A Voice From Gallipoli: Part II

The most memorable account I can think of about the BMH Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt, is Roald’s Dahl’s in Going Solo. Dahl is best known for having written Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but long before Charlie, Roald Dahl was a pilot in the RAF during World War Two (he was also a secret agent, afterwards, but this doesn’t matter at the present); he crashed his Gloster Gladiator in the desert and his face was reconstructed in Alexandria. I’m going to guess that very little had changed since 1915, when allied soldiers were being sent there from Gallipoli.

Yale Commencement program,1911

Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great (no big surprises, there) and is probably best known for its extensive Library. But the Library wasn’t just a library; it wasn’t like your local stopping place for the latest Harry Potter movie…no, this library had all the ancient texts of literature, science, medicine…and was, in fact, only one piece of the Musaeum, a great institution of learning dedicated to the Muses of Greek mythology (‘museum’, anyone?). The Musaeum was like a University long before there were Universities; all the greats came to study there. The place hosted (among others) Euclid, father of geometry, Archimedes, father of engineering, Herophilus, the founder of the scientific method…but most importantly for our purposes, Erasistratus, the man who, in the 3^rd century, founded the Academy of Medicine, one of the oldest medical schools ever reordered.

Archimedes' 'eureka!' moment, when he discovered how
to determine the volume of an irregularly shaped object.
eg: a crown
He once said that if he had a lever long enough,
he could move the World.

Galen, one of the very greatest medical researchers of all time, studied there, but unfortunately, the fire that destroyed the Library, also destroyed the medical school. Time wiped away the Musaeum, yet the learning and knowledge that went on there were not completely lost; today our understanding of the world- of physics, engineering, chemistry, mathematics and medicine- is firmly built upon the stones these thinkers carved out of the rock.

The Tower of Hercules in Spain is an ancient Roman lighthouse
built along the same lines as the Pharos of Alexandria

Alexandria is such a strategic locations with its two big harbors, it’s hardly surprising that it played an important role in both World Wars. It served as a British command center, and for thousands of injured soldiers, it was an oasis in the desert, a place where they returned from the front line, little knowing that the methods used to treat their injuries were based on the hard won knowledge of thinkers who had stood on the same ground a thousand years before.

It was from Alexandria that the second letter from Martin was sent. I wonder if he knew the history of the place. Of the Pharos, the giant lighthouse that had once lighted the way of a thousand ships. And of the Musaeum, which shaped the world that came after.

I will stop talking now and let you read Martin’s letter. Please bear in mind that he describes some injuries, so if you are squeamish, proceed with caution. Like the last, original spelling and punctuation have been preserved.

No 19 General Hospital

Alexandria

31st Aug

Dear (great-grandmother’s name),

I wonder if you ever got my little note written from the hills.

Well if you did this is the sequel. I have been one of the lucky ones and still am to be writing this note, but they got me alright. No I in the left thigh and No 2 a little later on, broke my left arm.

Then I went down.

This was on the 10th and I am down splendidly. Blood poisoning all gone, & beginning to sit up and take a little nourishment. 

I hope to be able to go home in about a fortnight. And shan't I just be glad to see the old place again.

A year's soldiering is pretty strenuous!

But fellows are really fighting splendidly, especially the Australians & New Zealanders.

Some of the positions are like going up the side of a house, and directly one shows an eyelid you get shrapnel, machine gun and rifle fire simply poured at you. If I come through this show and I ever see a man shooting a rabbit again, I'll kill him. I could tell you quite a lot of interesting things but the censor forbids. The Turkish snipers are the very devil, I caught one up a tree in a sort of green cage. His face was painted green and his rifle and clothes. Truly a hoary old villain, and stacks of a-mution. Their fellows pick off a lot of our men, they are very daring and cleverly conceal themselves.

Egyptian stamp, 1914

You will see form the lists, that my regiment had a bad time, 23 out of 26 officers gone. It's awful to lose you pals like this, & I am afraid in my present state I get awfully depressed.

But we didn't half make some ground! The Turk (?) on the whole is quite a gentleman in his fighting. His German master has taught him some of them some of his dirty tricks.

A captain pal of mine who was hit close to where I was laying wounded, was hit in the thigh by either an expanding or explosive bullet.

It simply blew the whole of his thigh out. He died in about half an hour of loss of blood, and I couldn't move to help him. A corporal in my own lo(?) was hit in the stomach by a similar bullet, with the same result. There are tact's that happened to come under my notice. We ought to do the same, but somehow we simply don't!

I know you are with us in spirit, so you will be glad to know we shall be through the narrows soon. It's costly but it's going to be done.

I am going to stop now I am getting tired. I hope you can read my scrawl, but writing is not quite so easy as usual just now. Kind thoughts to you and regards to family.

Yours very sincerely,

Martin

I apologize profusely for my absence all this time. I have not been at all well these past six months; sometimes it is a struggle to even get up in the morning, and trying to write a blog post with my foggy brain is pretty much impossible. I hope you will continue to stick with me, anyway.

~Psyche

A Voice From Gallipoli: Part I

To most of us, a hundred years ago probably seems like ancient history…it was that place where women wore their hair in buns, horses pulled carriages and most countries around the world still had kings. Probably more things have changed in the past hundred years than in any time in history. Countries have vanished, movies have sound, and people use computer keyboards instead of typewriters. The things we eat, the things we do for fun, the ways we get around, have all changed. The world has gotten smaller...yet we have less control of it now than we ever did.  

Typewriter, 1917

As much as things have changed since 1915, many things have remained the same. Back in the 19^th century, Science fiction writers like Jules Verne anticipated permanent colonies of people living underwater and others drilling to the center of the earth. We have achieved neither; in fact, we still wear clothes, go to work and eat food…even more interestingly, we still wage wars, despite the fact that a hundred years ago, the War to end all Wars was in full swing.

Landing at Anzac, April 1915

A hundred years ago this month, the Allies launched a campaign on a slender strip of land sticking into the Aegean Sea. The men who fought there are dead, but that bit of land, the Gallipoli peninsula, remains unchanged like an accusing finger pointing at High Command. The Gallipoli Campaign was a terrible failure and people have been debating ever since exactly why. Some blame the famous cliffs, others are more inclined to point out bumbling generals, still others say it was all Winston Churchill's fault.

The envelope

Personally, I’m more interested in the human element; the day-to-day lives of the soldiers…their thoughts and feelings, their fear and their incredible courage. Consequently, there was awe when my sister and I found ourselves reading two letters, written in pencil on cheap paper, postmarked 1915, from the hills of Turkey. They were from a British Lieutenant named Martin, sent to my great-grandmother. I haven’t the faintest idea who Martin was, where he lived, or how he came to know my great-grandmother. However odd his reasons for writing to her were, I am eternally grateful that he wrote and that my great-great grandmother kept his letters.     

The letter

The following transcript, I have taken as faithfully as possible from Martin's scrawl, preserving the original spelling and punctuation. This is the first letter, the second I will save for another blog post. So, without further ado, I will let you have Martin in his own words:

21 July

11th Division

British Mediterranean Force

My Dear (name),

You will be somewhat surprised to receive a letter from me written in the wilds of Turkish Mountains.

I have been soldiering since Aug 1914, have had a few experiences, then I am, very brown, pretty fit- thank heaven, but a dirty looking object- Thank heaven we can wash & then have a razor! 

I struck(?) a Brigade outpost- up here, lucky bargee, but- unfortunately I shall be relieved in a few days. I have 23 men and provide a detached post down in the valley.

Turkish stamps, 1916

My only neighbor is an old Turkish gentleman, who lives in a hut nearbye, & spends most of his day endeavouring to convince me he is a Greek. He however provides me with new laid eggs which are as manna from heaven here, and as he possesses a cool well, the first- cool water since England, I have forgiven him his misdeeds.

Needless to say I have placed a sentry day & night over the said well, and one never knows what these gentry are up to.

He is also very anxious to sell me his goat's milk, and has even offered it as a gift, but that I have declared "verboten" to the men.

It's hot, and the flies are a bit unkind, but its much better than the other show. Where it not for the bloody murder and carnage raging, it would be ideal.

Allied troops looking towards Achi Baba, Gallipoli

We have a splendid view of "Achi Baba" and at night it is very interesting to watch the big guns at work.

I have a very lazy time here. Get my camp cleaned up 6 A.M, mount my sentries and the rest of the day slack. I spent most of the afternoon stalking a vulture with a service rifle, but couldn't persuade him to come close enough so there was no waste of good munitions.

Going 'over the top' at Gallipoli

You will no doubt be surprised to get this but I have very pleasant recollections of the little friendship we formed when I was in America. My difference with your brother need make no difference, I think he treated me very badly! But this is no time for recrimination.

I can give you no news. We censor our own letters, but we are under our word of honor not to talk about the show.

I wonder how you are, if you are married? You ought to marry a good fellow, with your good ideas and sentiments.

Olympic, Titanic's sister-ship, served as a troop transport
the bizarre 'dazzle pattern' was meant to fool u-boats

I married the day before I first left England. One day's honeymoon and then I was wired for and went to the front next day. She is perfectly splendid, & of course miles too good for me!

A penniless lieutenant!

Isn't it too wonderful.

But I can tell you this atmosphere of blood and death is teaching we men something & those who get through, I am convinced will come out better men. Our mails out here are unfortunately none too regular, and one gets very hungry for a sight of one loved one's handwriting.

I have just dined off a tin of sardines, with the wondrous name of Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly on it. I got hold of it somehow.

I shall be back with the regiment soon alas in the dirt & heat.

I prefer France!

Well so long now, if I should come  through, perhaps we may meet again. In the meantime my regards to the family and kindest thoughts to you.

Yours very sincerely,

Martin

War Chocolate

We know why the First World War was fought. It was fought for the same reason as the Second World War…and the Napoleonic Wars and all the revolutions in Prussia. Many people protest and say it was complicated…they don’t understand; young men died for no reason. They were charging out of trenches every five minutes, only to be mown down by machine-gun fire.

The reason why the war was being fought is pretty simple: A couple of countries were trying to take over the world, a few other countries didn’t like this idea and were trying to stop them. It’s no more complicated than that; after all, it’s a story that has repeated over and over again through history. Was it worth fighting? Well…it depends on whether you prefer English to German, I suppose.

Horses had gas-masks, too

I recently came across an advertisement done by Sainsbury's; it’s a beautiful ad, artfully done with film-class cinematography and acting. No corners were cut in the making of it. Trench warfare was just plain boring. Most of the First World War was spent doing absolutely nothing and the troops got ancy. The advertisement takes place during the Christmas Truce of 1914, when both sides came out of the trenches and ‘fraternized’ for some time before their commanding officers ordered them back. The officers were so concerned that on the French side a cat seen fraternizing with the enemy was convicted and shot for its crimes. Despite it all, the message was clear: even in the darkest of times, even when things are at their worst, the spirit of Christmas still shines.

Comparison of soldiers' height from the late 1800s
It hadn't changed by World War One

I remember how the Christmas Truce was described in The Singing Tree by Kate Seredy, when across the black and silent trenches and twisted wire of No Man’s Land, candles glittered on both sides as enemies sang ‘Silent Night’ in harmony. The advertisement somehow manages to capture this episode in three minutes without feeling too short or too cramped. The chocolate bar featured in the ad is for sale in stores, with all profits going to the British veterans and their families.

But there are a lot of people who don’t like it. They’re up in arms, digging in and holding their ground. They don’t think ads like this should be allowed; Sainsbury is trying to line their pockets, they say. Instead of showing the war as it was…full of trenchfoot and frostbite and who knows what else, it advertises chocolate. It’s disrespectful, it’s crude, it sugar-coats the First World War. It stamps the Christmas Truce of 1914 with the word ‘Sainsbury's’.

A still from War Horse

All I can say to them is this: wasn’t Steven Spielberg lining his pockets when he made War Horse? Instead of making a three minute ad and sticking their name at the end, Disney made a two and a half hour one and stuck their name at the beginning. They even ran shorter ads in movie theatres and on television and called them trailers…what’s the difference? It all has the same end. Sainsbury's wants you to buy chocolate, and Disney wants you to buy theatre tickets and DVDs and whatever other paraphernalia they can come up with.

In the end, Sainsbury’s three minutes were more worthwhile than Disney’s two and a half hours. War Horse was surgery, soppy, and historically inaccurate. It didn’t even come close to showing what the war was really like for the various animals that were involved in it. If I was a rabid animal lover I could report them for horse abuse. Nobody in that movie knew how to ride; they were flopping about like sacks of potatoes. Their seats were appalling. 

So I’ll leave you with this…would Disney have bothered making War Horse if they hadn’t expected to make money off of it? Of course not. They marked it with their stamp and raked in $177.6 million dollars in the box office alone. Sainsbury's won’t make anywhere near that much off their commercial.

Go watch Gallipoli, or the Lost Battalion; both fall short of the mark, but they’re far better than War Horse…and neither comes anywhere near the Sainsbury's commercial. 

And, just for a laugh, here's a spoof on War Horse the BBC did recently. For the record, glow worms were actually used quite extensively in the war for reading maps in war zones. Apologies ahead for the profanity. 

The Past Isn't Very Far Away

A lock of Napoleon Bonaparte's hair

My grandmother was born in 1917. That’s three years after the start of World War One, five years after the Titanic sank, fourteen years after the first powered flight. She was probably walking when the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1918 and ninety-seven years later, she’s still alive.

Conrad Heyer, photographed in 1852 when he was 103.
He was the earliest born american to be photographed
and the only person to be photographed who crossed
the Delaware with George Washington

People tend to think of the past as something that happened a long time ago, but my grandmother would be the first to tell you that those years that she has lived flew by like a freight train. My great-grandmother, whom my father knew well, was held up by a bandit in Yellowstone National Park in 1908…those sorts of things seem like foggy memories from the deep past, when, in reality, what happened one hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, or three hundred years ago, only happened three lifetimes ago, if everyone lived as long as my grandmother.

The bullet that killed Nelson in 1805
Unfortunately, this is the best picture I can find
as the bullet is on display in Windsor Castle
and photography isn't allowed

Shakespeare is still funny; we relate to Jane Austen so much that countless movies have been made of her books; even Aesop, an ancient Greek philosopher is read to children at bedtime. The Romans, who we humorously like to refer to as ancient, lived lives that would have seemed perfectly understandable to us. They talked politics at dinner, they had glass in their windows, they even had fountains in their gardens…and in the streets of Rome, urchins were busy painting graffiti on the walls of buildings.

People are still as much people today as they were a thousand years ago. They still like desert, good drama and nice clothes. Taste and fashion may have changed over the years, but the intent is the same. The various forces that motivate people to do things are the same; we haven’t become any wiser, smarter or stronger over our years of existence.

This tile, recently found in Leicester, England, was rolled out
2,000 years ago and a puppy walked on it before it was quite dry

We need to think about the past correctly, not as dates and dry paragraphs in a history book, but as something that is still happening to us. The world we live in today was shaped by the past, bound by decisions made many, many years ago. What I’m trying to say is that the past isn’t very far away; the remains of it are all around us, and if you’ll take the time to look for it, it will meet you half way. 

Touching the Past

Unidentified women on one of the promenade decks

 of what we believe is the RMS Lusitania.

The glass slides are stereoscopic, to be used

 in a stereoscopic viewer for a 3D effect

Don’t tell anyone, but the oldest thing I've ever touched was a 3,000 year old Assyrian relief. It was worth it. You could still see some of the original paint in the cracks and cuneiform covered it. At one time that panel, and its fellows, were brilliantly painted and adorned the walls of a palace.  

The majority of old things that I’m familiar with are much more recent than those stone reliefs, but I still have a similar thrill when I handle them. Not long ago, we came into possession of a box full of hundreds of glass slides taken by my great-great uncles at the turn of the last century. They’re more than a hundred years old and depict a lost time that we will never see again. Holding them up to the light transports you suddenly into the past in a way that I can’t describe.

We know my great-great uncles were prolific travelers, sometimes crossing the Atlantic more than once a year for business. They traveled first class, stayed at the finest hotels, and one of them even went as far as Algeria and Spain. Those were the days of globetrotting.

Postcard of the Lusitania my uncle sent just before his departure from New York.

He writes: Just a line to say au revoir. Hope all is well during my absence. Oct 21, 1908. 

Unfortunately, my great-grandmother, who collected the slides and letters and postcards, had an odd way about her. She often labelled things wrong and instead of keeping the letters they sent home, she only clipped the insignia of the hotels they stayed at out of the top of the letters and threw the rest away. She was a strange one.

However, as we've been scanning the slides, we've been able to do a bit of detective work of our own. Sometimes there are words in the pictures…the names of hotels, the name of a ship on a life preserver, street names…things like that. Slowly, we've been able to piece together the places that my great-uncle visited back in the years before the Great War.

Unidentified passengers, c. 1907-1908 

Part of the name 'Lusitania' can be seen 

just behind the man in the foregrounds' left elbow

One of the most fascinating things Rose discovered was the name of a ship printed on a life preserver in one of the photographs. It was the name Lusitania.

The RMS Lusitania was the queen of her day. She was one of the fastest liners afloat and her interior rivaled that of the later Titanic. Unfortunately, like the Titanic, the Lusitania was also an ill-fated ship. In 1915, she was torpedoed off Ireland by a German U-Boat. The first explosion wasn't enough to sink her, but after a second explosion, she went down in 18 minutes with the loss of 1,195 lives, in one of the most devastating sinkings of a civilian ship in history. It’s almost certain that her sinking, along with the Zimmerman Telegram, prompted the United States to declare war in 1917.

Later it was speculated that the Lusitania was carrying a secret cargo. Her hold was packed with war supplies, as well as several million bullets, but theories that she was carrying Aluminium dust or the explosive, guncotten, disguised in crates of beef ran wild. These theories have never been proven, but no one is sure it wasn't the Lusitania’s cargo that caused the second explosion that sank her so quickly.

Of course, my uncle wasn't aboard the Lusitania when she went down. He traveled aboard her shortly after her maiden voyage in 1907, but it’s still odd to think that he walked those same decks that Robert Ballard revealed when he explored the wreck in 1993.

A post card sent by a family friend from Hamburg in 1915, before America's entry into the war. The Lusitania was sunk the spring of that year.
He writes: Hamburg 1/10/15. Have returned here. It appears now that my trip will be successful. I will probably sail back [to New York] on Frederick VIII leaving Copenhagen on the 6th of February. During these days the first train between Berlin and Constantinople will run. Today the news of the evacuation of Gallipoli arrived.

The First World War really put an end to the great transatlantic liners. There was a short resurrection in the twenty years between the wars, but ocean liners were doomed. The only ocean liner in active service today is the British liner, Queen Mary 2; the rest have either been scrapped or turned into floating hotels.

I wish liners would come back; not only are the fares cheaper than flying, but they have a sense of the old world about them. My wish may soon come true; a slightly crazy, Australian billionaire wants to bring back the Titanic. The replica, Titanic II, is due to be launched in 2016. I do not jest. 

~Psyche

PS: The following video was released in 1918 by American animator Winsor McCay. It was the longest piece of animation at the time, and the first animated documentary. It was afterwards verified that only one torpedo struck the Lusitania.