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The Bulletin of the Birmingham Branch of the WFA Compiled by Bob Butcher |
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April 2009 |
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PASSCHENDAELE These are the main points critics have made about the conduct of this battle together with the relevant facts as set out in the Official History. · It should have been started in the spring to give more campaigning time before the rains broke. Haig was ordered to co-operate with the French who insisted on the Arras battle as a diversion for the Nivelle offensive. · It was fought on the wettest part of the country. · Records show that it was the least wettest part of the British sector. · The ground was a reclaimed swamp and only prevented from returning to that state by an elaborate system of drainage. It was on a ridge with a gentle slope up to it from the Yser Canal. It had never been a swamp and was drained by a natural slope and small streams. · Heavy rains occurred in early August with the regularity of an Indian monsoon and continued for the rest of the year. Records show that August could be showery, September dry and October very rainy. The heavy rain in August 1917 was exceptional. · Heavy rain and the destruction of the drainage system by shelling turned the battle into a 'campaign in the mud'. Rain and mud did hamper operations in August but not too badly. September was dry and several successful battles were fought during that month. It was only in October that the really dreadful conditions existed. · The casualties were worse than the Somme—400,000. · Actual casualties 244.897, certainly fewer than the Somme. · The battle should have been stopped earlier. · Petain pleaded with Haig to continue in order to keep the Germans away from the French Army which had not fully recovered from the mutiny. · Haig chose the wrong generals. Always the optimist, he hoped for a breakthrough and believed that the 'thrusting' Gough would be more likely to exploit it than the methodical Plumer who had been in command in the Salient since 1915. He realised his mistake before the end of August and placed Plumer in charge. Both decisions involved delay and consequent loss of dry time. Bob Butcher
THE MAYOR OF YPRES v THE BRITISH PRESS Rene Colaert, Mayor of Ypres, was awarded by consent £1300 damages and costs at the Kings Bench Division in a libel action against the Pall Mall Gazette and the Manchester Guardian who accused him of treachery on December 4 1914. The plaintiff is a Belgian advocate and the deputy for Ypres in the Chamber of Representatives of the Belgian Parliament. The original story included the following: An interesting account of the circumstances where the Germans had avoided shelling the Town Hall of Ypres comes from a letter received at Bury from an officer in the BEF. He stated, 'You remember me telling you how they were bombarding Ypres as we came through it that night and how curiously they seemed to be at pains to spare the Town Hall. We thought it was a glimmering of decency but it seems that it was not. Some suspicions were roused about it, and the place was searched. In the extensive vaults underneath was found an enormous number of German stores and ammunition sufficient to last a month and serve them as a depot for their attack on Calais. It had been put there by the connivance of the Mayor at the time the Germans were in occupation. This explains their desperate efforts to capture the town again. The traitor Mayor was shot.
The Lord Chief Justice said that there could be no more serious libel upon a gentleman holding the position of Rene Colaert in his own country than that in his country's affliction he had betrayed her to the enemy. The papers had expressed their regret, settled a sum of money and gave an apology. (Birmingham Weekly Post 25 November 1916) Alan Tucker
THE THIRTY-SIX BANK NOTES Early in 1918 Hector Joseph Pitt, aged sixteen, a munitions worker, of Windmill Lane, Smethwick,. was visiting a friend's house in Trafalgar Road, Smethwick. He discovered that the friend's father, a Mr David Price, had thirty-six one pound notes in a bedroom drawer. This was about four thousand pounds in our terms. Hector Pitt came up with a cunning plan. Three days later he invited his friend to the cinema, or the pictures as the newspaper report called it. Pitt knew that his friend's father would also be out. At the cinema Pitt made an excuse to leave, burgled his friend's house, stole the thirty-six pound notes and fled Birmingham with them. Hector Pitt was tracked down by the police and arrested at Heswell near Birkenhead. He was tried at Smethwick Police Court on 22nd April 1918. He claimed that he had spent the money in London, Glasgow and Liverpool and had taken it because he wanted to go somewhere where he could join the Navy. The presiding magistrate convicted Hector of burglary and sentenced him to six months hard labour. No doubt the magistrate said privately afterwards 'That will teach him to use such an excuse. He must have thought that I was born yesterday.' J.P.Lethbridge DID YOU KNOW · that the HOTCHKIS machine gun replaced the Vickers in cavalry regiments; · that at one time the Danish MADSEN was being considered as a replacement for the Lewis gun; · that during the war 133,104 LEWIS GUNS were manufactured by BSA, in November 1918 at the rate of 1
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