering pillars and broken altar making sport of all these sacred things long held dear by so many—the whole an eloquent and terrifying protest against the God-defying Hun! ”

“ Yet the Turk had been hurried from hill to hill with little loss to our troops. As we toiled upwards we momentarily expected to get our first view of the Holy City. We knew definitely by that time that such was our objective and with the words of Holy Writ in our minds—“a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid,” we eagerly awaited the vision. ”

“ The complete change of life experienced by thus suddenly adopting the soldier’s daily routine and hard fare, the living with and fraternising with soldiers, the feeling that you are for the time being actually paid as a soldier, that you are watched by military police lest you should desert, that the Mutiny Act has been read over you, which says that if you disobey your officer you shall be shot—all this is calculated to make the most light-hearted Volunteer feel that he is in earnest at last. ”

“ The balance of the Battalion simply felt done up. However, all those who had not been sent to the field hospitals at Karasuli set to work and dragged from beneath the mud, rifles, equipment, bivouac sheets and remnants of the mules’ loads, and sorted them into dumps. The sun shone and life appeared possible, even if not desirable, in this wilderness of mud. About midday the Quartermaster’s Stores sent fatigue parties to an A.S.C. depôt a mile or so away, and fresh meat and rations were issued. ”

“ No attempt will be made here to describe the eve of High Wood. Suffice it to say that it was a very quiet night; that the troops, as they stood squashed up in Black Watch Trench, fervently hoped that their fate on the morrow would be better than that of the Battalion whose name the trench bore; and that the only fellows who got any sleep were those who crept out into No Man’s Land to lie down in shell holes. Rum was issued at dawn, and after a sleepless night it was unusually welcome. ”

“ For the first nine miles the route was along the main road, and the mules retained their loads with comparative ease, and not like the previous day’s march when they slipped and fell over on the treacherous muddy tracks.
So extreme was the cold that after each ten minutes halt it was with difficulty that men rose from the ground; most of them were frozen stiff. About 10.0 p.m. the head of the column was seen crossing the rough ground on the left of the main road. Hopes were raised, and if even a bivouac in the snow was an unpleasant prospect, the ending of the march was some consolation. ”

“ The Battalion was housed in the local cavalry barracks, and every one will remember the splendid comradeship of the artillerymen stationed there, who did all they could to attend to the needs of the soaked Battalion. The riding school was full of tired Londoners, but how they welcomed those steaming “dixies” of tea prepared by the barracks cooks. Tiredness soon disappeared, and fraternising was the “order of the night”; officers to the officers’ mess, sergeants to the sergeants’ mess, and men to the canteen. ”

“ This measure came to the Battalions broken up as an unexpected and sudden shock, the force of which will be fully understood and appreciated by every soldier who knows the strength of the bonds which keep the members of a Battalion together. The men of the Civil Service Rifles, realising what their own feelings would have been if it had fallen to their lot to be split up, were full of sympathy for the fellows who had been their comrades and their rivals for nearly three years of active service. ”

“ On the way ruined farms were seen at points of vantage, and near the main road from Arras to Souchez, with its avenue of trees destroyed by shell fire, we passed the famous Maison Blanche, a deep dug-out, large enough to hold a battalion. In nearly every depression in the ground were cleverly camouflaged battery positions, the sight of which encouraged us in our new venture. After a long march through communication trenches the reserve line of the Elbe shelters in a sunken road was reached, and companies were distributed in the support and reserve areas for the night. ”

“ By way of a diversion, the Battalion was inspected during one of the short rests in support trenches, by a civic dignitary from London, accompanied by his Press photographer. Of all the discomforts of life in France few, if any, were more irksome to the British soldier than being visited by a civilian, looking clean, and fat, and comfortable, who would return home and have it duly advertised in the Press that he had just been to the front to see things for himself. ”

“ One must have endured the strain of prolonged fighting in a precarious position, worn out by constant watching, with little food or water, and many other discomforts too numerous to mention, in order to realise how intense was the disappointment of these men who, thinking that Major Warne came to tell them their work was done and to take them back to rest, learnt that their job had only just begun. ”

“ Indeed, during one part of the journey there seemed to be more men walking than were riding. At the same time every one seemed conscious of the fact that he had said good-bye to the dreaded Somme battlefield, so few felt disposed to complain of the shortcomings of the R.O.D.
After detraining at Longpré, two happy days were spent in the village of Villers-sous-Ailly. The men received a hearty welcome from the natives and M. le Maire, who seemed to be the greatest French authority on the organisation of an English infantry battalion. ”

“ In looking back on the year spent in the Ypres Salient, the average member of the Civil Service Rifles, full of the bitter memories of the Menin Road, Hooge and Château Wood, is apt to forget that there was a time when life was quite enjoyable in Ottawa Camp, with the trips to Poperinghe, where there was much gaiety.
It is quite true, however, that at first Ottawa Camp was better known for its discomfort than for anything else, and it was a curious fact that Halifax Camp, which was the home of one of the Support Battalions of a Brigade holding the front line, was much more comfortable. ”

“ From the roadway onwards men of all regiments in the Brigade lined the route; floundering over the rough ground after a stiff march had proved too much for even some of the stalwarts who had braved the night at Karasuli. Transport limbers and mules blocked the way, either stuck in the small nullahs that crossed the route or else the animals had become too exhausted to move. In fact, it was not an uncommon sight to see dead mules on the ground, having succumbed to the extreme cold, and when mules “gave up the ghost” it can be well judged how the men suffered. ”

“ ALEXANDRIA, 23RD JUNE, 1917—ISMAILIA—BELAH—DESERT TRAINING—GAMBLI AND TEL EL FARA—EL SHAULTH—PREPARATIONS FOR THE PALESTINE OFFENSIVE
Alexandria was reached on the midnight of the 22nd June, 1917, and every one was pleased to get rid of the ever-present encumbrance on board troopships—the life belt, which brought back memories of the Transylvania. What a glorious sunrise we witnessed, the harbour with its white buildings gave us a feeling that we had at last again reached civilisation after our sojourn in the wilds of Macedonia. ”

“ No history of the Corps could be accepted as complete which omitted an account of the Wimbledon Ranges; for it is around them that, with many of us, the pleasantest memories of volunteering life will cling—some of its sweetest triumphs, and also, perhaps, some of its keenest disappointments. Here we have endeavoured to learn, with more or less success, how to bear the pride of victory, as well as the sting of defeat, with that impassive demeanour which is held to become the well-bred Briton. ”