The Shadow of War (49 page)

The spelling of ‘Welsh' as ‘Welch' is a much-cherished historical peculiarity in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. When the regiment was given its Welsh designation in 1702, the spelling ‘Welch' was in common use, and it became a regimental tradition. That is, until 2006, when the Royal Welch Fusiliers merged with other Welsh regiments to form the ‘Welsh Regiment'.

Welsh is a Celtic language that emerged in the sixth century and has been spoken continuously throughout recorded history in Wales and along the Welsh border with England. By 1911 it had become a minority language, spoken by 43.5 per cent of the population. There are wide variations in dialect between North and South Wales, as well as variations between counties. As such, there is no standard form of the Welsh language (or ‘correct' dialect) to learn.

Bach
– little / small.

Cariad
– dear / darling / love.

Croeso
– welcome.

Cyfarchion
– greetings.

Ffrind
– friend.

Hapus
– happy.

Mam-gu
(or
nain
) – grandmother.

Mawr
– big / great.

Penblwydd
– birthday.

Tad-cu
(or
taid
) – grandfather.

Although the term was used widely by Allied servicemen to describe any form of German field artillery shells, the ‘whizz-bang' was originally attributed to the noise made by shells from German 3-inch field guns. The name was derived from the fact that shells fired from light or field artillery travelled faster than the speed of sound. Thus soldiers heard the typical ‘whizz' noise of a travelling shell before the ‘bang' issued by the gun itself. Whizz-bangs were consequently much feared, since the net result was that defending infantrymen were given virtually no warning of incoming high-velocity artillery fire (as they were from enemy howitzers).

The name of the Belgian town of Ypres was difficult to pronounce for the many thousands of British soldiers who were billeted there or passed through, so it very soon became universally known as ‘Wipers'.

The First Battle of Ypres was fought for the strategic town of Ypres in western Belgium in October and November 1914. The German and Western Allied attempts to secure the town from enemy occupation included a series of further battles in and around the West Flanders Belgian municipality. Ypres was vital to the British need to secure the Channel ports and the army's supply lines. It was the last major obstacle to the German advance on Boulogne and Calais. The Ypres campaign became the culmination point of the Race to the Sea.

The battle highlighted problems in command and control for both sides, with each side missing opportunities to win a significant victory early on. The Germans, in particular, overestimated the numbers and strength of the Allied defences at Ypres, and called off their last offensive too early. The battle was also significant as it witnessed the destruction of the highly experienced and trained British regular army. Having suffered enormous losses for its small size, the ‘Old Contemptibles' effectively disappeared after Ypres, eventually to be replaced by fresh reservists who eventually became an army on a scale to match those of its allies and enemies. The recorded casualties were as follows.

French Army: 50,000–85,000 killed, wounded and missing

Belgian Army: 21,562 killed, wounded and missing

British Army: 7,960 killed in action; 29,562 wounded in action; 17,873 missing in action

Total: 126,957–161,957

German Army: 19,530 killed; 83,520 wounded; 31,265 missing

Total: 134,315

Zouave was the title given to certain light infantry regiments in the French Army, normally serving in French North Africa, during the nineteenth century. The chief distinguishing characteristic of such units was the Zouave uniform, which included short open-fronted jackets, baggy trousers (
serouel
) and often sashes and oriental headgear. The Zouaves of the French Army were first raised in Algeria in 1831, initially recruited solely from the Zouaoua, a tribe of Berbers located in the mountains of the Jurjura Range. The four Zouave regiments of the French Army in the Great War wore their traditional colourful dress during the early months of the war. The power of the machine gun, rapid fire artillery and improved small arms would oblige them to adopt a plain khaki uniform from 1915 onwards to reduce their visibility in battle.

(In approximate order of first appearance or mention, using the name by which they are known in the novel.)

Henry Kewley
, 58, born in Ludlow: Rector of St Andrew's, Presteigne.

Aaron Griffiths
, 63, born in Radnor: local entrepreneur.

Philip Davies
, 40, born in Hereford: auctioneer, Urban District Councillor for Presteigne and Captain, 1st Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Hywel Thomas
, 19, born in Presteigne: farmer, eldest son of the Thomas family of Pentry Farm.

Morgan Thomas
, 18, born in Presteigne: farmer, second son of the Thomas family of Pentry Farm.

Bronwyn Thomas
, 18, born in Presteigne: farmer and domestic, only daughter of the Thomas family of Pentry Farm, twin sister of Morgan.

Geraint Thomas
, 17, born in Presteigne: farmer, third son of the Thomas family of Pentry Farm.

Tom Crisp
, 19, born in Presteigne: local carpenter.

Margaret Killingbeck
, 24, from Muker, Swaledale: sister, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Nursing Service.

Francis Orme
, 23, from Godalming: Lieutenant, 1st Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers.

John Hughes
, 36, from Prestatyn: Colour Serjeant Major, 1st Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers.

Noel Chavasse
, 29, from Oxford: Surgeon-Captain, 10th Battalion King's (Liverpool Regiment, Liverpool Scottish). He graduated with a First Class degree from Oxford in 1907 and ran in the 400 metres for Great Britain in the 1908 Olympic Games in London. He is one of only three men to have won the Victoria Cross twice, the first time on 9 August 1916, at Guillemont, France, and later on 2 August 1917, at Wieltje, Belgium (awarded posthumously).

Dame Emma McCarthy
, 55, born in Paddington, NSW, Australia: highly decorated wartime nurse. She received the Queen's and King's Medal (1902), the Royal Red Cross (1902) and a bar (1918), the Florence Nightingale Medal, the Belgian
Médaille de la Reine Elisabeth
, the French
Légion d'Honneur
and
Médaille des Epidémies
and was appointed Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE).

Emma Maud McCarthy left Australia in 1891 to study nursing in England. After qualifying, she was appointed as a sister at the London Hospital and served as Sister-in-Charge at the Sophia Women's Ward during the South African War. This was followed by seven years' service with the Army Nursing Service Reserve. When the Great War broke out, she was posted to the British Expeditionary Force and served in France and Flanders. As Matron-in-Chief, she was in charge of all British and Allied nurses working in the extended region (around 6,000 nurses at its peak).

Major Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard
, 37, from Hertfordshire: explorer, adventurer, big-game hunter and marksman who made a significant contribution to sniping practice within the British Army during the Great War. Concerned not only with improving the quality of marksmanship, the measures he introduced to counter the threat of German snipers were credited by a contemporary with saving the lives of over 3,500 Allied soldiers.

During his lifetime, he also explored many remote parts of the world, played first-class cricket (including on overseas tours), wrote short stories and novels (one of which was turned into a Douglas Fairbanks film) and was a successful newspaper correspondent and travel writer. He was an active campaigner for animal welfare and instigated legal measures for their protection.

Solomon Joseph Solomon
, 54, from Birchington-on-Sea, Kent: British painter, a founding member of the New English Art Club and member of the Royal Academy. He made an important contribution to the development of camouflage in the Great War, working in particular on tree observation posts and arguing tirelessly for camouflage netting.

William Arthur Cawson
, 44, from Stratton, Cornwall: Chief Ship's Carpenter, HMS
Inflexible
.

Maurice Tait
, 34, from Leyton, London: career soldier and Serjeant, C Company, 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers (designated ‘Z' Company during the Great War).

Harry Woodruff
, 34, from Leyton, London: career soldier and Serjeant, C Company, 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers.

George Ashburner
, 34 from Ashtead, Surrey: Major, Commanding Officer, C Company, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers.

Billy Carstairs
, 42, from Plaistow, London: career soldier and Company Serjeant Major, C Company, 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers.

Maurice James Dease
, 24, from Coole, County Westmeath, Ireland: Lieutenant, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. Dease won the first Victoria Cross of the Great War (awarded posthumously). He is buried at St Symphorien Military Cemetery, Belgium; his Victoria Cross is displayed at the Fusilier Museum at the Tower of London.

Sidney Frank Godley
, 25, from Willesden, North London: Private, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. Advancing German soldiers captured the wounded Private Godley as he was trying to crawl to safety after making a heroic stand. He remained a prisoner of war in a camp at Dallgow-Döberitz until the Armistice. It was in the camp that he was informed that he had been awarded the Victoria Cross. He received the actual medal from King George V, at Buckingham Palace, on 15 February 1919. He died on 29 June 1957 and was buried with full military honours in the town cemetery at Loughton, Essex.

James Orred
, 26, from Blackheath, London: Captain, C Company, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers.

Leicester Carey
, 28, from Feltham, Middlesex: Captain, C Company, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers.

Carl von Tannhausen
, 29, from Eberswalde in Brandenburg, Germany: Rittmeister in the
Gardes du Corps
(Guards Cavalry Division), 1st Cavalry Corps.

Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
, 39: son of Lord Randolph Churchill (Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1890s under Lord Salisbury) and Lady Randolph Churchill (the American heiress Jennie Jerome). Veteran of several conflicts around the world, including the Boer War and the Battle of Omdurman. He was Liberal MP for Dundee and First Lord of the Admiralty. He was variously known as ‘Pig', ‘Pug' and ‘Amber Dog' to his wife, Clementine.

Clementine (Clemmie) Churchill (née Hozier)
, 28: wife of Winston Churchill, familiarly known as ‘Cat', ‘Kat' and ‘Puss'.

Frederick Edwin Smith
, 32: lawyer, Conservative MP for Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, lifelong friend of Winston.

Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome)
, 60: mother of Winston and Jack Churchill and wife of Lord Randolph Churchill, who died in 1895. Lady Randolph married George Cornwallis-West in 1900.

Diana Spencer-Churchill
, 5: Winston's firstborn child, known to the family as ‘Puppy'.

Randolph Spencer-Churchill
, 3: Winston's second child and eldest son, known to the family as ‘Chumbolly'.

Sarah Spencer-Churchill
: born 7 October 1914, the third of Winston's children (who were often referred to by their father as ‘kittens').

John Strange (‘Jack') Spencer-Churchill
, 34, the younger brother of Winston. Veteran of the Boer War, in which he was badly wounded, he was very close to his older brother.

Lady Gwendoline (‘Goonie') Theresa Mary Churchill
(née Bertie)
, 28: Jack Churchill's wife.

Peregrine Spencer-Churchill
, 1: Jack Churchill's infant son, known to the family as ‘Pebbin' (Winston nicknamed Jack's family the ‘Jagoons').

Sir Edgar Speyer
, 51: wealthy Jewish banker and philanthropist. Born in New York, he became a British subject in 1892. He was made a baronet in 1906 and a Privy Counsellor in 1909, but was the subject of anti-German attacks in the press after the outbreak of war.

Sir Edward (‘Eddie') Grey
, 52: British Foreign Secretary from 1905 to 1916. It was Grey who remarked on 3 August 1914, as he stood at his window in the Foreign Office watching the gas lamps being lit: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time.'

Lord Louis of Battenberg
, 60: Churchill's First Sea Lord, a fine sailor with a distinguished career. He was born in Austria (the son of
Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Julia of Battenberg); growing hostility after the outbreak of war forced him from office in October 1914 when Churchill, with great reluctance, asked him to step down. The King, conscious of the stigma of German ancestry, asked Louis to change his name to Mountbatten in 1917.

John Gough
, 35: Serjeant, Special Branch, Metropolitan Police; Winston Churchill's protection officer.

Harold Herbert Asquith
, 61: British Liberal Prime Minister, nicknamed ‘Old Block' or ‘OB' by Winston.

David Lloyd George
, 41: Liberal politician; Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Reginald McKenna
, 41: Liberal politician; Home Secretary.

Sir Charles Hobhouse
, 42: Liberal politician; Postmaster General.

Herbert Horatio Kitchener
, 64:
1st Earl Kitchener, victor of the Battle of Omdurman and hero of the Boer War; Secretary of State for War. ‘K' is Winston's nickname for him.

Douglas Haig
, 53: veteran of the Sudan and Boer wars; General and Commander, 1st Corps, British Expeditionary Force.

Sir John French
, 61: renowned cavalry officer, Boer War veteran and Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force.

Horace Smith-Dorrien
, 61: veteran of Egypt, Sudan, the Zulu and Boer wars; General and Commander, 2nd Corps, British Expeditionary Force.

John Rushworth Jellicoe
, 54: 1st Earl Jellicoe, Admiral of the Fleet; fought in the Egyptian War and the Boxer Rebellion; commanded the Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916.

Edward Hankey
, 39: veteran of the Boer War and the Sudan who served in Egypt as well as being ADC to the Governor of
Western Australia. Brigadier General and Commander, 2nd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment from September to December 1914. Following his heroics at Gheluvelt, Major Hankey was severely wounded. After recovering from his wounds, he commanded the 3rd Battalion, Worcestershire Regiment from August to November 1915.

Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon
, 25: British politician, art collector and social host, entertaining many celebrity guests at his homes, Port Lympne Mansion (originally called Belcaire), Kent, and Trent Park, Hertfordshire, England. Sassoon was a member of the prominent Jewish Sassoon and Rothschild families; he was a cousin of the war poet Siegfried Sassoon. He was MP for Hythe in Kent from 1912, succeeding his father, initially as the ‘Baby of the House'.

Valentine Fleming
, 34: son of the wealthy Scottish banker Robert Fleming. He joined the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars (Winston and Jack's regiment), rising to the rank of major.

Sir Edward Marsh
, 41: British polymath, translator, arts patron and civil servant. He was the sponsor of the Georgian school of poets and a friend to many poets, including Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon. In his career as a civil servant he worked as private secretary to a succession of Britain's most powerful ministers, particularly Winston Churchill (1905–1915). Marsh was a discreet but influential figure within Britain's homosexual community.

Charles (‘Sunny')
Spencer-Churchill
, 42: 9th Duke of Marlborough, British soldier and Conservative politician, and Winston's cousin. He was an officer in the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars, fought in the Boer War and was subsequently appointed Assistant Military Secretary to Lord Roberts, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in South Africa. He returned to active service in the Great War, when he served as Lieutenant-Colonel on the General Staff. Marlborough entered the House of Lords on the early death of his father in 1892 and in 1899 he was appointed
Paymaster-General by Lord Salisbury, a post he held until 1902. He was then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies between 1903 and 1905.
Consuelo Vanderbilt
, 37: a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. Her marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough, became emblematic of the socially advantageous but loveless marriages between American heiresses and European aristocrats that were common during America's so-called Gilded Age.

Sir Alfred William Fortescue Knox
, 44: a career British military officer and later a Conservative Party politician. Born in Ulster, he joined the British Army and was posted to India. In 1911 he was appointed the British Military Attaché in Russia, where he served as a spy. A fluent speaker of Russian, he became a liaison officer to the Imperial Russian Army during the Great War.

John James Hugh Henry Stewart-Murray
, 73: 7th Duke of Atholl (known as ‘Iain'); Chief of the Clan Murray and Commander-in-Chief of the Atholl Highlanders, Europe's only private army.

John George Stewart-Murray
, 43: Marquess of Tullibardine (known as ‘Bardie'), eldest son of the 7th Duke; veteran of the Boer War, Conservative MP for West Perthshire and Commander of the Scottish Horse.

Lord George Stewart-Murray
, 41: (known as ‘Geordie') veteran of the Boer War; a former ADC to Lord Elgin, Viceroy of India, and a major in the Black Watch.

Lord James Stewart-Murray
, 35: (known as ‘Hamish') veteran of the Boer War and a major in the Cameron Highlanders.

John William Dunne
, 39: the son of Irish aristocrat General Sir John Dunne; powered-flight pioneer.