Boy Soldiers of the Great War (34 page)

Standing in on behalf of Harold Tennant was a junior minister, Henry Forster. He replied that the case was being dealt with under the new instructions and that the officer in charge of records had been given fresh orders.

It was much too inefficient, argued Sir Arthur Markham, who, though he looked tired and ill, was his usual pugnacious self. He asked the minister:

Why has the War Office Order of 13th June not been observed? Only this morning I have heard from Glasgow that a boy under eighteen was shot last week whose parents had applied for his discharge over a month ago.

Henry Forster answered: ‘I am very sorry; I have not heard of it. We are doing what we can to see that the instructions are observed.’

Then came the following exchange:

How long does it take an instruction to reach the proper authority?

My Hon. Friend will see that depends upon where the authorities are.

Will these boys be sent home – yes or no?

My impression is that a youth over seventeen years of age serving in France may be sent home if he is willing to come. If he is not willing, he will be sent to the Training Corps at the base, and at any rate will be kept out of the firing line.

Is not the Hon. Gentleman mistaken, and that under the Regulation a boy under the age of eighteen at the Front is sent home, and a boy between eighteen and nineteen is sent to the base?

I do not think so. I think it is my Hon. Friend who is mistaken.

Is it the superior officer who asks the boy to remain in France?

I think that is so.

Has the War Office any control over officers?

No answer was forthcoming and the House moved on to another issue. One thing was obvious. Not only was the implementation of the new instruction causing frustration, but the terms themselves were confusing. It was clear that neither Sir Arthur nor Henry Forster was entirely confident of his case. If MPs in the comfort of Parliament were using expressions like ‘it is my impression’, and ‘I think so’, was it any wonder that battle-worn officers were making mistakes?

Just over 200 miles away in the village of Westreham, sitting in his billet, Lieutenant Colonel J.H. Lloyd, commanding the 15th Lancashire Fusiliers, was catching up on correspondence. It was the end of a good day, the first in a long time, for the first day of August was Minden Day and, respecting regimental tradition, the men were given the day off.

Minden Day commemorated the battle of 1759 when a combined British and Prussian Army defeated a larger French force near the German town of Minden. The irony was not lost on some, but the Fusiliers simply welcomed the break. They had been in the thick of the fighting on 1 July and had suffered terrible casualties. Since then, the battalion had been in a state of transition, with large drafts making their way from England to be absorbed into the depleted ranks. In the meantime, it had been kept busy, returning to the front near the recently captured village of Ovillers to collect equipment and to bury the dead, eighty-six bodies having been retrieved and interred.

One of Lloyd’s correspondents was a Mrs Evans, the mother of an underage soldier in his battalion; she had taken up the Government’s advice to write directly to commanding officers. News of the battalion’s mauling had filtered through to Lancashire mill towns, and in particular Salford, the home of the 15th Lancashire Fusiliers – popularly known as the Salford Pals. The
awful news had frightened Mrs Evans into writing. Poignantly, her letter arrived just as the survivors of the battalion had been clearing the dead from 1 July.

Lloyd wrote back to her:

Mrs Evans

In reply to your letter of 11 July I know your son quite well as he often does work as messenger etc and is quite an exceptionally intelligent man: I am astonished to hear that he is so young. He looks up to the standard of 19 or 20. I can hardly think that he ought to be discharged as under age being so physically big and strong. The rule is that if the man or boy is up to the work he stays whether he is under age or not. I should be very sorry if anything happened to him – anyhow he has come through our part of the big battle all right, though about three-quarters of the Battn were knocked out, so we have that much to be thankful for.

I am

Yours sincerely

J. H. Lloyd Lt Col, Commd 15 Lancashire Fusiliers

The boy in question was clearly aged no more than eighteen and, from the tone of the letter, was probably younger. Under the new instruction he should, at the very least, have been sent out of harm’s way. However, the inference in the letter is clear. Young Evans was to stay put and serve.

Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd may not have been aware of the new rules, given the backdrop of a major offensive – or not have remembered them all. Either way, he was wrong.

Another boy who slipped through the net was Private George Collett, a big and strong former grammar school pupil, who had enlisted aged fourteen. Instruction 1186 had permitted the wishes of the young lad to override those of his parents, enabling a boy of any age to stay in France, just no longer in the firing line.
Removing George from the trenches would at least have come as some relief to his parents. They had sought to reclaim their son once, back in March 1916, when George’s father had written directly to the commanding officer, but his son did not want to go home. ‘I think it is my duty to stop out here,’ George asserted in a letter. Before the June instruction it had remained entirely at the discretion of the army whether George stayed or not, and the verdict had come down on the side of the young boy. The divisional doctor had examined him and he had been found ‘physically fit to bear the strain of active service. As he has expressed the wish to remain with his unit in the Expeditionary Force he is being retained.’ The decision had then been endorsed and confirmed in writing to the parents by the War Office.

After 13 June, George if he was still ‘willing’ could stay in France but he should have been removed from the firing line. Nevertheless, there appeared no question of this, as George had subsequently gone over the top on 1 July. He had survived, although at least 588, or around 75 per cent, of his battalion were killed or wounded.

His escape still did not precipitate a change. Barely a fortnight later, the battalion was sent back into the line. George was killed aged sixteen when the trenches were subjected to a heavy and prolonged bombardment. His body was lost, but his name is commemorated on the Somme’s Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.

It is always tempting to assume that when instructions were issued they were followed, if not to the letter then broadly adhered to. This was far from the case, and it is evident from the stream of orders emanating from the Army Council that some directives were either ignored or remained unread. While underage soldiering was no doubt of paramount importance to worried parents back home, it was not of the same significance to commanding officers, other than how it might affect the fighting capability of the army. The lists of boys’ names cited in Parliament by Sir
Arthur Markham and his colleagues are testament to a common inertia within the system.

Tragically, Markham’s questions to the Government were to be his last in the Commons. They had been typically robust, but it was evident for all to see that the MP for Mansfield was far from well. During June and July he had made gestures towards protecting his strength, spending more time at home. But he had found his calling, albeit late in life, and the zeal required to pursue the issue of boy soldiering for a whole year had taken its toll on his health. Doctors’ warnings that he should radically curtail his workload had been stubbornly ignored and he remained fully active, even though he was worn out physically and mentally. On 5 August 1916, Sir Arthur Markham suffered a massive stroke at home and died. He was just forty-nine years old.

Although a Liberal MP, Markham had acted like an independent, unwilling to toe the party line unless it suited him. He infuriated his colleagues in office with his statements but no one doubted his integrity or mistook his passion. His primary deficiency was one of control and, in moments of anger, his judgement could go badly astray. He had been greatly troubled by the losses on the Western Front – indeed, his hatred of inefficiency stemmed from a desire that those who had volunteered to fight were not let down by people at home. Nevertheless, in his moments of anger, he espoused ideas that were irrational and unattainable, including the exclusion of enemy goods in a post-war Britain, and even lending half an ear to the absurd notion that German music might be banned.

The following day the press reported his death.
The Times
described the MP for Mansfield as ‘aggressive and independent … never amenable to party discipline [and] utterly fearless and honest as the day’. This was very true, but in his search for honesty and integrity in others he had also been sometimes too rash in word, to the occasional detriment of his cause.

It is difficult, with hindsight, to assess the effectiveness of one individual’s campaign on the issue of underage soldiering. As swathes of his, as well as the Government’s, documentary evidence do not survive, it is impossible to prove conclusively one way or the other whether he was largely responsible for a change of direction. What can be said is that he never failed to keep the issue in front of the House. Proof, in the end, does not matter. The best memorial to his unheralded work remains the lives of boys who, without his help, would have died.

Removing a boy from the line was subject to delays, mistakes and even obstruction, all consequences of war and the pressure conflict brings. A birth certificate might be produced with all haste, but how soon that certificate might be acted upon would depend on a number of variables: how much priority a record office might give a claim; how many claims were being processed at any one time; even how sympathetic an officer was to a case.

For months prior to the Somme offensive, the fighting in the British sector had been muted as the Germans turned their attention to their own offensive in front of the French-held city of Verdun. This, coupled later with the public’s optimism about the success of the offensive, ensured that before the battle there were relatively few letters to the authorities by worried parents keen to recall their children. With the offensive’s calamitous first day, however, a rush of letters was received by the authorities, the processing of which would lead to inevitable delays. From the partial evidence available, the process certainly appears to have been slow at times, and Sir Arthur Markham’s complaint in July that no response had been received by one family after a month may not have been untypical.

Driver George Sennett of the Royal Field Artillery had enlisted in August 1914 aged sixteen and had gone overseas the following year. In 1916, shortly before his eighteenth birthday in June, George’s father, John, wrote to the Record Office at Woolwich.
The exact date of his letter is not known but a standard reply was received on 12 July.

Sir

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your communication of the recent date relative to an application for your son No 94908 Driver George Sennett, to be placed on Home Service, and in reply I have to inform you that no action can be taken in the matter unless the Birth certificate is forwarded to this office.

If it is assumed that John Sennett replied promptly, then the response from the army was tardy indeed, for the letter confirming their son’s position did not arrive at the Sennett home for another two and a half months.

Records/British Army. No 499/190

30.9.16

MEMORANDUM

Reference your application for the discharge of No 94908 Dr Sennett G D/69th Bde RFA as being under age, this man states that he is not desirous of being posted to a training or other unit behind the firing line, but wishes to remain with the unit in which he is now serving.

T. Wheatley Smith

Lieut

I/C Records British Army 2

George Sennett could stay overseas if he wished, but, once again, the regulations should have ensured he was removed from the line. Given the length of time between letters, it was perhaps fortunate that George was still alive to make his decision.

A similar situation arose in the case of Private Donald Price. He had enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers aged sixteen and, like George
Sennett, had been at the front since 1915. In mid-July he went over the top for the first time on the Somme and it had been terrifying.

The battalion had lost about 400 that night and there were only about 150 of us left when we congregated. The remaining men struggled down towards the town of Albert and the band came out to meet us. It was a wonderful feeling.

His initial exhilaration and pride at coming through was immense, but the thrill soon disappeared when he realized that going over the top was not a one-off event.

My mother saw the lists and lists of casualties in the
Daily Dispatch
and she got the wind up and wrote to the War Office and Lloyd George. Much to my amazement I was called into the company office one day and was told that I had got to be withdrawn from the line until I was nineteen. It was marvellous. They withdrew me to a school at Auxi le Chateau, about ten miles north-east of Abbeville. It was the surprise of my life to be taken out of the line without being wounded. I didn’t care what anyone else thought and couldn’t get out of it quick enough.

Donald’s recollection, recorded seventy years after the event, gives the unintentional impression that the time between his mother’s first letter and his removal from the line was short. This was not the case at all.

Mrs Price had two sons in France, and Donald was the younger. Just before the outbreak of war, she had been widowed and the strain of making ends meet, coupled with the anxiety of knowing two sons were in mortal danger, had made her ill with worry. A third brother, Harold, who was the youngest, was still living at home. To help alleviate her anxiety, he wrote on his mother’s behalf, composing several letters to the War Office, enclosing his brother’s birth certificate and requesting that his eighteen-year-old
brother be removed from the firing line. Some of the correspondence is now missing but it is clear what a protracted business it was. Harold’s first letter was sent on 15 July. It was almost a month before he received an official reply, which merely stated that the letter had been forwarded to the commander-in-chief, and that the birth certificate was returned.