Seventh Manchesters index
Introduction.
Captain Wilson's book continues the story of the 7th (1st 7th) Manchesters,
which is recorded in my own book "With Manchesters in the East," from July, 1916
until November, 1918. It is written with intimate knowledge and much
understanding, and will be enjoyed by all his comrades. It was the good fortune
of the Manchester Territorials (127th Brigade) to belong to the first
Territorial Division (the 42nd), that ever left these islands for active
service, and this active service eventually took place on three fronts. The 7th
Battalion garrisoned the Sudan and fought through the Gallipoli campaign. It
recruited its strength at Suez, and then helped to clear the Sinai Peninsula of
the Turks. Finally it served for two and a half years in Flanders. It translated
its motto, "We never sleep" into its daily life.
This volume will be a useful supplement to any general history of the War. It is
based on the diary of a Regimental Officer, who won considerable distinction in
the field, and whose eyes missed little of consequence. It is of even more value
as evidence of what men of essentially civilian habits and traditions can
achieve as soldiers. The numbers of the 7th Manchesters were never fully up to
strength after April, 1915, and for many months at a time while in the East they
fell to vanishing point. Yet from the day in September, 1914, when the original
first-line Battalion sailed from Southampton for Port Sudan in the "Grantully
Castle," each successive draft was of the same mould. The men came from the same
neighbourhood, were of the same capacity, and had been bred with the same ideas.
Their devotion was founded on a sense of duty. They were personally utterly
remote from what is called militarism, and saw little fascination in its pomp.
The survivors are now absorbed once more in the undramatic industry of
Lancashire. There is nothing to indicate to an observer that they have ever left
it. The last time you saw your tramway conductor may have been as a bomber in
"the western birdcage" on Cape Helles; your fellow passenger may have last
talked to you as your "runner," when you tramped along the duckboards from Windy
Corner to Givenchy. What such men did for England will therefore illustrate for
all time the potentialities of a Territorial Force.
Captain Wilson's style of expression and cast of thought are, in my view, true
to type. He is the Lancashire man of action, who affects no literary arts. These
pages are bare of heroics. There is a soldierly brevity in his account of even
of the bravest exploit. There is also plenty of quiet humour. The reader will
search vainly for any "villain of the piece." The "Hun" is to Captain Wilson, as
to the normal British officer, just a "Boche" and no more; to the rank and file
he was simply "Jerry." If you want adjectives, you will have to look for them in
_John Bull_ or listen to speeches in the House of Commons.
For all who were in authority over him, whether Corps Commanders or Divisional
Generals, Brigadiers or temporary Commanding Officers, Captain Wilson has a good
word. A reader unfamiliar with soldiers' psychology might deduce that all his
superior officers had been invariably models of judgment and efficiency. He
would possibly be quite wrong; but it is most fitting that this book should be
framed on such lines, for they are the lines which our soldiers have never
failed to accept. The rough is taken with the smooth. If ever there has been
incompetence men have simply blamed the system and cursed the War Office. If
they happened to have been five minutes in France they might have
philosophically added "c'est la guerre." The actual individual responsible has
not been worth worrying about. Thus even with regard to this mere side issue,
the author's story reflects a cardinal attribute of the national character, and
therefore in its essence conveys the truth.
In my opinion, it is not, however, the whole truth. There is no reason why
England in her reconstruction should forget that want of sympathy with the
Territorials, which far too often marked men, to whose hands their fortunes were
from time to time entrusted. This vice should be borne in mind not because the
memory is bitter; but because by remembrance we may make its repetition in later
wars impossible. Territorials ought never to be ousted from the command of their
own units, or to be excluded from staff appointments, merely because they are
not Regulars or because they fail to comply with needlessly drastic and
therefore non-essential codes of discipline. Discipline is, in fact, degraded
into servitude when it becomes a mere fetish. How fallaciously it may be
construed could often be seen in the tendency among powerful martinets to "drive
a coach and four" through the law and procedure which regulate trials by Court
Martial. The need for the "standardisation" of all infantry units in France was
quite genuine; but unimaginative men in authority could make "standardisation" a
burden to the spirit, and the picture of some men of this class, which is
painted in A. P. Herbert's novel. _The Secret Battle_, is founded on the truth.
We have all seen such cases. The grinding necessities of the Western front ended
the joyous amateurism, which a Territorial unit was able to preserve through all
its vicissitudes in Eastern warfare, but they did not require the prevailing
banishment of individuality and of the exercise of intellect from Regimental
life.
After landing in France the 42nd Division had to make a new reputation by rising
from the ruck, and it is very notable that the personnel of the 7th Manchesters,
as of the other units in the Division, although almost completely changed from
the personnel of the Battalion when in Gallipoli and drawn from a later
generation of recruits, achieved equal distinction and much greater technical
efficiency. This fact points to the wonderful resourcefulness of the English
people. Historically it shows how thoroughly our Army of 1917-18 was
professionalised.
The later chapters of Captain Wilson's book detail very brilliant fighting by
our men, which it would be idle and impertinent to praise. Such "crowded hours"
are not, however, and never have been the most typical of a soldier's life.
Infinitely more numerous were the hours of endurance and privation, which the
7th spent among the broken ravines of Gallipoli, among the dreary mud flats on
either bank of the Yser, among the desolate craters in front of Cuinchy and Le
Plantin. In their patience and fortitude amid these wastes lies their strongest
title to the gratitude of Christendom.
Peace is already dimming men's memories of the War as effectually as the grass
is covering the ruins of devastated France. The Manchester Territorial is back
at his job. The broken home no longer feels the same first poignancy of grief.
"Man goeth forth unto his work and unto his labour until the evening," and it is
a good thing for the world that he does. Nevertheless, all men and women who
cherish associations with the 7th Manchesters will, I think, read and re-read
Captain Wilson's work for many years to come. From amid all the hardships and
miseries of soldiering which the Englishman readily forgets, the light of
self-sacrifice shines upon the human race with a never fading beauty. Herein
lies the true romance of war. As the reader turns over the ensuing pages he
cannot but realise something of the cumulative drudgery and hardships which
these men endured for their country.
To the 7th Manchesters themselves they mean much more. The very place names of
our warfare recall the memory of the comrades whom we have loved and lost, the
early enthusiasms which we shall never feel again:--Khartoumn, Gallipoli,
Shallufa, Suez, Ashton-in-Sinai, Coxyde, Nieuport, Aire, Béthune, Ypres, Bucquoy,
Havrincourt. When we are very old, many of us will still conjure up the tune of
"Keep the Home Fires Burning" on the lips of tired men beneath the stars on
Geoghegan's Bluff; the thud of the shovel falling upon the sand ridges of Sinai
while a blazing sun rose over Asia; the refrain of "Annie Laurie" sung by
candle-light in some high roofed barn behind the lines in Belgium.
I hear them now.
GERALD B. HURST.