The Great Wyrley Area in the Great War: 1915 Part ONE

Continuing the publication of the draft chapters on the Great Wyrley area, including elements from Cheslyn Hay, up to Cannock, and down to Walsall, for the forthcoming Heritage Lottery funded project. After earlier releases, including an introduction, on the area before the war and the war months of 1914, we find ourselves at 1915 – and the end of innocence. Please remember, this short account can not cover everything or everyone; nor is it a picture book. It is divided into two parts, with the first having a contextual overview of the military war.

1915: The End of Innocence

The War in Brief (British Perspective)

19 January 1915 saw the first of three events that changed the direction of the conflict both militarily and on the home front. The first, although a few bombs had been dropped in 1914, was the real start of the German aerial campaign; it saw two Zeppelins unleash their payloads on the Great Yarmouth area in what was the opening bombing mission. This military action was followed-up throughout the year with raids on coastal targets including, if you accept it as a coastal target due to its proximity to the Thames, the first attack on London in May that year. These attacks had an unsettling effect on the public, particularly as the airships were then difficult to shoot down, and so only hardened the resolve against Germany.

A few days later, on 24 January, there was a British naval success at Dogger Bank that did improve morale despite the action highlighting missed opportunities and poor signalling. The engagement saw the German fleet return to port and remain on the defensive with regard to the Royal Navy for the rest of the year. This allowed the Royal Navy to commence a blockade to prevent food and raw materials from reaching Germany (Germany’s overseas navy had been all but destroyed in 1914).

The German response, and the second directional change, was to expand her submarine fleet and then declare an unrestricted submarine warfare zone around Britain on 4 February – a zone in which any ship could be sunk; the Lusitania would become the most well-known casualty of this policy and one that would significantly damage Germany’s relations with the USA to the point that operations were relaxed later. Submarine usage would, however, have a deepening impact on the home front in more than one way as the war went on.

The British Army was growing in France and Belgium as more troops, predominantly the Territorial battalions, were being sent over. The politicians and the military were aware that that this growing army was being starved of ammunition, particularly high-explosive artillery shells, and this was evident with the inability to capitalise on the initial success of the Allied attack at Neuve Chapelle in March. An awkward interview by Sir John French, British Commander-in-Chief, on the ammunition shortage then appeared in The Times although Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, managed to bat this criticism away for the time being.

The Germans were not being idle either: in April, and through May, they launched several assaults in the Ypres area in response to a British assault on Hill 60; these assaults have collectively have been called the Second Battle of Ypres. It was, generally, a diversionary tactic in order to hide the movement of troops to their Eastern Front, but during it the multi-national Allied force faced poison gas for the first time – and it created chaos the in the lines. Fortunately, the Germans failed to exploit that chaos and, as such, Ypres held out. Their offensives here came to an end on 25 May as the Germans needed to move their forces further south due to another Allied offensive.

That offensive was in Artois (later named the Second Battle of Artois) and was a joint French and British operation; it opened on 9 May, as Ypres was still raging. The British First Army attacked in the north of the region at Aubers Ridge, but made little headway due to an insufficient number, and the poor quality of many, of the high explosive artillery shells needed to smash the German defences. A second battle, that of Festubert, followed on 15 May; it ran for ten days and resulted in minor gains, but at a heavy cost.

The Aubers Ridge failure resulted in the third event to impact on both the military and home fronts that year – in that there was a major political crisis when reports of the ‘shell crisis’ appeared in the newspapers; this crisis resulted, or was a major factor in, the collapse of the Liberal government and the forming, still under Asquith’s leadership, of a new coalition government. Asquith immediately formed a new Ministry of Munitions, under David Lloyd George, to investigate and solve the problems within the manufacture and supply of munitions, and the Munitions Act – another draconian piece of legislation that would have its consequence at home – followed.

A third Battle of Artois, a joint operation with the French, was opened on 25 September with British and Indian forces attacking at Loos. The biggest battle to date would see the blooding of Kitchener’s volunteers, but was beset with problems from the start: not only did Haig and French had differing views on the suitability of the ground but the German line had been reinforced as the attack was expected, and there was, of course, a shell shortage; during the battle the preliminary bombardment failed to cut the German wire in many places and the first British use of poison gas saw it blow back on our own troops. Despite this, many initial objectives were taken, unfortunately, however, the British reserves were too far back to be effective and eventually the Germans pushed the British back. The battle is famed locally for the action at Hohenzollen Redoubt – where many local men fought and died.

December saw two significant military events: the first was the Chantilly conference, a meeting of the Allied countries of France, Britain, Russia and Italy (who had joined the conflict that year) that took place between 8 – 12 December in the said town, and saw the Allies resolved to co-ordinate their attacks better in 1916 in order to prevent the Central Powers from moving their reserves around; the second was on 19 December when, after the failure of Loos, Sir John French was replaced as the overall Commander-in-Chief of the British Army by Sir Douglas Haig.

In the Middle East there were the fronts in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In Egypt, the Turkish forces at last approached the Suez Canal but were beaten off, and other than some minor operations this front stayed quiet in 1915. In Mesopotamia, using British and Indian forces, General Nixon launched an offensive from Basra in order to take Baghdad and defeat the Turkish forces in the area. This would further protect the oil fields and send a political message to the world, however, after a pyrrhic victory at Ctesiphon, the force shut itself up in the town of Kut where, under siege, it saw out 1915.

The most famous of the theatres of war in which the British fought, away from the western front, was Gallipoli. April 1915 had seen the opening this front, also called the Dardanelles, with the idea to take the straits that led to the Sea of Marmara, on which the Ottoman capital of Constantinople sat, and knock Turkey out of the war. Operations had started in February with a naval attack on the forts defending the straits, but after failure British, Australian and New Zealand troops started to land on the Gallipoli peninsula. Through poorly prosecuted landings and dogged defending by the Turks, all that was achieved was yet another stalemate with the Allies holding the poorer ground. Attempts to breakthrough in August failed, and in the October the decision was made to evacuate the peninsula. After a bout of freezing conditions in November the evacuation began, to be completed early the following year.

A new Allied front was opened at Salonika (Greece) in the October, with many of the troops taken from Gallipoli. The front was aimed at bolstering Serbia after the country was invaded, especially as Bulgaria had entered the war on the side of the Central Powers; however, an Anglo-French force was pushed back by the Bulgarians and Serbia was left to fend for itself as internal Greek politics, which turned from supporting the Allies to neutrality, saw the force return to the city and port of Salonika. Serbia lost three quarters of its army with the remainder given safe-haven on Corfu.

At Home: Understanding and Supporting the War

Public understanding of the war would continue to come from speeches, lectures and sermons from those that looked at it from a moral, political or patriotic point of view: for example, there were the usual lectures given by academics and clerics that generally supported the struggle and, indeed, 1915 opened with a series of six lectures at the New Hall in Cannock on the ‘morals and issues of the present struggle’ given by the Rev. Bloor. Bloor happened to be both a cleric and an academic from St. John’s College at Oxford.

While the main film features, such as ‘Daughter of France,’ that played in Cannock cinemas were a more entertaining form of propaganda, the newsreels would continue to offer some perspective on the war at least; saying that, an article penned by Stoke-on-Trent author Arnold Bennett, which appeared in the Courier on 3 April 1915, was clear that such footage lacked depth: ‘It is a tremendous pity that those that cause war seldom see what the thing is that have caused… that we cannot all of us see on the cinema the fall of a shell into a trench crowded with men, and the convulsions of the wounded in the open field. What men can suffer, we ought surely should have the strength to witness!’

It would, however, be the newspapers where most people would continue to receive their understanding. The newspapers accounts were still provided by the Press Agency, with the same optimistic positivity as in 1914 – heavy German loses at Loos, for example, while ‘our loses are comparatively slight,’ although the shell crisis did manage to get into many local papers in June 1915, including the Cannock Advertiser, as well as the formation of the Ministry of Munitions under Lloyd George. There was also no hiding the fact in the local press, from October, that the Staffordshire lads were ‘hit hard’ at the Hohenzollern Redoubt.

The question of the public perception of frontline conditions remains difficult. It is clear that more of the general public would have come into contact with men that had been at the front as, not only had the army had grown in size, but there was the ever-increasing train of wounded, the discharged, and those soldiers now returning on leave. Added to this, the local newspapers, through 1915, still printed graphic letters and, increasingly, biographies (often with accompanying photographs) of the dead, wounded, missing, and those that had become prisoners of war. While this, to be fair, made it clear that the war was no picnic, it is Bennett that put his finger on the crux of the issue in the article referenced above – an insight may be gleaned, but it didn’t equip the public to actually appreciate what trench warfare was like.

The need to experience the war indirectly remained, but it was sanitised. When Private Nichols of Hednesford, who was wounded at Neuve Chapelle, decided to send his parents a ‘Hun’s belt’ they were clearly not shocked by the trophy as they had the fact printed in the Courier; similarly, when Corporal Carriere sent the nose of a German shell, still encased in the wood of a tree that it hit, back to Heath Hays it proved to be of ‘great interest’ locally.

More locally still, but in the same vein, whether or not Private Jack Hampton (whose name would appear on the Roll of Honour for the cricket team in the New Inns in Cheslyn Hay) had any amorous designs on Miss Utting, a teacher at Cheslyn Hay School, is unclear; if so, then many of us today would view the appropriateness of his gift to her as a little odd – for she received the cap off a German shell that weighed over three pounds. Forgiving the pun, the gift can’t have blown his chances, and she couldn’t have been that underwhelmed by it, as the story of the present, which literally had made the earth move for somebody if not her, made the Walsall Observer (3 July 1915).

Such interest was raised by items like these that the Cannock Nurses Fund even exhibited a number of these curios, which surely must have been visited by some Great Wyrley folk, to raise money at the New Hall in November 1915: items included a German helmet, German bayonet, German pipe, a Belgian child’s scarf (that allegedly fell off as she was dragged away by ‘a Boche’) and, believe it or not, a big German shell. Presumably, it was just a casing rather than a ‘dud’ – but it wasn’t stated. Such exhibitions offer insight into the public mind and the lax approach to the displaying of such militaria is staggering.

Turning back to the question of public support for the continued prosecution of the war it was clearly still there, but it must also be recognised that the fever pitch of 1914 had begun to wane as price rises started to impact on the public. On the supportive side the local committees were still actively raising funds and collecting items for the various war related charities (although this saw a change in itself, which is discussed later), and patriotic meetings were often held – the pinnacle being those held on or around 4 August, the anniversary of the declaration of war.

Such meetings that day were commonplace in communities, but Great Wyrley and Cheslyn Hay parish councils elected to have a combined meeting that took place on the ‘park’ in Great Wyrley. The meeting championed speeches from those that sat on the local war committees: Guy Burnett of Gilpins was pleased to see a good attendance ‘including a number of ladies,’ while W.J. Bowen proposed a resolution, seemingly endorsed by those present, that: ‘we the residents of Cheslyn Hay and Great Wyrley and surrounding districts do our utmost to bring about a great and immediate victory.’ The event was supported by music from the Cheslyn Hay Victoria Brass Band under the conductorship of T Kingston.

Views on our Friends and Foes

Continued censorship would mean that general hatred of the Central Powers was fostered with ease. It is ironic that while the Turks committed genocide against their Armenian population, and would march Allied soldiers across the desert after the fall of Kut with many perishing, Private Albert Phillips, the former Cannock fund-raiser with Don the Great Dane, now a private in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Egypt, wrote to his friend that the Turks in Egypt were clean fighters. This was a sentiment held by many at Gallipoli. While the Turks got some acknowledgment of humanity, the Germans continued to appear as the devil incarnate in the press – either through uncomplimentary rhetoric in letters printed from front line troops or evident propagandised examples of their unethical behaviour in war.

The first of these unethical behaviours were the use of Zeppelins – resulting in the common sobriquet of ‘baby-killers’ being applied to their crews. After the bombing of Great Yarmouth in January 1915, the Coroner at the inquests of those killed had to instruct the jury that they may wish to place a verdict of ‘wilful murder’ on the victims but they could not in fact do so, and had to return one of ‘death by bomb from a hostile aircraft.’ While those later killed in the Walsall area would carry this latter verdict, those verdicts under the charge of the Wolverhampton Coroner did in fact go on to state ‘the Kaiser and Crown Prince’ were guilty of murder as accessories before the fact.

A second unethical behaviour was their use of unrestricted submarine warfare, which saw the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915. The sinking aroused great hostility and riots against German (how German is a moot point) owned businesses did ensue in the larger cities including Birmingham. There were no disturbances reported either in Cannock or Walsall despite a Walsall resident and leather factory works owner’s death on the ship, as it is assumed as there would be little target for the vitriol.

Finally, there would be the despicable military acts that had become par for the course with the Courier reporting on 16 January that 26 priests had been killed and their churches having been ransacked, for example. It would, however, be the execution of Edith Cavell that would really inflame the public in October 1915. Cavell was a 49-year old nurse in occupied Belgium, with deep religious convictions and a genuine concern for all, German or Allied. She had, undeniably, contravened German military law by assisting a large number of Allied soldiers to escape into neutral Holland; she was convicted and executed for this crime to international condemnation. At home, there was a memorial service in her memory at the Cannock Congregational Church, while Landywood School renamed one of their British hero inspired house-names after her.

The Old Landywood Council School, the school renamed a ‘house’ after Edith Cavell after her execution (GWLHS).

The fear of German spies was still quite fervent. This is shown by an article printed in the Cannock Advertiser, that reported, on 12 June, that a man had been seized in Hednesford by three civilians and, with a struggle, dragged off to the local police station; here it was discovered, sadly for the intrepid arresters, that the gentleman was in fact a clock repairer from Middlesex and so was realised without, forgive the pun, doing any time.

The Allied nations were, of course, treated very well in the press. There were also fundraisers, such as film days in cinemas and ‘flag days’ during which miniature flags were sold; Walsall hosted one of these on 24 July for the aid of France and Russia. The focus of the flag day was to raise funds for ‘the wounded soldiers and distressed civilian population of our Allies… and thus show in a tangible way admiration for what the Russian and French armies have achieved in this terrible war.’  They were successful, with the Walsall one, which also including a lantern lecture, raising £440 for each of the nations (the money was sent to their embassy in London).

By and large the Belgians that were now housed in the Walsall, Cannock and Hednesford areas were treated well – indeed, there were concerns raised through the pages of the Cannock Advertiser about the welfare of the refugees that only seemed to quieten down when the refugees themselves sent in a missive to the newspaper that they were happy with their ‘lot.’ The Belgians took part in local life – managing to field a team against Hednesford Town in aid of the Red Cross Fund in May. Saying that, small fractures did begin to appear: for example, when Isodore Mottoe appeared before the Cannock magistrates on a drunk and disorderly charge and questions were also asked as to why the military aged men-folk had not returned to Belgium to attest into the Belgian Army. The Advertiser later printed the fact that three refugees had in fact returned home to attest, perhaps as a response to this.

The Controlling of the Workforce

Not everything was running smoothly, however, as the honeymoon period came to an end in 1915 with all kinds of workers returning to strike action to demand higher rates of pay – generally as the price rises in foods and other goods had bit deeply. A good example of this locally was when the carpenters, joiners and labourers engaged on the construction of the new Penkridge Bank military camp on Cannock Chase decided to down tools in the January; their aim was to secure a pay increase of a penny per hour. They would go on strike again in the June for a similar wage rise – perhaps indicating how quickly prices were rising. The Cannock Chase miners had also gone on strike in March to demand an increase of a penny per hour, and another strike was called in the June by the Cannock Chase Engineers and Mechanics Union for their members to get a war bonus.

Things took an ugly turn when the Cannock Advertiser reported on 3 July that stones were thrown at a colliery union meeting held at the Institute in Great Wyrley as union members from the local pits had not received a promised war levy. They were no doubt further incensed by the £10 per annum war bonus that was to be awarded to teachers, which was reported in the same edition of the newspaper, over their ‘conditions.’

It was not just pay rates that were concerning: the output of coal fell drastically due to the number of miners that had enlisted; indeed, this was reported in the epitome of national news in the local press in the June. The report went on to ask whether recruitment from miners should be encouraged at all as less holidays, longer hours and public economies in place would need to be extended. The irony of this is that more men would later go from the Cannock area as a call for tunnellers came to dig mines to reach the German trenches. The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, also tried to use his popularity in the March, when he asked the miners work through their holidays.

While the war against drink continued to raise its head, and DORA, the first seminal legislation continued to expand (and a threat of using it by the Cannock Rural District Council was reported on 23 January in the Cannock Advertiser, which was aimed at newspaper vendors in Cheslyn Hay for shouting ‘false news’ on Sundays), it would be the passing of the Munitions Act on 2 July 1915 that would be the second seminal moment that tightened the legal grip over the people and institutions on the home front.

The Act was born from the shell crisis, and saw the government effectively nationalise any private businesses that it felt it needed to improve the supply of munitions or, in truth, for the war effort in general, and impose whatever working practices it wanted to on that company. The Act also tightly controlled the Trade Unions, by removing the ‘restrictive practices’ – the right to strike, for example, was replaced with forced arbitration and the dilution of labour, meaning skilled men, was extensively relaxed – until the end of the war. For the individual workers in these controlled factories, not only were their hours and wages fixed, the Act withdrew their right to move jobs without consent.

The next seminal, and intrusive, legislation came in the form of the National Registration Act. The Act was to complete a register of all men and women aged between 15 years and 66 years, and this was undertaken on Sunday 15 August 1915. The purpose of the register was simple: to understand the status of those covered by it in their ability to help the war effort, be that military service or through another skill that could be utilised on the home front; this was summarised to ‘official purposes’ in the Cannock newspapers of the day.

The returns had a census like quality: they would declare their name, address, age, marital status (for example, single, married or widowed), the number of dependents (for example, number of children, partner or infirm parents), profession or occupation (if any), name and address of employer (if any), nature of employer’s business, nationality (if an alien), whether the work engaged upon was for a government department and, finally, whether they were willing (and able) to engage in other work, if skilled in that area, and what that may be.

The Act also came with a plethora of penalties (from up to a £5 fine to 3 months imprisonment, depending on the offence) should the forms be not completed, incomplete, contain untruths, or not kept up to date (if a person moved house, for example). The forms were delivered to homes by an enumerator, and completed ones also retrieved by them – however, they could be obtained from the Great Wyrley Post Office or Mr Hawkins’ office at the Coppice Colliery, as he was the assistant parish overseer for Cheslyn Hay. School teachers were often used for such business by the government.

The Act was left to the local authorities to administer, so Cannock Rural District Council for Great Wyrley, Landywood and Cheslyn Hay; saying that, a fascinating discussion occurred at the Great Wyrley Parish Council meeting on 1 September that was reported in both the local Cannock papers: a Colonel Snape had written to the parish council asking them to form a Recruiting Committee to go out and canvass those eligible men, surely using the NRA returns as a basis, aged 18-40 that had not yet joined-up. They were to ask, although not ‘press or urge the matter,’ as to why they had not joined-up and, on a special card, record the answer. The first point, and one that in itself may allow us a glimpse into the local view of the registration scheme, was that the meeting’s business had pretty much been completed by the time they got to the question of Snape’s letter; indeed, a footpath from Wharwell Lane for the use of school children came first.

The discussion was started by Councillor Smith, who mooted that the task would be both a great and difficult one. This was followed by ‘Councillor Brown (sharply): I am opposed to such a request, and I shall not canvass.’ Plain speaking George Goodwin added: ‘They have now got the list, why don’t they fetch them if wanted. They want shells not men.’ Brown added a further comment: ‘I, for one, am not qualified for such work. There are government men, no further than Lichfield, that know the work, let them do it.’ Stephen Woodhouse, teacher and councillor, finally proposed, and it was carried, that ‘no action’ be taken – a motion that was supported unanimously. Great Wyrley sent the military packing with their tail between their legs.

TO BE CONTINUED…