The Long Run (2 page)

Even this news, in itself, did not affect the planning process. No one foresaw catastrophe. Indeed, even after Austro-Hungary declared war against Serbia on July 28, causing Russia to mobilize in Serbia’s defence, and Germany invaded Belgium and Luxembourg and set their sights on France, causing Britain to declare war on Germany on August 4,
⁷
organization for the 1916 Olympics carried on, as no one expected the hostilities would continue for many months, let alone several years. None of the Allied or Central Powers, with the exception of Austro-Hungary, had a direct stake in the Balkan unrest that led Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip to open fire on the archduke and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.

The early twentieth century was studded with similar crises. The fortunes of small states were often dice cast by greater nations. Still the power-wielding nations had always managed to cope with and contain the entanglements (or at least postpone the consequences for another day).

But not this time. Negotiations buckled under the weight of Germany’s bellicose, rigid demands and unchecked mobilization.
⁸
With the German invasions of late summer, an international conflict erupted. Still, all involved anticipated a short, decisive campaign.

During the first month and even into the second year of the war, the Germans, along with most everyone else, continued
to expect the fighting to conclude quickly. German athletes were keenly interested in American coaching and training techniques and kept up with their studies in preparation for competition. A four-man team had been dispatched to tour American university campuses and military schools.
⁹
The IOC carried on their own work as well, wrangling with the renewed commitment to amateurism (they had just demanded Jim Thorpe, the American sportsman considered one of the most versatile in the world, return his medals for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the pentathlon and decathlon). They were also considering a proposal (from Canada, among other countries) to establish a Winter Games.
¹⁰

When it did become apparent that the war would in fact last much longer than most people anticipated, and certainly through 1916, six cities in the US—which was still isolated from the war—offered to host the Olympics: Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. There was concern over interrupting the cycle; the modern games had only restarted in 1896, twenty years before. But the German Olympic Committee held firm to their city’s nomination.
¹¹
And de Coubertin, who, though he was fifty-one, had enlisted in the French army, supported them, writing,

The IOC has not the right to withdraw the celebration of the Olympic Games from the country to which the celebration has been given without consulting that country. The VIth Olympic Games remain and will remain credited to Berlin but it is possible they will not be held. In olden times it happened that it was not
possible to celebrate the Games but they did not for this reason cease to exist.
¹²

De Coubertin also refused to eject Germany from the IOC, resulting in the British representative’s resignation, although he did move the IOC’s offices to Lausanne, in neutral Switzerland.
¹³

And the war continued.

The German Stadium stood empty, and the Games, if not the Olympiad, were cancelled.

In July 1916, young men from around the world were engaged on a different field.

1
David Miller,
The Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC
(Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2012), 28 & 71.

2
David E. Martin and Roger W.H. Gynn,
The Olympic Marathon
(Champaign, Ill: Human Kinetics, 2000), 96.

3
Miller,
The Official History
, 28 & 71.

4
Niall Ferguson,
The Pity of War
(New York: Basic Books, 1999), 55.

5
Dan Todman,
The Great War: Myth and Memory
(London: Hambledon and London, 2005), 3.

6
Miller,
The Official History
, 72.

7
The Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in November 1914, and Bulgaria in 1915. Italy joined the Allies in 1915, Romania in 1916, and the United States in 1917.

8
Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany to Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, “The Willy-Nicky Telegrams,” in
World War 1 Reader
, ed. Michael S. Neiberg, (New York: New York UP, 2007), 88.

9
Miller,
The Official History
, 72.

10
Miller,
The Official History
, 72. Thorpe’s medals were restored in 1983, thirty years after his death.

11
John R. Gold and Margaret M. Gold eds,
Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning and the World’s Games, 1896–2012
(London: Routledge, 2007), 27.

12
Miller,
The Official History
, 73.

13
Ibid., 72.

CHAPTER TWO

E
RIC
M
ACKENZIE
R
OBERTSON
was born September 12, 1892, the year of The Great Fire, in St. Johns, Newfoundland. He was the only surviving son of Lucy M. and John R. Robertson; they also had four daughters: Ethel, Evelyn, Stella, and Lorna.

John Robertson owned a clothing store at 296-298 Water Street. He carried high-end men’s wear and was the St. John’s agent for several lines based in England, Scotland, and Ireland, such as Hollands Mill, Samuel Martin Co., and George Bubeck. This was the family business Eric would join after finishing school.

Robertson, though Protestant (the family was Presbyterian), enrolled at the Catholic school St. Bonaventure’s when he was sixteen. Many non-Catholics attended St Bon’s for the school’s excellent scholastic reputation. As a student, Robertson ran in track and field and long distance with the Newfoundland Highlanders, a Presbyterian-sponsored boys’ brigade. Such cadet teams raced each other in inter-brigade tournaments; this was the core of youth sports in the city at the time. At seventeen he placed fourth in a fifteen-mile race. Still, this activity was not primarily competitive for young Eric Robertson. He never considered himself a great athlete, and mostly
ran for sheer enjoyment, but his athleticism would later serve his country well.

The Robertson’s house was on Maxse Street, a short, pretty street running east-west in the Georgetown neighborhood of downtown St. John’s. The street is named for former Newfoundland governor Sir Henry Fitzhardinge Maxse, who “did the residence [Government House] an honour by being the only governor to expire within its walls, and was the first to die in office since Pickmore.”
¹⁴

It was, and is, a good street, a desirable address. The 1921 census displays the family names Devine, Jardine, Collins, Dooley, Brocklehurst, Kearney, Rose, Stevens, Peet, Murphy, Green, Taylor, Oldfield, Carter, Oliphant (as well as the given names of various servants: Annas and Ariannas, Charlottes and Brides, Bridgets and Mays).
¹⁵

The census also shows that many of the children listed, in 1921, are daughters, hinting at the attrition of WWI. The sons had enlisted in the Regiment, and the war enveloped them.

All the neighbourhoods of St. John’s offered up their young men to the war effort, but Maxse Street would prove particularly bereaved. The three Taylor brothers of number 5 Maxse were all lost within a single year, and their bodies never found. Their headstone in the General Protestant Cemetery, between Old Topsail and Waterford Bridge Road, paraphrases a line of poetry by Rupert Brooke and reads, “There is one spot of France that is forever Britain.” Of the six young men who enlisted from Maxse Street, only two returned.
¹⁶

Eric Robertson, of 3 Maxse Street, enlisted in the Newfoundland Regiment on September 7, 1914—five days before he turned twenty-two—at the CLB Armoury on Harvey Road. His occupation was listed as clerk, his annual salary $600. The Terms of Service were “Duration of war.” His Regimental number was #497. This made him one of the First Five Hundred (the number was actually 537), one of the celebrated “Blue Puttees.”

All told, 1460 men from the city of St. John’s would enlist, 365 of them would be killed, and 352 discharged for injury.

14
Paul O’Neill,
The Oldest City
(St. John’s: Boulder Publications, 2003), 108.

15
Kevin Major, personal interview, 26 June 2014.

16
Major, personal interview.

CHAPTER THREE

O
N THE EVENING
of August 4, 1914, the Governor of Newfoundland, Walter Davidson, received a cable informing him that Britain was at war with Germany. The relay of information was thus: HMS
Calypso
Lt.-Commander A. MacDermott brought to Davidson, at Government House, a cable received at 6:30 pm which read, “The War telegram will be issued at midnight (London time) authorizing you to commence hostilities against Germany. But in view of terms of our ultimatum they may decide to open fire at any moment. You must be ready for this.” Newfoundland, as a British colony, would officially be at war. A further message at 9:25 pm, from the British secretary of state for the colonies, Lewis Harcourt, simply confirmed, “War has broken out with Germany.”
¹⁷

The Legislature was not called together to pass its own resolution. Instead, politicians from all sides (Edward Patrick Morris’s People’s Party, Robert Bond’s Liberals, and William Coaker’s Fishermen’s Protective Union) met in a special session of the Legislature to determine what going to war meant for Newfoundland. In short order, all hands were in
the fold: “This is not a time when we should think of Party differences,” said John Kent, “This is a time when our land calls for united action!”
¹⁸

By August 8, Davidson wired London that Newfoundland would raise five hundred men for land service and one thousand for naval service. The Prime Minister, Morris, approved this decision, again without consulting the Legislature.

Four days later, on August 12, 1914, there was a public meeting of citizens in St. John’s. They too approved the turn of events and passed a motion that led to the creation of what was soon named the Patriotic Association of Newfoundland. This committee would oversee the recruitment, training, and outfitting of the Newfoundland Regiment through much of the war’s duration.

At the onset of the conflict in late summer 1914, Britain’s Secretary of State for War, Lord Herbert Kitchener, veteran of the Sudan conflict and second Boer War and former Commander-in-Chief in India, was one of the few who foresaw a long battle. A much larger army would be needed than the small Professional Regular Army, and he organized the largest volunteer army ever assembled for Britain—in fact for the world. In Britain, these recruits were ordinary chaps—the same mix of students, shop assistants, and labourers found in any sample of the population of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.
¹⁹
Their eagerness and resolve reflected the ideals of the Edwardian age,
²⁰
soon to be eclipsed by so much more than time.