June 20, 2025 • 36 mins
Our latest questions from listeners range from could Britain have stood back from conflict in 1914 and not been part of the Great War, how accurate was the final dugout scene in the film 1917, what duties did Royal Field Artillery Drivers have on the battlefields of WW1 and what was the story of the Canadian soldiers who rioted in Britain in 1919 while awaiting demobilisation?
The Old Front Line Youtube Channel: Old Front Line on YouTube.
Recommended novel on 1914: Robert Harris - Precipice (Penguin 2024)
Books on The Canadian Riots:
- The story of the Kinmel Park Camp Riots in 1919 by Julian Putkowski (1989)
- Riots Death and Baseball - Robert H. Griffiths (2019)
Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Welcome to some more questions and answers here on
the old front line.
These are questions submitted byyou, the podcast listeners, and
each month we select some of thebest questions that have been
submitted via email and theDiscord server to answer here
and hopefully give us all freshperspectives and new knowledge
(00:26):
of this vast subject of theGreat War.
So let's begin.
I was back out on the old frontline just last week on the Somme
battlefields filming somecontent for the YouTube channel.
And if you've never had a chanceto have a look at the old front
line YouTube channel, I'll put alink to it in the show notes for
(00:47):
this episode.
It's never going to replace thepodcast, far from it.
It really supplements thepodcast, gives a kind of visual
aspect to what we do, and Ithink that's quite important.
And while I was out there withmy friend John who's helping me
with a YouTube channel, we weretalking about fiction and the
Great War because Johnrecommended a book to me quite
recently which I've been workingmy way through and which I'm
(01:09):
going to mention in one of thequestions.
So let's get down to this week'squestions and answers on this
episode of The Old Frontline andwe're going to begin with our
first question that comes fromAlice Williams via email.
Alice asked, did Britain reallyneed to get involved in the
Great War?
(01:30):
And what do you think theoutcome would have been if we
had not taken the side of Franceand Belgium against Germany and
our allies in 1914?
There's a school of thought ofwhich you are no doubt aware
that Britain has never recoveredfinancially or in other ways
from taking part in the FirstWorld War.
From the vast amount of moneywhich was spent to the hundreds
of thousands of dead, woundedand traumatised soldiers, the
(01:52):
country was left diminished inso many ways despite the Allies'
so-called victory.
So was our involvement in thewar worth it only when 20 years
later we were getting preparedfor another huge fight with
Germany?
Now, I'm not sure I can answer aquestion as to whether any war
was worth it, because with anyconflict, victory or defeat,
(02:15):
there's a price, and that priceis paid in human lives.
And while for the First WorldWar, compared to, say, with the
Second, there is less of whatwould be perceived to be a
threat, if, for most people, yousaid Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolf
Hitler...
Adolf Hitler's pretty clear cutmost people would have said well
(02:36):
he was a cousin of our king andcousin of Tsar Nicholas it was
cousins at war it was kind of aEuropean civil war I mean that
is something you won't have togo far into the literature of
the First World War not alwaysthe best literature to find that
kind of thing but that's notreally at the essence of this
question I don't think in termsof and again going back to the
(02:56):
fiction that I mentioned in theintro to this episode I've just
been reading Robert Harris'sPrecipice which is a set in
Britain at cabinet level, withone of the central characters
being Herbert Asquith, H.H.
Asquith, the Prime Minister, inthat lead-up to the First World
War, with all the machinationsthat led to war, political
intrigue, all that kind ofstuff.
(03:17):
And it's fiction, but it's basedon reality, and he recommends a
lot of really good books at theend of the novel to get you more
informed on the actual historyof what happened.
But fiction can be a good wayinto subjects like the First
World War and I would certainlyrecommend that Robert Harris
book and again I'll put a linkto it in the show notes but
(03:39):
should Britain have really gotinvolved in the First World War
is the first level of yourquestion I think Alice well
Let's say Britain stood back anddid nothing.
Britain had not been involved inEuropean conflict for 99 years
in 1914.
Its last foray into Europe wasthe Battle of Waterloo in June
of 1815 which had kind of set aroute for many nations, amongst
(04:02):
them Prussia, to follow a paththat in many ways would create
the Europe that made the FirstWorld War possible and create
the circumstances that made thatconflict possible as well.
If Britain had stayed back andhad not gone to war over the
invasion of either France orBelgium it was legally tied to
(04:24):
stepping in to protect Belgium aneutral country less so with
France it was the EntenteCordiale which had been signed
in the decades before the GreatWar which the French I'm sure
saw as a treaty but the Britishperhaps less so if we'd have
stood back from both of thosethings one more imperative than
the other then Germany wouldhave succeeded in 1914 It would
(04:47):
have overrun Belgium, controlledit, even if it saw it as a
buffer zone for a route toFrance, it almost certainly
would have occupied it, and itcertainly would have occupied
France, having defeated it,potentially in that Schlieffen
Plan of 1914.
And if it had defeated Francethen, it would have done what it
didn't do in 1871, and thatwould be to take over France's
(05:09):
colonies.
And that really is at theessence of why Britain was never
not going to be involved in theFirst World War.
Empire, was a massive part ofBritish status.
And if you just look at Africa,for example, a big chunk of it
is French, a small chunk of itis Belgium, and another big
chunk of it is British.
And if the Belgian and theFrench parts of Africa had
(05:32):
suddenly been under Germancontrol, then even if Britain
had never fought on Europeansoil in this conflict, it
certainly would have gone to warover Africa.
It would not have stood back andwatched its empire anywhere on
the globe be threatened by theGerman acquisition of empire and
creating a country that couldeasily become on parity really
(05:54):
with Britain in terms of itseconomic political and military
capabilities through theacquisition of this empire so I
think Britain would never havestood back and let that happen
because the collapse theoccupation the overrunning of
Belgium and France wouldpotentially have been
catastrophic for Britain and nowGermany Just as would happen a
(06:18):
generation later would be justacross the channel and that
would affect all kinds of thingsfrom an island nation, even with
the Navy behind it.
And there was a sense of justicehere as well from a British
perspective.
The Kaiser's Germany, KaiserWilhelm II's Germany was as much
a threat to them.
as Adolf Hitler's Germany was ageneration later.
(06:40):
They could see their whole wayof life being potentially
changed by German success in awar in 1914.
And so I really cannot ever seeBritain just sitting back as it
had done for the last almostcentury.
And of course what you say hereis right.
Britain went to war and for allnations in Europe and beyond
(07:04):
Europe the First World War was awatershed.
It changed society.
It changed the world in allkinds of different ways forever.
And Britain sufferedsubstantially and its empire as
well.
It sees the beginning of afragmentation of an empire into
eventually a commonwealth and itsees a nation damaged and
(07:27):
economically huge losses on thebattlefield over three quarters
of a million British dead by theend of the Great War once you
add the Empire to that well overa million and a country having
fought four years of war was upto its neck in debt so there was
a price to pay as you say forthis victory to do the right
(07:49):
thing often costs on all kindsof different levels but I think
that was a generation of peoplewithin Britain who felt felt
that this was the right thing todo and even despite that outcome
it was still considered worth itif you look at the language of
sacrifice and how that sacrificewas described in the post war
(08:10):
period it is about therighteousness of that sacrifice
that the cost had been worth itwe may now look back and see
that differently but from acontemporary point of view their
opinion was not the same as ourstheir opinion shaped by
experience shaped by thatexperience of loss I guess that
(08:33):
many wanted to believe thatthere was some purpose to that
loss.
And you see that being expressedin...
the many, the myriad of waysthat that generation is
eventually memorialised.
But that doesn't mean thatpeople didn't question it.
There was a feeling amongst manymen who'd survived that there
(08:54):
was too much emphasis on thedead and memorialising that
generation that had fallen.
And that led to war memorialsbeing daubed with graffiti by
those veterans, which read,"'Remember the dead, but don't
forget the living.'" that farmore men had come home than
those had been killed on thebattlefronts and there was
(09:15):
certainly a decade or so afterthe war with the publication of
war memoirs many reflections onservice and sacrifice asking
these kind of questions was itall worth it there was a classic
memoir the first world warcalled and all for what in that
period particularly once youmove into the 30s with the
resurgence of interest in booksabout the first world war and
(09:37):
the whole political movementsgoing on within Europe leading
to that polarised battle betweenleft and right, communism and
fascism and the arrival of theNational Socialists, the Nazis
in Germany and that path ofcourse to that next conflict.
I guess what I'm saying Alice isI don't necessarily have an
answer to your questions herebut it is food for thought and
(10:00):
there's plenty of books outthere on aspects of this that
I'd thoroughly recommend fromHarris's novels to more recent
books about the pathway to theFirst World War and British
involvement in it the drama 37Days BBC did for the centenary
pretty sure that's still oniPlayer and there's also The
Sleepwalkers which I don'tnecessarily agree with
(10:22):
everything in that book but it'san interest So a great question
and I know I say this often butit could be a podcast in its own
right and maybe it will be oneday.
So thanks for that Alice.
So let's move on to questionnumber two which also comes via
(10:43):
email from Steve McQuaid.
And Steve asks, When is any filmever perfect from a historical
(11:37):
point of view?
and you raise an interestingpoint here because this
particular part of the filmwhich is towards the end when
the runner's going to find theunit he's got to deliver this
message to he discovers finallywhere they are they've moved
into a series of very shallowchalk cut trenches on that big
green landscape and they'reshallow trenches there's no
(11:59):
proper parapet or paradosthere's no sandbags or duck
boards they're just kind ofgullies cut into the chalk and
we see go down the communicationtrench into this system of
positions that is on the frontline and finally with being
thrown out the trench andrunning down no man's land as
these guys are going over thetop he gets to battalion
(12:21):
headquarters which is in abunker as you say and on one
level perhaps that shouldn't bethere because what we're seeing
here is in some degrees anaspect of the truth because when
the British advanced to theHindenburg line they got into
these bits of open field now theGermans had hadn't provided
positions for them they had todig in and it's amazing how
(12:42):
quickly a man digs in when he'sunder fire so Over the first few
days of being in these areas,positions were made on the edges
of villages or copses or inthese fields, shallow trenches,
and then at night more men wouldbe brought up.
You've got a huge workforceavailable to you.
You can put that to use withpicks and shovels and work on
(13:05):
those trenches pretty quicklyand expand those basic positions
that have been dug by men underfire.
The trenches are deepened, thetrenches are widened, the
crenellations, the zigzag areeffect is put in proper system
of trenches is established witha front line support line
reserve line communicationtrenches linking them up and
(13:25):
then duck boarding trenchsupports sandbags on the front
of the trench the parapetsandbags at the back of the
trench the parados and all theother features that are in there
from funk holes for the soldiersto rest in to ammunition points
and all kinds of equipment thatis needed has to be installed in
these trenches you've left allthat behind and in the trenches
(13:47):
that you've had to evacuate asthe enemy has pulled back so
you've got to establish thatkind of infrastructure again and
you're quite right that wouldhave taken weeks and months
which is why when the Germansstarted pulling back in February
and March to the Hindenburg lineand the British began to
establish their positionsopposite that Hindenburg line it
was nearly a month and a bitbefore the fighting in Arras
(14:11):
onto that Hindenburg line tookplace and even in a week a
trench system could easily beconstructed in a given area
given that you could bring in abrigade size four battalions of
men to work on that in a fairlysmall area but I think what
you're seeing in the film is adegree of what you've described
as poetic license I think thewriter and director of this film
(14:34):
wanted to accelerate aspects ofthe storyline you couldn't
really spend 30 minutes of thefilm watching men dig trenches
and build a dugout so you'vemoved the kind storyline forward
a bit to tell that story thatwider story and you're not just
in a system of shallow trenchesyou're now in a system of
(14:55):
shallow trenches where there isone or two features which are
needed in the storyline and youneed a headquarters for the
runner to go to to get to thebattalion commander Cumberbatch
who plays him to try and deliverthat message so I think what
this is is kind of a part of theplot really it's a device within
the plot to help tell the widerstory and something that you see
(15:19):
quite a lot in that movie 1917so he gets from the rear area
where they're singing in thewood through the communication
trenches straight into the frontline very quickly whereas there
would have been a bit ofdistance between all those
locations and then when he getsback to the dressing station
behind the lines that looks asif it's just behind the front
line trench and I think theykind of shorten the distance
(15:42):
between those two places to keepthat plot to keep that story
moving so it is a film probablyin reality in some of those
early attacks where for examplethe 7th division moved forward
to attack the outposts of theHindenburg line around Buller
Corps for example they wouldhave had trenches very similar
to what we saw in the filmshallow trenches cut into that
(16:04):
chalk landscape but the properinfrastructure of those trenches
just wouldn't have existed atthat stage and battalion HQs
probably would have been inshell holes or buildings or
embankments or something justaway from the fighting area and
not properly established.
But for a film of this nature,that probably would have been
too detailed and not thatcomprehensible to an audience
(16:27):
who wouldn't have reallyunderstood that.
So I guess it's all part of whatFirst World War movie making is
all about.
But it is a great film.
I think despite some of theproblems within it and some odd
little quirks like the pilot andthe plane and the bayonet and
all the other things we'vespoken about in the review of
that film, I think it does tella wider truth about the First
(16:48):
World War, and it exposes thefact that the landscape of the
First World War was not just mudand shell holes and water and
slime, that there were theselandscapes that were almost
untouched.
And even in that area oppositethe Hindenburg Line, after the
fighting at Arras in the springof 1917, the area chosen for the
(17:12):
Battle of Cambrai in November1917 would have been very
similar.
When we look panoramicphotographs taken by the Royal
Engineers and air photos ofCombré before the tanks went in,
before the bombardment, beforethe British attack there.
It is very similar terrain towhat we see depicted in the film
1917 and with the only realproper deep established trenches
(17:36):
being those pre-preparedpositions that are part of that
wider Hindenburg line.
So a fascinating question there,Steve.
Thanks for that, which helps ustalk about a kind of wider
aspect of how First World Warfilms are made and what they
tell us and how that links tothe real history.
So on to question number three.
This one comes from Sean Turner,also on email.
(18:00):
My great-grandfather, AlecWalker, served in the Royal
Field Artillery as a driver,joining up in the huge rush at
the outbreak of the war.
He passed away when I was atoddler, and I gather, like many
veterans, he never really spokeof his service or experiences.
What was the day-to-day life ofa driver in the Royal Field
Artillery like?
Was life dangerous for thesemen, and what would he have
experienced in his role?
(18:21):
I do know that he suffered aback injury that that led him to
be sent home for a few monthsand then later awarded the
silver womb badge?
And secondly, is it possible tofind out where he served in
France and at what periodsduring the war as I couldn't
find this information onancestry?
Well, Sean, The Royal FieldArtillery was one of the main
parts of the artillery in theFirst World War.
(18:43):
It was broken up intoessentially three branches.
The Royal Horse Artillery thatoperated with largely cavalry
divisions and had horseartillery weapons like
13-pounder field guns.
They're the ones that still firethe salutes on ceremonials
today.
And then the Royal FieldArtillery that had weapons from
18-pounder up to 4.5-inchhowitzers.
(19:04):
And then the Royal GarrisonArtillery that operated 6-inch
guns and above right up to15-inch railway guns and heavy
guns.
So the Royal Field Artillery,which your great-grandfather,
Alec Walker, was in, werenormally divisional-level
artillery units.
There was normally three RoyalField Artillery brigades in an
infantry division as part oftheir support units, in this
(19:25):
case to provide their divisionalfirepower.
But also, as the war went on, alot of what were called army
brigades of Royal FieldArtillery were formed, which
were not attached to specificformations and could be moved up
and down the front so that meantthere was much more flexibility
in where you could moveartillery around and all of the
(19:46):
Royal Field Artillery units thatoperated all were horse-drawn
units they were not mechanizedin any way so that meant with a
gun team you had the field gunyou had a limber with two
drivers on it who were in chargeof the team of horses that
pulled the limber and pulled thegun and the drivers were the
(20:07):
ones for maneuvering thosehorses so they got down the
roads and round the bends andover all the obstacles correctly
and took the weapons from A to Bso they could be taken to new
locations to be dug in there andthe rank of driver was a
specific one for these men sowhen people see driver they
think somebody driving a vehiclea driver is someone in charge or
(20:30):
part of a team in charge of thehorses that pull the limbers and
pull the guns and so they areresponsible for for the wider
welfare of the horses in theirteam and I interviewed quite a
few Great War veterans who weredrivers in the Royal Field
Artillery who absolutely lovedthe horses that they served with
(20:52):
many many years later when Iwent to see War Horse with my
daughter it brought back manymany memories of talking to
these veterans who cried morereally about the loss or the
injuries and the wounding oftheir horses in combat than they
did about some of their mateswho were killed on the Somme or
at Passchendaele or whatever itwas so there was a great bond
(21:15):
between the driver and thehorses that formed part of his
team and if the horses are beingwounded that shows that the
whole team the drivers includedare under threats, this is not
any kind of safe job, therewasn't really safe jobs of any
description in the First WorldWar if your work brought you
onto the battlefield and whilethe infantry who were, of
(21:38):
course, the tip of the spear inmost battles of the First World
War, might have unkindlyreferred to the artillery as
thousand-mile snipers,indicating that they were miles
away from the battlefront and insome kind of safe, cushy job.
The reality was that guns wereincredibly important, often very
close to the areas of thefighting, and had to be brought
(22:00):
up often over open terrain, notjust at night but sometimes
during the day, and that theenemy were always seeking
artillery, to knock it out,destroy it, neutralise it and
with it the horses and with itthe men that manned the guns and
led those horse teams pullingthe guns up to their gun sites
to fire and take part in thefighting.
(22:22):
So that meant that the artillerysuffered huge levels of
casualties in the First WorldWar and many, many drivers were
killed going up from Ypres toHellfire Corner and along the
Menin Road during the ThirdBattle of Ypres.
You don't have to go far in thecemeteries in that area to find
drivers who were killed on theirlimbers as shells came down to
(22:42):
try and take out those lines ofguns moving up so this was not
any kind of safe job and beingup high on a limber if a shell
came down and did damage to thelimber or frightened the horses
and they bolted you could bethrown from the limber injure
yourself I mean I don't know ifthat is the circumstances which
happened to your greatgrandfather but there could be
(23:04):
injuries like that caused bybeing thrown from a moving
vehicle essentially as well asshrapnel or gas and all the
other things that these men hadto face and there's plenty of
memoirs of artillerymen in theFirst World War which it's worth
kind of looking at to get asense of what the experience of
men like this, what theirexperiences were on these
(23:26):
battlefields of the Great War.
In terms of tracing soldierswe've had an episode where we
looked at how to trace soldiersin the Great War and you've gone
on to Ancestry which is one ofthe main providers of military
records for the First World Warand you fail to find very much
about him.
Unfortunately that is all toocommon the case because so many
(23:47):
records were destroyed in theSecond World War so the complete
picture of what happened tothese men have been lost and the
problem with a unit like theRoyal Field Artillery is there's
hundreds of artillery brigadesso without knowing which one he
was in it's very difficult tosay exactly where he was and
when these wounds could havebeen and where his service took
(24:10):
him.
If he was awarded a 1914 or1914-15 star, and you know from
the medal index card thatthere's a date of overseas
service, you may be able to tiethat into when a division or an
artillery unit went overseas andnarrow it down to a handful of
units, or if you're very lucky,perhaps just one, and then you
(24:30):
could consult the war diary.
Now, artillery units are muchsmaller than infantry
battalions, and there's muchmore of a chance of ordinary men
in the ranks being mentioned inthose war It's something I've
seen quite a lot.
You have a soldier who's beenkilled or wounded on a
particular date, and when youlook at the war diary for a
field artillery brigade, veryoften they're mentioned in there
(24:51):
by name.
So it is worth kind ofpersevering with this, even if a
service record for him does notsurvive.
And if you look for one of thoseon Ancestry and you haven't
found it, unfortunately theyaren't anywhere else.
They've digitised the survivingrecord.
So if there's no trace, thenthat's it, I'm afraid.
It is worth looking at.
at the Western Front Associationpension records because if he
(25:15):
got a silver wound badge then hemight have potentially have
qualified for a pension andsometimes on those pension cards
that the WFA have on theirwebsite if you're lucky then you
might find that it doesn't justsay Royal Field Artillery it
might say 121 Brigade RoyalField Artillery or whatever it
is so it's worth looking atthose and looking at Various
(25:39):
different sources like that,often fragmentary, is a way of
kind of putting those jigsawpieces of his service together
to try and get some kind ofmeaning out of it.
It's complicated and it can betime-consuming and often very
frustrating, but it's worthtrying to put those pieces
together.
But it is much more difficult totry and trace the men who served
(26:00):
in those big corps of the army,like the artillery and like the
engineers and like the armyservice corps, if you haven't
got a specific...
unit that you know that theyserved in because there are so
many that served in all thesedifferent theatres of war.
But even if you aren't able toentirely piece that service
(26:21):
record together, when you thinkof those battlefields of the
First World War, think of himatop his limber with a fellow
driver and a team of horses infront of them, the gun bouncing
around on the road behind themand them darting down a road in
France or Flanders and takingthe guns forward up to the gun
(26:41):
sites and then the gunnersmoving in to get those guns
established and firing on theenemy and then afterwards the
the limber teams going up toreattach the guns to the limber
and get them out of the gun pitsand off down the road and back
to safety and it's the movementof military traffic like that
that i often think of every timei'm going around hellfire corner
(27:02):
on a coach or going on that roadbetween popperinger and eat that
main arterial road that fed thewar in Flanders with men,
ammunition, food, water,equipment and the guns
themselves.
Drivers like Alec Walkercommanding those horses, taking
those guns ever forward towardsthe front line.
(27:24):
And it's long overdue for us tohave an episode about the work
of the artillery in the GreatWar, something we will come to.
So thanks for that question.
I'm going to move on to ourfourth and final question that
comes from the Reverend MatthewStevens on our Discord server,
another way to post questionsfor these Q&A episodes.
(27:46):
He asks, I've read about theriots that occurred in Britain
with Canadian soldiers awaitingdemobilisation in 1918 and 1919.
Can you provide some moredetailed information and suggest
some sources of additionaldetails on this story?
Well, this is a really goodquestion about a much
lesser-known aspect of the endof the First World War, in many
(28:09):
respects the aftermath of theFirst World War, and something
that I didn't know a lot aboutuntil I watched a Channel 4 film
made in cooperation betweenChannel 4, Wales and Canada in
1987 called Going Home thatdramatises the story of Canadian
soldiers kept in a camp, whichis meant to be a criminal camp
(28:31):
up in North Wales, awaitingdemobilisation and leading to
riots and deaths as well.
Now this is a bit of drama, butthe historical advisor for this
drama was Julian Patowski, whohad then published his book Shot
at Dawn with Julian Sykes aboutthe executions in the Great War,
(28:52):
the men shot at dawn, executedby firing squad for a whole
variety of crimes.
And Military Crime andPunishment, And some of those
kind of connected lesser aspectsof the First World War was one
of Julian's specialities,really.
And he went on to write, and youasked for some potential sources
(29:12):
for this, a book called TheStory of the Kimnel Park Camp
Riots in 1919, which waspublished by Julian, a little
paperback book, in 1989.
And since then, more recently,there's been a book by, I think,
a Welsh historian, Robert H.
Griffiths, in 2019 called Riots,Death and Baseball, which also
(29:36):
tells the story of the Canadiansinvolved in these riots.
So what's the story?
It's not just at Kimnell Park.
There were two key locationswhere the Canadians rioted
because the men at those campsfelt they were being kept there
for far too long before theywere being sent home.
One of those was in Surrey atWhitley Camp, and this was a big
(29:58):
camp formed initially for thefor Kitchener's army which
greatly expanded the South Downsbattalions of the Royal Sussex
were there before they went toFrance in 1916 the Canadians
then took it over it became abig Canadian depot and a lot of
Canadian troops after thearmistice were sent there prior
to demobilisation and as Iunderstand it the Canadians the
(30:21):
Canadian Expeditionary Forceoperated a similar system to the
British the earlier yourenlistment in theory the quicker
your release and dischargehappened but that seems to have
broken down a bit and at WhitleyCamp this was a main Canadian
demobilisation camp and on the4th 5th of March 1919 around a
(30:42):
thousand Canadian soldiersrioted after there were repeated
delays in them being sent homethe soldiers concerned attacked
canteens they destroyed militaryrecords which I'm sure didn't
help with the whole process ofdemobilisation and they looted
property and caused a lot ofdamage And the riot was there
(31:02):
sparked in part by the arrest ofa popular soldier and the
growing suspicion that shippingspots that were meant for
Canadian soldiers being senthome were being allocated
unfairly.
And this is a kind of recurringtheme that a belief grew that
Canadian ministers, politicians,politicians, business owners
(31:26):
were profiteering from the useof shipping to ship material
across the Atlantic rather thanCanadian soldiers who were meant
to be going home.
Now, I'm not sure of the truthof that, but that was certainly
a widespread belief that led toa lot of disorder.
And the second big incident,which was around about the same
(31:46):
kind of time in March 1919, wasat Kimmel Park.
This was the most violent anddeadly riot that took place.
took place on British soilinvolving Canadian soldiers, and
the camp was located near Rhylin North Wales.
There was about 15,000 men ofthe CEF, Canadian Expeditionary
(32:06):
Force, being kept here andawaiting demobilisation.
And once again, there weredelays, unexplained delays.
Perhaps military authoritiesfelt they didn't have to explain
to the men, but that caused alot of frustration and riots
broke out over this.
And in the riots here that wentmuch more violent than the ones
(32:28):
at Whitley, five soldiers werekilled and at least 23 were
injured.
Military buildings were looted,burned and destroyed.
and at least 60 Canadiansoldiers were arrested and
dozens were subsequentlycourt-martialed.
Now, no one was executed forthis.
(32:49):
The death penalty did not applynow that the war was over.
They were not on active serviceon a front line, but of course
they could be facing longperiods of detention in prison
as a consequence of theiractions here.
And this was also a period withthe civil war going on in Russia
where Allied troops werefighting alongside men who were
(33:11):
still loyal to the Tsar althoughhe was dead against Bolshevism
against the Bolsheviks in thatRussian Civil War there was a
feeling within Britain or fearreally within Britain that
something similar could happenthere and certainly in that bit
of drama that I mentioned goinghome that docudrama really from
the 1980s one of the aspects ofthe storyline there was that one
(33:36):
of the Canadian officers claimedthat he'd seen a red flag a
communist flag being flown andthat then led to the response
where men opened fire andCanadian soldiers were killed it
certainly wasn't the finest hourfor anyone involved in this and
the frustration you can imaginethe frustration of Canadian
(33:57):
soldiers some of whom had spentspent years on the Western
Front, sitting in these camps,waiting to be sent home and
being given lame excuses all thetime.
You can see that the kind offrustrations that they had just
bubbled over into this unrest.
Eventually, the Canadianmilitary authorities got their
act together and these men wereproperly demobilised and sent
(34:21):
home.
And the men who died in theriots do have war graves.
I've been to the littlechurchyard, St Margaret, its
church in north wales not farfrom where the camp was located
where you can find a plot ofcanadian war graves some of them
are men who died of influenzabecause this is also kind of in
that period in which influenzawas sweeping its way across the
(34:44):
world and amongst them are thesewho died in the riots for a long
long time i guess they were kindof silent witnesses but with
that drama with julianpatowski's book and the more
recent publication then thiscast a bit more light on an
aspect of the First World Warthat I'm sure many people would
(35:04):
not even consider.
The drama Going Home from the1980s that was on Channel 4 I
don't think was ever repeatedand it's not available on DVD or
any streaming services which isa great shame because it was a
really good drama with somegreat actors of that period and
the trench scenes where one ofthe characters has flashbacks to
(35:26):
his experiences on the WesternFront were particularly So who
knows, maybe one day it'll popup on Netflix.
But an excellent question,Reverend Stevens, and thank you
so much for enabling us to talkabout this lesser-known aspect
of the Great War.
So that's all of our questionsfor this week.
I hope it's been anotherinteresting episode of the Q&As.
(35:48):
And as always, you can send yourquestions in via email or via
the Discord server or even viafan mail.
And there's links to all ofthose on the show notes for this
episode.
But until we meet again for somemore questions and answers on
the old front line.
(36:12):
You've been listening to anepisode of The Old Frontline
with me, military historian PaulReid.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcor.
You can follow the podcast atoldfrontlinepod.
Check out the website atoldfrontline.co.uk where you'll
find lots of podcast extras andphotographs and links to books
that are mentioned in thepodcast.
(36:33):
And if you feel like supportingus, you can go to our Patreon
page at patreon.com slash oldfront line or support us on buy
me a coffee at buymeacoffee.comslash old front line links to
all of these are on our websitethanks for listening and we'll
see you again soon
Welcome to some more questions and answers here on
the old front line.
These are questions submitted byyou, the podcast listeners, and
each month we select some of thebest questions that have been
submitted via email and theDiscord server to answer here
and hopefully give us all freshperspectives and new knowledge
(00:26):
of this vast subject of theGreat War.
So let's begin.
I was back out on the old frontline just last week on the Somme
battlefields filming somecontent for the YouTube channel.
And if you've never had a chanceto have a look at the old front
line YouTube channel, I'll put alink to it in the show notes for
(00:47):
this episode.
It's never going to replace thepodcast, far from it.
It really supplements thepodcast, gives a kind of visual
aspect to what we do, and Ithink that's quite important.
And while I was out there withmy friend John who's helping me
with a YouTube channel, we weretalking about fiction and the
Great War because Johnrecommended a book to me quite
recently which I've been workingmy way through and which I'm
(01:09):
going to mention in one of thequestions.
So let's get down to this week'squestions and answers on this
episode of The Old Frontline andwe're going to begin with our
first question that comes fromAlice Williams via email.
Alice asked, did Britain reallyneed to get involved in the
Great War?
(01:30):
And what do you think theoutcome would have been if we
had not taken the side of Franceand Belgium against Germany and
our allies in 1914?
There's a school of thought ofwhich you are no doubt aware
that Britain has never recoveredfinancially or in other ways
from taking part in the FirstWorld War.
From the vast amount of moneywhich was spent to the hundreds
of thousands of dead, woundedand traumatised soldiers, the
(01:52):
country was left diminished inso many ways despite the Allies'
so-called victory.
So was our involvement in thewar worth it only when 20 years
later we were getting preparedfor another huge fight with
Germany?
Now, I'm not sure I can answer aquestion as to whether any war
was worth it, because with anyconflict, victory or defeat,
(02:15):
there's a price, and that priceis paid in human lives.
And while for the First WorldWar, compared to, say, with the
Second, there is less of whatwould be perceived to be a
threat, if, for most people, yousaid Kaiser Wilhelm II, Adolf
Hitler...
Adolf Hitler's pretty clear cutmost people would have said well
(02:36):
he was a cousin of our king andcousin of Tsar Nicholas it was
cousins at war it was kind of aEuropean civil war I mean that
is something you won't have togo far into the literature of
the First World War not alwaysthe best literature to find that
kind of thing but that's notreally at the essence of this
question I don't think in termsof and again going back to the
(02:56):
fiction that I mentioned in theintro to this episode I've just
been reading Robert Harris'sPrecipice which is a set in
Britain at cabinet level, withone of the central characters
being Herbert Asquith, H.H.
Asquith, the Prime Minister, inthat lead-up to the First World
War, with all the machinationsthat led to war, political
intrigue, all that kind ofstuff.
(03:17):
And it's fiction, but it's basedon reality, and he recommends a
lot of really good books at theend of the novel to get you more
informed on the actual historyof what happened.
But fiction can be a good wayinto subjects like the First
World War and I would certainlyrecommend that Robert Harris
book and again I'll put a linkto it in the show notes but
(03:39):
should Britain have really gotinvolved in the First World War
is the first level of yourquestion I think Alice well
Let's say Britain stood back anddid nothing.
Britain had not been involved inEuropean conflict for 99 years
in 1914.
Its last foray into Europe wasthe Battle of Waterloo in June
of 1815 which had kind of set aroute for many nations, amongst
(04:02):
them Prussia, to follow a paththat in many ways would create
the Europe that made the FirstWorld War possible and create
the circumstances that made thatconflict possible as well.
If Britain had stayed back andhad not gone to war over the
invasion of either France orBelgium it was legally tied to
(04:24):
stepping in to protect Belgium aneutral country less so with
France it was the EntenteCordiale which had been signed
in the decades before the GreatWar which the French I'm sure
saw as a treaty but the Britishperhaps less so if we'd have
stood back from both of thosethings one more imperative than
the other then Germany wouldhave succeeded in 1914 It would
(04:47):
have overrun Belgium, controlledit, even if it saw it as a
buffer zone for a route toFrance, it almost certainly
would have occupied it, and itcertainly would have occupied
France, having defeated it,potentially in that Schlieffen
Plan of 1914.
And if it had defeated Francethen, it would have done what it
didn't do in 1871, and thatwould be to take over France's
(05:09):
colonies.
And that really is at theessence of why Britain was never
not going to be involved in theFirst World War.
Empire, was a massive part ofBritish status.
And if you just look at Africa,for example, a big chunk of it
is French, a small chunk of itis Belgium, and another big
chunk of it is British.
And if the Belgian and theFrench parts of Africa had
(05:32):
suddenly been under Germancontrol, then even if Britain
had never fought on Europeansoil in this conflict, it
certainly would have gone to warover Africa.
It would not have stood back andwatched its empire anywhere on
the globe be threatened by theGerman acquisition of empire and
creating a country that couldeasily become on parity really
(05:54):
with Britain in terms of itseconomic political and military
capabilities through theacquisition of this empire so I
think Britain would never havestood back and let that happen
because the collapse theoccupation the overrunning of
Belgium and France wouldpotentially have been
catastrophic for Britain and nowGermany Just as would happen a
(06:18):
generation later would be justacross the channel and that
would affect all kinds of thingsfrom an island nation, even with
the Navy behind it.
And there was a sense of justicehere as well from a British
perspective.
The Kaiser's Germany, KaiserWilhelm II's Germany was as much
a threat to them.
as Adolf Hitler's Germany was ageneration later.
(06:40):
They could see their whole wayof life being potentially
changed by German success in awar in 1914.
And so I really cannot ever seeBritain just sitting back as it
had done for the last almostcentury.
And of course what you say hereis right.
Britain went to war and for allnations in Europe and beyond
(07:04):
Europe the First World War was awatershed.
It changed society.
It changed the world in allkinds of different ways forever.
And Britain sufferedsubstantially and its empire as
well.
It sees the beginning of afragmentation of an empire into
eventually a commonwealth and itsees a nation damaged and
(07:27):
economically huge losses on thebattlefield over three quarters
of a million British dead by theend of the Great War once you
add the Empire to that well overa million and a country having
fought four years of war was upto its neck in debt so there was
a price to pay as you say forthis victory to do the right
(07:49):
thing often costs on all kindsof different levels but I think
that was a generation of peoplewithin Britain who felt felt
that this was the right thing todo and even despite that outcome
it was still considered worth itif you look at the language of
sacrifice and how that sacrificewas described in the post war
(08:10):
period it is about therighteousness of that sacrifice
that the cost had been worth itwe may now look back and see
that differently but from acontemporary point of view their
opinion was not the same as ourstheir opinion shaped by
experience shaped by thatexperience of loss I guess that
(08:33):
many wanted to believe thatthere was some purpose to that
loss.
And you see that being expressedin...
the many, the myriad of waysthat that generation is
eventually memorialised.
But that doesn't mean thatpeople didn't question it.
There was a feeling amongst manymen who'd survived that there
(08:54):
was too much emphasis on thedead and memorialising that
generation that had fallen.
And that led to war memorialsbeing daubed with graffiti by
those veterans, which read,"'Remember the dead, but don't
forget the living.'" that farmore men had come home than
those had been killed on thebattlefronts and there was
(09:15):
certainly a decade or so afterthe war with the publication of
war memoirs many reflections onservice and sacrifice asking
these kind of questions was itall worth it there was a classic
memoir the first world warcalled and all for what in that
period particularly once youmove into the 30s with the
resurgence of interest in booksabout the first world war and
(09:37):
the whole political movementsgoing on within Europe leading
to that polarised battle betweenleft and right, communism and
fascism and the arrival of theNational Socialists, the Nazis
in Germany and that path ofcourse to that next conflict.
I guess what I'm saying Alice isI don't necessarily have an
answer to your questions herebut it is food for thought and
(10:00):
there's plenty of books outthere on aspects of this that
I'd thoroughly recommend fromHarris's novels to more recent
books about the pathway to theFirst World War and British
involvement in it the drama 37Days BBC did for the centenary
pretty sure that's still oniPlayer and there's also The
Sleepwalkers which I don'tnecessarily agree with
(10:22):
everything in that book but it'san interest So a great question
and I know I say this often butit could be a podcast in its own
right and maybe it will be oneday.
So thanks for that Alice.
So let's move on to questionnumber two which also comes via
(10:43):
email from Steve McQuaid.
And Steve asks, When is any filmever perfect from a historical
(11:37):
point of view?
and you raise an interestingpoint here because this
particular part of the filmwhich is towards the end when
the runner's going to find theunit he's got to deliver this
message to he discovers finallywhere they are they've moved
into a series of very shallowchalk cut trenches on that big
green landscape and they'reshallow trenches there's no
(11:59):
proper parapet or paradosthere's no sandbags or duck
boards they're just kind ofgullies cut into the chalk and
we see go down the communicationtrench into this system of
positions that is on the frontline and finally with being
thrown out the trench andrunning down no man's land as
these guys are going over thetop he gets to battalion
(12:21):
headquarters which is in abunker as you say and on one
level perhaps that shouldn't bethere because what we're seeing
here is in some degrees anaspect of the truth because when
the British advanced to theHindenburg line they got into
these bits of open field now theGermans had hadn't provided
positions for them they had todig in and it's amazing how
(12:42):
quickly a man digs in when he'sunder fire so Over the first few
days of being in these areas,positions were made on the edges
of villages or copses or inthese fields, shallow trenches,
and then at night more men wouldbe brought up.
You've got a huge workforceavailable to you.
You can put that to use withpicks and shovels and work on
(13:05):
those trenches pretty quicklyand expand those basic positions
that have been dug by men underfire.
The trenches are deepened, thetrenches are widened, the
crenellations, the zigzag areeffect is put in proper system
of trenches is established witha front line support line
reserve line communicationtrenches linking them up and
(13:25):
then duck boarding trenchsupports sandbags on the front
of the trench the parapetsandbags at the back of the
trench the parados and all theother features that are in there
from funk holes for the soldiersto rest in to ammunition points
and all kinds of equipment thatis needed has to be installed in
these trenches you've left allthat behind and in the trenches
(13:47):
that you've had to evacuate asthe enemy has pulled back so
you've got to establish thatkind of infrastructure again and
you're quite right that wouldhave taken weeks and months
which is why when the Germansstarted pulling back in February
and March to the Hindenburg lineand the British began to
establish their positionsopposite that Hindenburg line it
was nearly a month and a bitbefore the fighting in Arras
(14:11):
onto that Hindenburg line tookplace and even in a week a
trench system could easily beconstructed in a given area
given that you could bring in abrigade size four battalions of
men to work on that in a fairlysmall area but I think what
you're seeing in the film is adegree of what you've described
as poetic license I think thewriter and director of this film
(14:34):
wanted to accelerate aspects ofthe storyline you couldn't
really spend 30 minutes of thefilm watching men dig trenches
and build a dugout so you'vemoved the kind storyline forward
a bit to tell that story thatwider story and you're not just
in a system of shallow trenchesyou're now in a system of
(14:55):
shallow trenches where there isone or two features which are
needed in the storyline and youneed a headquarters for the
runner to go to to get to thebattalion commander Cumberbatch
who plays him to try and deliverthat message so I think what
this is is kind of a part of theplot really it's a device within
the plot to help tell the widerstory and something that you see
(15:19):
quite a lot in that movie 1917so he gets from the rear area
where they're singing in thewood through the communication
trenches straight into the frontline very quickly whereas there
would have been a bit ofdistance between all those
locations and then when he getsback to the dressing station
behind the lines that looks asif it's just behind the front
line trench and I think theykind of shorten the distance
(15:42):
between those two places to keepthat plot to keep that story
moving so it is a film probablyin reality in some of those
early attacks where for examplethe 7th division moved forward
to attack the outposts of theHindenburg line around Buller
Corps for example they wouldhave had trenches very similar
to what we saw in the filmshallow trenches cut into that
(16:04):
chalk landscape but the properinfrastructure of those trenches
just wouldn't have existed atthat stage and battalion HQs
probably would have been inshell holes or buildings or
embankments or something justaway from the fighting area and
not properly established.
But for a film of this nature,that probably would have been
too detailed and not thatcomprehensible to an audience
(16:27):
who wouldn't have reallyunderstood that.
So I guess it's all part of whatFirst World War movie making is
all about.
But it is a great film.
I think despite some of theproblems within it and some odd
little quirks like the pilot andthe plane and the bayonet and
all the other things we'vespoken about in the review of
that film, I think it does tella wider truth about the First
(16:48):
World War, and it exposes thefact that the landscape of the
First World War was not just mudand shell holes and water and
slime, that there were theselandscapes that were almost
untouched.
And even in that area oppositethe Hindenburg Line, after the
fighting at Arras in the springof 1917, the area chosen for the
(17:12):
Battle of Cambrai in November1917 would have been very
similar.
When we look panoramicphotographs taken by the Royal
Engineers and air photos ofCombré before the tanks went in,
before the bombardment, beforethe British attack there.
It is very similar terrain towhat we see depicted in the film
1917 and with the only realproper deep established trenches
(17:36):
being those pre-preparedpositions that are part of that
wider Hindenburg line.
So a fascinating question there,Steve.
Thanks for that, which helps ustalk about a kind of wider
aspect of how First World Warfilms are made and what they
tell us and how that links tothe real history.
So on to question number three.
This one comes from Sean Turner,also on email.
(18:00):
My great-grandfather, AlecWalker, served in the Royal
Field Artillery as a driver,joining up in the huge rush at
the outbreak of the war.
He passed away when I was atoddler, and I gather, like many
veterans, he never really spokeof his service or experiences.
What was the day-to-day life ofa driver in the Royal Field
Artillery like?
Was life dangerous for thesemen, and what would he have
experienced in his role?
(18:21):
I do know that he suffered aback injury that that led him to
be sent home for a few monthsand then later awarded the
silver womb badge?
And secondly, is it possible tofind out where he served in
France and at what periodsduring the war as I couldn't
find this information onancestry?
Well, Sean, The Royal FieldArtillery was one of the main
parts of the artillery in theFirst World War.
(18:43):
It was broken up intoessentially three branches.
The Royal Horse Artillery thatoperated with largely cavalry
divisions and had horseartillery weapons like
13-pounder field guns.
They're the ones that still firethe salutes on ceremonials
today.
And then the Royal FieldArtillery that had weapons from
18-pounder up to 4.5-inchhowitzers.
(19:04):
And then the Royal GarrisonArtillery that operated 6-inch
guns and above right up to15-inch railway guns and heavy
guns.
So the Royal Field Artillery,which your great-grandfather,
Alec Walker, was in, werenormally divisional-level
artillery units.
There was normally three RoyalField Artillery brigades in an
infantry division as part oftheir support units, in this
(19:25):
case to provide their divisionalfirepower.
But also, as the war went on, alot of what were called army
brigades of Royal FieldArtillery were formed, which
were not attached to specificformations and could be moved up
and down the front so that meantthere was much more flexibility
in where you could moveartillery around and all of the
(19:46):
Royal Field Artillery units thatoperated all were horse-drawn
units they were not mechanizedin any way so that meant with a
gun team you had the field gunyou had a limber with two
drivers on it who were in chargeof the team of horses that
pulled the limber and pulled thegun and the drivers were the
(20:07):
ones for maneuvering thosehorses so they got down the
roads and round the bends andover all the obstacles correctly
and took the weapons from A to Bso they could be taken to new
locations to be dug in there andthe rank of driver was a
specific one for these men sowhen people see driver they
think somebody driving a vehiclea driver is someone in charge or
(20:30):
part of a team in charge of thehorses that pull the limbers and
pull the guns and so they areresponsible for for the wider
welfare of the horses in theirteam and I interviewed quite a
few Great War veterans who weredrivers in the Royal Field
Artillery who absolutely lovedthe horses that they served with
(20:52):
many many years later when Iwent to see War Horse with my
daughter it brought back manymany memories of talking to
these veterans who cried morereally about the loss or the
injuries and the wounding oftheir horses in combat than they
did about some of their mateswho were killed on the Somme or
at Passchendaele or whatever itwas so there was a great bond
(21:15):
between the driver and thehorses that formed part of his
team and if the horses are beingwounded that shows that the
whole team the drivers includedare under threats, this is not
any kind of safe job, therewasn't really safe jobs of any
description in the First WorldWar if your work brought you
onto the battlefield and whilethe infantry who were, of
(21:38):
course, the tip of the spear inmost battles of the First World
War, might have unkindlyreferred to the artillery as
thousand-mile snipers,indicating that they were miles
away from the battlefront and insome kind of safe, cushy job.
The reality was that guns wereincredibly important, often very
close to the areas of thefighting, and had to be brought
(22:00):
up often over open terrain, notjust at night but sometimes
during the day, and that theenemy were always seeking
artillery, to knock it out,destroy it, neutralise it and
with it the horses and with itthe men that manned the guns and
led those horse teams pullingthe guns up to their gun sites
to fire and take part in thefighting.
(22:22):
So that meant that the artillerysuffered huge levels of
casualties in the First WorldWar and many, many drivers were
killed going up from Ypres toHellfire Corner and along the
Menin Road during the ThirdBattle of Ypres.
You don't have to go far in thecemeteries in that area to find
drivers who were killed on theirlimbers as shells came down to
(22:42):
try and take out those lines ofguns moving up so this was not
any kind of safe job and beingup high on a limber if a shell
came down and did damage to thelimber or frightened the horses
and they bolted you could bethrown from the limber injure
yourself I mean I don't know ifthat is the circumstances which
happened to your greatgrandfather but there could be
(23:04):
injuries like that caused bybeing thrown from a moving
vehicle essentially as well asshrapnel or gas and all the
other things that these men hadto face and there's plenty of
memoirs of artillerymen in theFirst World War which it's worth
kind of looking at to get asense of what the experience of
men like this, what theirexperiences were on these
(23:26):
battlefields of the Great War.
In terms of tracing soldierswe've had an episode where we
looked at how to trace soldiersin the Great War and you've gone
on to Ancestry which is one ofthe main providers of military
records for the First World Warand you fail to find very much
about him.
Unfortunately that is all toocommon the case because so many
(23:47):
records were destroyed in theSecond World War so the complete
picture of what happened tothese men have been lost and the
problem with a unit like theRoyal Field Artillery is there's
hundreds of artillery brigadesso without knowing which one he
was in it's very difficult tosay exactly where he was and
when these wounds could havebeen and where his service took
(24:10):
him.
If he was awarded a 1914 or1914-15 star, and you know from
the medal index card thatthere's a date of overseas
service, you may be able to tiethat into when a division or an
artillery unit went overseas andnarrow it down to a handful of
units, or if you're very lucky,perhaps just one, and then you
(24:30):
could consult the war diary.
Now, artillery units are muchsmaller than infantry
battalions, and there's muchmore of a chance of ordinary men
in the ranks being mentioned inthose war It's something I've
seen quite a lot.
You have a soldier who's beenkilled or wounded on a
particular date, and when youlook at the war diary for a
field artillery brigade, veryoften they're mentioned in there
(24:51):
by name.
So it is worth kind ofpersevering with this, even if a
service record for him does notsurvive.
And if you look for one of thoseon Ancestry and you haven't
found it, unfortunately theyaren't anywhere else.
They've digitised the survivingrecord.
So if there's no trace, thenthat's it, I'm afraid.
It is worth looking at.
at the Western Front Associationpension records because if he
(25:15):
got a silver wound badge then hemight have potentially have
qualified for a pension andsometimes on those pension cards
that the WFA have on theirwebsite if you're lucky then you
might find that it doesn't justsay Royal Field Artillery it
might say 121 Brigade RoyalField Artillery or whatever it
is so it's worth looking atthose and looking at Various
(25:39):
different sources like that,often fragmentary, is a way of
kind of putting those jigsawpieces of his service together
to try and get some kind ofmeaning out of it.
It's complicated and it can betime-consuming and often very
frustrating, but it's worthtrying to put those pieces
together.
But it is much more difficult totry and trace the men who served
(26:00):
in those big corps of the army,like the artillery and like the
engineers and like the armyservice corps, if you haven't
got a specific...
unit that you know that theyserved in because there are so
many that served in all thesedifferent theatres of war.
But even if you aren't able toentirely piece that service
(26:21):
record together, when you thinkof those battlefields of the
First World War, think of himatop his limber with a fellow
driver and a team of horses infront of them, the gun bouncing
around on the road behind themand them darting down a road in
France or Flanders and takingthe guns forward up to the gun
(26:41):
sites and then the gunnersmoving in to get those guns
established and firing on theenemy and then afterwards the
the limber teams going up toreattach the guns to the limber
and get them out of the gun pitsand off down the road and back
to safety and it's the movementof military traffic like that
that i often think of every timei'm going around hellfire corner
(27:02):
on a coach or going on that roadbetween popperinger and eat that
main arterial road that fed thewar in Flanders with men,
ammunition, food, water,equipment and the guns
themselves.
Drivers like Alec Walkercommanding those horses, taking
those guns ever forward towardsthe front line.
(27:24):
And it's long overdue for us tohave an episode about the work
of the artillery in the GreatWar, something we will come to.
So thanks for that question.
I'm going to move on to ourfourth and final question that
comes from the Reverend MatthewStevens on our Discord server,
another way to post questionsfor these Q&A episodes.
(27:46):
He asks, I've read about theriots that occurred in Britain
with Canadian soldiers awaitingdemobilisation in 1918 and 1919.
Can you provide some moredetailed information and suggest
some sources of additionaldetails on this story?
Well, this is a really goodquestion about a much
lesser-known aspect of the endof the First World War, in many
(28:09):
respects the aftermath of theFirst World War, and something
that I didn't know a lot aboutuntil I watched a Channel 4 film
made in cooperation betweenChannel 4, Wales and Canada in
1987 called Going Home thatdramatises the story of Canadian
soldiers kept in a camp, whichis meant to be a criminal camp
(28:31):
up in North Wales, awaitingdemobilisation and leading to
riots and deaths as well.
Now this is a bit of drama, butthe historical advisor for this
drama was Julian Patowski, whohad then published his book Shot
at Dawn with Julian Sykes aboutthe executions in the Great War,
(28:52):
the men shot at dawn, executedby firing squad for a whole
variety of crimes.
And Military Crime andPunishment, And some of those
kind of connected lesser aspectsof the First World War was one
of Julian's specialities,really.
And he went on to write, and youasked for some potential sources
(29:12):
for this, a book called TheStory of the Kimnel Park Camp
Riots in 1919, which waspublished by Julian, a little
paperback book, in 1989.
And since then, more recently,there's been a book by, I think,
a Welsh historian, Robert H.
Griffiths, in 2019 called Riots,Death and Baseball, which also
(29:36):
tells the story of the Canadiansinvolved in these riots.
So what's the story?
It's not just at Kimnell Park.
There were two key locationswhere the Canadians rioted
because the men at those campsfelt they were being kept there
for far too long before theywere being sent home.
One of those was in Surrey atWhitley Camp, and this was a big
(29:58):
camp formed initially for thefor Kitchener's army which
greatly expanded the South Downsbattalions of the Royal Sussex
were there before they went toFrance in 1916 the Canadians
then took it over it became abig Canadian depot and a lot of
Canadian troops after thearmistice were sent there prior
to demobilisation and as Iunderstand it the Canadians the
(30:21):
Canadian Expeditionary Forceoperated a similar system to the
British the earlier yourenlistment in theory the quicker
your release and dischargehappened but that seems to have
broken down a bit and at WhitleyCamp this was a main Canadian
demobilisation camp and on the4th 5th of March 1919 around a
(30:42):
thousand Canadian soldiersrioted after there were repeated
delays in them being sent homethe soldiers concerned attacked
canteens they destroyed militaryrecords which I'm sure didn't
help with the whole process ofdemobilisation and they looted
property and caused a lot ofdamage And the riot was there
(31:02):
sparked in part by the arrest ofa popular soldier and the
growing suspicion that shippingspots that were meant for
Canadian soldiers being senthome were being allocated
unfairly.
And this is a kind of recurringtheme that a belief grew that
Canadian ministers, politicians,politicians, business owners
(31:26):
were profiteering from the useof shipping to ship material
across the Atlantic rather thanCanadian soldiers who were meant
to be going home.
Now, I'm not sure of the truthof that, but that was certainly
a widespread belief that led toa lot of disorder.
And the second big incident,which was around about the same
(31:46):
kind of time in March 1919, wasat Kimmel Park.
This was the most violent anddeadly riot that took place.
took place on British soilinvolving Canadian soldiers, and
the camp was located near Rhylin North Wales.
There was about 15,000 men ofthe CEF, Canadian Expeditionary
(32:06):
Force, being kept here andawaiting demobilisation.
And once again, there weredelays, unexplained delays.
Perhaps military authoritiesfelt they didn't have to explain
to the men, but that caused alot of frustration and riots
broke out over this.
And in the riots here that wentmuch more violent than the ones
(32:28):
at Whitley, five soldiers werekilled and at least 23 were
injured.
Military buildings were looted,burned and destroyed.
and at least 60 Canadiansoldiers were arrested and
dozens were subsequentlycourt-martialed.
Now, no one was executed forthis.
(32:49):
The death penalty did not applynow that the war was over.
They were not on active serviceon a front line, but of course
they could be facing longperiods of detention in prison
as a consequence of theiractions here.
And this was also a period withthe civil war going on in Russia
where Allied troops werefighting alongside men who were
(33:11):
still loyal to the Tsar althoughhe was dead against Bolshevism
against the Bolsheviks in thatRussian Civil War there was a
feeling within Britain or fearreally within Britain that
something similar could happenthere and certainly in that bit
of drama that I mentioned goinghome that docudrama really from
the 1980s one of the aspects ofthe storyline there was that one
(33:36):
of the Canadian officers claimedthat he'd seen a red flag a
communist flag being flown andthat then led to the response
where men opened fire andCanadian soldiers were killed it
certainly wasn't the finest hourfor anyone involved in this and
the frustration you can imaginethe frustration of Canadian
(33:57):
soldiers some of whom had spentspent years on the Western
Front, sitting in these camps,waiting to be sent home and
being given lame excuses all thetime.
You can see that the kind offrustrations that they had just
bubbled over into this unrest.
Eventually, the Canadianmilitary authorities got their
act together and these men wereproperly demobilised and sent
(34:21):
home.
And the men who died in theriots do have war graves.
I've been to the littlechurchyard, St Margaret, its
church in north wales not farfrom where the camp was located
where you can find a plot ofcanadian war graves some of them
are men who died of influenzabecause this is also kind of in
that period in which influenzawas sweeping its way across the
(34:44):
world and amongst them are thesewho died in the riots for a long
long time i guess they were kindof silent witnesses but with
that drama with julianpatowski's book and the more
recent publication then thiscast a bit more light on an
aspect of the First World Warthat I'm sure many people would
(35:04):
not even consider.
The drama Going Home from the1980s that was on Channel 4 I
don't think was ever repeatedand it's not available on DVD or
any streaming services which isa great shame because it was a
really good drama with somegreat actors of that period and
the trench scenes where one ofthe characters has flashbacks to
(35:26):
his experiences on the WesternFront were particularly So who
knows, maybe one day it'll popup on Netflix.
But an excellent question,Reverend Stevens, and thank you
so much for enabling us to talkabout this lesser-known aspect
of the Great War.
So that's all of our questionsfor this week.
I hope it's been anotherinteresting episode of the Q&As.
(35:48):
And as always, you can send yourquestions in via email or via
the Discord server or even viafan mail.
And there's links to all ofthose on the show notes for this
episode.
But until we meet again for somemore questions and answers on
the old front line.
(36:12):
You've been listening to anepisode of The Old Frontline
with me, military historian PaulReid.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcor.
You can follow the podcast atoldfrontlinepod.
Check out the website atoldfrontline.co.uk where you'll
find lots of podcast extras andphotographs and links to books
that are mentioned in thepodcast.
(36:33):
And if you feel like supportingus, you can go to our Patreon
page at patreon.com slash oldfront line or support us on buy
me a coffee at buymeacoffee.comslash old front line links to
all of these are on our websitethanks for listening and we'll
see you again soon
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