HERE IS A SONG FROM THE GREAT WAR. It is 'Mademoiselle From Armentieres' sung by Jack Charman. The song was widely sung - and rudely parodied - by British soldiers. Click on the media player to hear the music.

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But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

 

THE BATTLE, KNOWN TO MILITARY HISTORIANS AS 'SECOND YPRES' was basically a German assault on several points of The Salient, and began with an gas attack on the French lines at Gravenstafel on April 22nd, 1915. While this gas attack was unprecedented and unexpected, it had been clear for some time to the British and French forces that some kind of assault was imminent. Therefore, there was intense activity right along the front line: trenches and breastworks were being repaired, ammunition and supplies were being carried up to the front with great urgency, and rest periods and leave for individual units was drastically reduced. It is obvious from Eric Gardiner's diary that he was having to write retrospectively, several days at a time, as he was enjoying less and less free time.

On the evening of April 20th, Eric, with a small carrying party from his Company, were moving through a communication trench south west of St Eloi. A letter from his best friend, Billy Cooke, tells what happened next.
"Eric and I were together when it happened. We were bringing up the rear of a small party on the way to an isolated little trench when he was hit in the thigh by a piece of shell. I dressed his wound as best I know how and did what I could to stop the bleeding, but it was a dark night and we were under heavy fire from the Germans. His leg was too badly shattered for me to carry him on my way back to a place of shelter, so I just waited with him for the stretcher bearers, but they never turned up…..Then, with the help of some Tommies from another regiment we carried him to the shelter of a little wood. The other regiment kindly lent me their own stretcher to carry poor old Eric on, but before he could be got to our dressing station, the poor chap died."

THIS LETTER WAS WRITTEN BY COOKE TO ANOTHER SOLDIER. He did write to Eric's parents, but spared them the harrowing details of Eric's death. He concluded,

"Eric and I were very much attached to one another, and I miss him very much indeed. When I came out of the trenches yesterday I visited his grave, but as it was in view of the German lines I was admonished for going there when I got back."

Eric was buried in the grounds of Elzenwalle Chateau, where a makeshift military cemetery had been established. The first permanent markers of British and Commonwealth war graves were sturdy wooden crosses, but long after the war ended, these were systematically replaced with the marble headstones more familiar to modern battlefield visitors. Incidentally, there is one of these to be seen inside the church of St Peter and St Paul in Wisbech. It was the grave marker of 1st Lt Anthony Crookham, the son of the Vicar of Wisbech.

The effect of Eric's death on his family was devastating. It was made worse by the fact that many of Eric's letters home had been published in 'The Advertiser' on a regular basis. Over the previous months, Frederick Gardiner, like all other editors across the land, had written a series of editorials in support of the war effort. Now, he had to find the words for the most difficult piece he would ever be called upon to write.

"Our sympathy, all the keener because tempered by experience, goes out to those families whose losses are reported in the casualty lists. The poignancy of such a loss brings the reality of the war to the very home portal, and shatters hopes long nursed..
The tendency is to lose sight of the main theme in the personally jarring note, but gradually one learns to sing the new song, realising that herein lies the important duty.
Also, while we mourn our losses, we can turn to the results achieved and find consolation in the fact that the sacrifice nobly given is not for naught. The fighting in the neighbourhood of Ypres (is) specially interesting in this district because of the presence of the Cambs Regiment, and others in whom we are interested…"

After the war had ended, the French and Belgian authorities realised that there were just too many tiny cemeteries scattered about the Old Front Line, and so the War Graves Commission set about the melancholy task of disinterring many of the bodies from these small cemeteries, and putting them all together in what were called 'Collection Cemeteries' Eric's remains were re-interred in Voormezeele Enclosure No. 3. The inscription on his headstone is echoed, in plural form, on the town memorial in The Crescent.

OF WISBECH, ENGLAND

GOD GAVE HIM A GREAT THING TO DO, AND HE DID IT

This account was sourced from a collection of Gardiner documents and memorabilia in Wisbech Museum. It seems that Eric's death made the relationship between Frederick and the older son, Grahame, somewhat strained. Later in the war, Grahame was conscripted to fight, but successfully appealed to the Wisbech Tribunal ( a panel set up to review appeals against conscription) on the grounds that he was running the local paper, and thus his work was too valuable at home.

There is a memorial to the Gardiners in Leverington Road Cemetery. The main column bears the names of Frederick, and his wife Amelia. On one of its kerbstones is a reference to Eric - " INTERRED IN A CHATEAU GARDEN"

"You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye,
  Who cheer when soldier lads march by, 
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know 
The hell where youth and laughter go."

Eric Gardiner was fighting in what was loosely called 'The Ypres Sector'. The actually city of Ypres was a few miles to the north of Locre, where Eric was still billeted, but its towers and spires could be seen on a clear day over the flat fields.. In early 1915, there was still much of the medieval city still standing. Photos taken four years later would show hardly one stone left standing on another. The British lines to the east of Ypres were in the form of a salient - that is, an oval 'bite' in to the German lines. The result was that soldiers actually in the Salient had the unique experience of being fired on from the shallow ridges to the north, the east, and the south.
The ground where Eric served his time in the front lines was flat. In peace time, it had been kept drained by a complex mesh of drains and dykes which would have been reminiscent of the Fens around Wisbech. Months of shelling had destroyed the drainage system, and it only took a few shovelfuls of digging down to get to the water table. Consequently the trenches were muddy, treacherous and insanitary.

On 15/2/15, Eric wrote in his diary:
"The day opened miserably with rain and mud. Very early (7 o'clock) one of our big guns started shelling the trenches in front of us. Our nerves were tried by the explosions of the big shells. They were so close that we could see the shells hurtling through the air, and felt that if one were to drop short we would be in a sorry plight. Later on, the Germans shelled the supports behind us ….they were mostly 'Whizzbangs' but some shrapnel was fired, and one near K2 killed 2 and wounded 18. We ate what we could, but none of us was very cheerful and could not eat much. The trench we were in was divided in two by a gate known as Hell's Gate, because when the Gordons attacked the wood in front, a German machine gun was trained on this gate, and as they went through, shot them down. They lost 62 men through this. Unfortunately, some of them still lie in front of this trench and can be seen. It was on this night that Kenneth Powell* was hit while on a fatigue in K2. He has since died of wounds."
*This was Private 1832 Kenneth Powell, of the HAC. Aged 29, son of James and Mary S. Powell of Aldersyde, Reigate, Surrey. He is buried in Loker (Locre) Churchyard. (pictured below)

Soldiers down the ages make do with what they are given. Even today, scarcely a news bulletin goes by without some new story of squaddies having 'the wrong kit', or having to be supported by parcels from home. Sadly there is nothing new under the sun. Kipling summed up the ambiguous relationship that civilians and politicians have with their soldiers:

For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

Despite the cold, the wet, the squalid sanitation and the ever-present danger from shelling, there were clearly moments when the men were out of the line, had time on their hands, and the sun occasionally shone. Memoir after memoir from The Great War reveal that there was one common thread which kept most of the men sane, and able to go about their frightful business with some degree of equanimity. It wasn't patriotism, it wasn't any kind of support for whatever political cause had landed them in the position they were in, it wasn't some vague sense of duty. No, it was a rock-solid conviction that they didn't want to let their mates down. Some of this camaraderie is almost tangible in personal photographs which have survived. In the photo below, Eric is hunched in a cold trench with some of his brothers in arms. Note that they are wearing soft caps. The iconic 'tin hat' which most people associate with Tommies did not come into general service until 1916.

March 1915 came and went with Eric still billeted in Locre. he was in and out of the line, usually at 'the sharp end'. Sometimes his diary entries are unintentionally comic, even reminiscent of Mr Pooter, because they are so formal and understated. Here, he describes a narrow escape while carrying rations back to his unit.
13/3/15 "…and on one occasion a bullet passed through a sack of cheese and bread I was just hoisting onto my shoulder, and took the corner off my water bottle - a close shave. Unfortunately I was carrying the Section rum in my bottle, and had therefore to undergo severe criticism."

In early April, Eric's unit was moved to a hamlet called Elzenwalle, which was dominated by a semi ruined chateau. He was to be part of the fighting at St Eloi, a crossroads village where there had been extensive mining and counter-mining over the winter. While in this sector, Eric bumped into some acquaintances from home-who were serving with the Cambridgeshire Regiment-notably Captain Phillip Muirhead Clayton, who went on to command his regiment, and Jack Ollard, who was invalided home, but went on to be a Wisbech solicitor and Town Clerk.
On April 14th, 1915, Eric wrote:
"We who had not fixed bayonets did so, and just waited for them to come, meaning to give them a hot time, but they came not, and the fire died down. We then came back to the farm. Billy and I went to the Chateau for rations, and after some difficulty owing to people being asleep, got what we wanted and returned to much needed rest."

These were the last words Eric wrote.

TO BE CONCLUDED

Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.

The Wisbech Advertiser was first published in August 1845, and continued in one form or another until 1975. It is now the Fenland Citizen. In 1914 the editor was  F.J. Gardiner, and the family had a general printing business based in Union Street. Frederick and his wife Amelia had two sons. The elder was Grahame, who was already involved in the family business, and Ernest Frederick, known as Eric. 

Eric originally attended Barton School, but was sent away to the rather more prestigious Mill Hill school in London. From there, he had qualified as an accountant. The family was home was 'Trevordale', which still stands at the end of Alexandra Road.

Courtesy of Frederick Gardiner having 'a quiet word' with influential friends, Eric was able to secure a position in one of the elite regiments of the British Army - The Honourable Artillery Company. This was the country's oldest Territorial regiment, and dated back to the time of Henry VIII. It was very much a gentleman's regiment.

The first units of the HAC were sent to France in December 1914. Eric missed this first draft, and was able to spend Christmas in Wisbech, but when he returned to barracks in January 1915, he found that his company was preparing to cross the channel in mid January.

Very much against military regulations, Eric kept a diary. It was beautifully written, both in the sense of the flowing, beautifully legible handwriting, and the apt and careful use of English. The diary is tiny - smaller than an audio cassette. It begins:

This diary belongs to
Private E.F. Gardiner
H.A.C.

Relates his experiences in The Great European War
1914/15

Commencing at arrival at Base Camp at Rouen 25/1/15

Eric's unit traveled by train from Rouen to Bailleul, in Flanders. Bailleul was an important railhead, air depot and hospital centre.

Eric's diary entry for 30/1/15 says:
"On arrival at Bailleul heard for the first time heavy gunfire. Many aeroplanes knocking about. It is reported 1 enemy aeroplane brought down. While walking sound of nine bombs dropped heard. Sounded pretty close, and caused everyone to start and look up."

It should be pointed out that the HAC were not, in fact, an artillery regiment - they were infantry, and their name stems from their earliest days when the word 'artillery was given to any kind of mechanical weapon, such as a musket or a crossbow.
By early February, Gardiner's relatively peaceful baptism into soldiering was over. His company had been moved up into trenches near Kemmel and Locre. 

On 14/2/15, he writes:
"All this time, our guns, against their usual custom) had continued firing at night, and both sides were blazing away, lighting up the country all around. We started out feeling here was something doing…and we halted while the German star shells in numbers lit up the sky around us. The order came sharply. "Lie flat down!" and we all went down like one man. I went down on my stomach in mud which covered our boots over the tops…We then proceeded to relieve our fellows in K1 (trench) having negotiated several awkward places where shells and streams had made the ground knee deep in mud and water."

TO BE CONTINUED

NOW THAT WISBECH HAS BEEN SAVED, AND ALL OUR PROBLEMS HAVE BEEN CONSIGNED TO THE  BIN, Pickwick can return to being his positive and benign self. In this blissful mood, he would like to say how much he enjoys his visits to the town library. In terms of stock, certainly in the fiction section, it is a long way behind Big Sister in March, but P does not want anyone to think that he is complaining about March getting all the attention, because we have been told how wrong that is. Anyway, the ladies in Wisbech library are much more pleasant and helpful, and the library benefits from not having a skate park just outside its door. So, a big 'thank you' to everyone - another big plus for the town, P believes. 

There is one small blemish on the horizon. A mole on the local planning and licensing committee has brought me disturbing news. The library is certainly one of the few premises in the town centre not to have a license to sell booze or lend money, and the brave entrepreneurs who sit in power over us are looking to put that right, as they think the library had become far too elitist anyway, with all those books and things. So here is a sneak preview of the revamped library as it will appear later in the spring.

 PICKWICK WAS OUT AND ABOUT on his trusty charger this afternoon, taking photos of various places and things to do with Wisbech and The Great War. Knowing that there used to be a memorial plaque in the police station, he summoned up courage and knocked on the door to see if he could take a photo of it. A really pleasant officer took him upstairs to where the plaque now hangs in the rest-room.

 WHILE WALKING ALONG TO THE REST ROOM, Pickwick had a heart-stopping moment as he passed an open office door, for who should be sitting at his desk, deep in thought was none other than Inspector Sissons! Now, P had been slightly critical of the Inspector's recent utterances on this blog, and had also written a tetchy letter to the Wisbech Standard on the matter. What if, at that very moment, the Inspector was reading the paper and plotting a savage revenge involving dawn raids on Pickwick Towers, orange suits and extradition to a Guatamalan prison hell-hole?

RESISTING THE TEMPTATION TO CHAT with the affable officer who had shown him the plaque, P made an excuse and left, thanking his maker that his bike was still safely chained to the police station railings. 

WHAT A SILLY OLD BUFFER HE PROVED TO BE, for when he got home and examined the newspaper with trembling fingers, what should he find on the letters page, but ................NOTHING INCRIMINATING! Obviously anticipating problems, the editor had instantly, and very wisely, put the letter straight in the bin!

ON A MORE SERIOUS NOTE, Pickwick will relate, tomorrow, the sad story of the son of a newspaper editor (no, not that one) who had strings pulled to fast-track him into a good regiment at the start of The Great War, and how the story was to end in heartbreak.

PICKWICK RECOGNISES THAT HIS MEMORY IS NOT WHAT IT WAS. But how could he forget about a whole case of premier French bubbly, brought back from the gite last August? The old duffer was searching in his cluttered music room for something else altogether, and found a sealed box of wonderful fizz from:

TRUST ME,  although it is not one of the 'big names' drunk by overpaid reality TV 'stars', or sprayed about by chav-capped F1 victors, it is the Drink Of The Gods. Ariston Fils are a small volume/high quality vinyard who sell almost entirely to the (more discerning) French market. A pretentious snob...? MOI...?

AND NOW FOR SOME MUSIC and a video that, had he watched it, would have had Spielberg beating his way to Pickwick's door for hints and technical advice. In answer to the obvious question, "This blog is meant to be about the Wisbech Community and how we can solve our issues - WHY ARE YOU POSTING A MUSIC VIDEO?" - Because I can, because I can! ENJOY OR IGNORE!

PICKWICK HAS BEEN TRAMPLED UNDERFOOT by the Big Beasts crashing through the Wisbech undergrowth in the last couple of days. The Movers and Shakers have been and gone, leaving their admirers breathless in their wake. Flesh has been pressed, wine glasses have been clinked together on decisions which will shape our future, heads have been nodded gravely, protesters have been cast into the netherworld by howls of scorn, and the world, well at least those in PE 13, waits with bated breath for the full story of How Wisbech Was Saved In Just 24 Hours.

PICKWICK'S IRREVERENT FRIEND, who goes by the name of WOD, has secured international finance, in the way of Five Trillion Nigerian Nairas, for a controversial redevelopment of the Market Place. As soon as the fairground rides have gone, the footings will be dug for a luxury Oasis-style lido-pool and dryside complex. This artist's impression does scant justice to a development which will, undoubtedly, bring Wisbech well into the modern age.

TAKING THE **** IS EASY.  At least it is, if one is lucky enough to live in Wisbech. There are so many easy targets, open goals, fish in barrels - choose your own metaphor. But Pickwick would like to adopt a more serious tone, and take his readers (small in number but high in quality) to Wisbech over 90 years ago. When Pickwick was younger, he wrote a book about three Wisbech men who went off to fight in what was called, optimistically, The War To End All Wars. Here is a very brief story about a Wisbech man who went off to war and never returned.

JAMES COLE was in his forties when the war broke out in 1914. He was married, with young children, and had a steady job with Elgoods. He was old enough to escape the Conscription Act which was brought in to boost manpower after the depredations of 1914 and 1915, but he chose to join up.

WISBECH MEN could choose to fight with many different units, but the two regiments which had a natural claim on the town were the Cambridgeshire Regiment, and The Suffolk Regiment. The Cambs were a Territorial unit - they were not regular full-time soldiers, but most of their strength had signed to say that they would fight abroad if 'the call' came. The Suffolks were a Regular Army Unit, but their volunteer battalion, the 11th Suffolks, recruited in Wisbech. James Cole signed up to fight with the 11th Suffolks.

KITCHENER'S ARMY  was the name given to the huge volunteer army raised as a result of recruiting campaigns  typified by the legendary poster with Kitchener's finger pointing out at passers-by. The great test of Kitchener's Army was to be what we now call The Battle Of The Somme.

IN THE EARLY DAWN  of July 1st 1916, the 11th Suffolks, including James Cole, were poised to attack the German lines just south of Ovillers, a tiny village, east of Albert in northern France. To the east of the untried British troops, on the crest of a gentle ridge were the German Lines. Beneath the German positions was a huge mine - a subterranean cavity packed with thousands of tons of high explosive. The theory was that this mine would detonate, blow the German defenders into oblivion, and this allow the attackers to stroll their way to victory. In reality, there was a gap between the mine detonating and the attack being launched - this time lag allowed surviving defenders to emerge from their deep defensive dugouts and pour withering fire down on the British forces.

THIS SECTOR OF WHAT HAS BEEN DESCRIBED AS THE WORST DAY IN BRITISH MILITARY HISTORY saw carnage almost unimaginable in wars since then. The 11th Suffolks were cut to pieces. James Cole's body was eventually recovered, and buried behind the lines in Becourt Military cemetery. Until the early 1920s, his grave was marked with a simple wooden cross.

MUCH LATER, this cross was replaced with a familiar marble headstone, provided by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

FOR JAMES' WIDOW, SUSANNA, there must have been years of hardship, grief and struggle. She was not alone. Over 700,000 British servicemen and women were killed in The Great War. Susanna and her children survived with little help from the state, apart from a widely-derided commemorative plaque, known as a 'Death Penny'

ALL SHE HAD TO REMIND HER OF JAMES, was his personal effects, eventually returned to her by The War Office.

SUSANNA SURVIVED into what we might call 'modern times'. She raised her children in her little house in Whitby Street. It has long since been wiped off the map by our supreme masters, the town planners.

HER GRANDCHILDREN were brought up to respect the sacrifice of their Grandfather, and when Susanna died, they visited James' grave, and brought back a handful of French earth, which they buried with her ashes in Wisbech cemetery.