Caring, dark side to Russell’s leadership

This year marks a century since the end of World War I. That final year, 1918, saw major developments following the pointless and massive death toll battles of the previous year. New Zealand, with a total population of about a million people was the smallest nation of the British Empire but lost about 13,000 men. Some New Zealand communities never fully recovered from the loss of so many young men and many once thriving towns are now little more than cross roads with a large war memorial. Others became ghost towns. Over the next few weeks we will follow the fortunes of New Zealanders in what became known as the ‘‘Great War or The War to end all Wars’’. It was neither.

Of the thousands of New Zealand men who enlisted for service in World War I few had any first-hand experience of combat other than those who had seen action in the South African War 14 years earlier.

Most had no concept of the appalling conditions they would be expected to fight and live in for months on end. Disease, starvation and the incomprehensible incompetence of many commanding officers took a dreadful toll of young men who had volunteered to fight for Britain.

While young Englishmen had grown up in a society ruled and dominated by strict class distinction many New Zealanders, and Australians, were astonished and infuriated at the attitude of many officers to the men under their command.

A number of New Zealand officers, who had trained and served in the British Army for several years, also had this attitude.

While strict military discipline in time of war was essential to maintain order and control over front line troops under enemy fire some of that discipline in the British Army was so harsh that it had the opposite effect with a number of desertions and suicides.

Major General Andrew Russell was perhaps New Zealand’s most outstanding war leader in World War I and was one who had trained at the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, England, and served for five years in the British army before returning to Hawke’s Bay to take up sheep farming in the years before the outbreak of the war.

With his military background he took an active role in the volunteer territorial units and was given command of the Mounted Rifles Brigade at Gallipoli in

1915 and later he was the first commanding officer of the New Zealand Division when it was formed in March

1916.

He remained the division’s impressive leader until the end of the war. During that time he was scrupulous in his training of the men on the Western Front and insisted on high standards of discipline.

He was also an innovative and intelligent tactician, and showed a real care for the welfare of his men.

There was also a dark side to his nature which stemmed from the rigid discipline of his British Army training. He was one of the officers who authorised the execution of his own men by firing squad as a means of enforcing discipline.

By the time the British were preparing for the Battle of the Somme in August 1918 New Zealand and Australian infantrymen had gained a reputation as formidable trench fighters with the bayonet and grenade and some felt they were over used to the point of exhaustion while other less effective units were held back in reserve.

True or not it led to resentment as hundreds of their mates, and often relatives, were killed or maimed by bullets, the concussion of continuous shell blasts, later known as shell shock, malnutrition and gas amid the stench of thousands of unburied British and German soldiers.

Worst of all was listening to hundreds of men left for days to die of wounds hanging the barbed wire in the mud and filth of the Western Front.

First they called for stretcher bearers, then for water and finally for their mothers. Although there was the rare truce, to recover wounded and bury dead, most rescue attempts, even by unarmed stretcher bearers, attracted enemy fire.

Under these conditions no amount of discipline or military training could prevent some men from losing their sanity, some permanently.

Most senior officers never saw the front lines and trenches, only lines on a map.

A brutal form of punishment was known as Field Punishment Number One, in which a soldier was tied or chained spread eagled to a wagon wheel or post sometimes for days on end without shelter, food or water.

When that failed to bring the desired result the ultimate punishment was applied.

In an attempt to enforce discipline Major General decided to make an example of Private Frank Hughes who was court martialled for desertion and sentenced to death by firing squad.

He had left his post in the front lines several times to get drunk with French civilians.

Finding volunteers among the victim’s own unit for firing squad duty was fraught with risk of mass rebellion, particularly among New Zealand and Australian units so they were conscripted from the Maori Pioneer Battalion who were primarily employed as trench differs and road makers.

Some of their rifles were loaded with blanks so no one ever knew who fired the fatal shots.

A number of men were sentenced to field punishment for refusing to be part of a firing squad when there were not enough volunteers.

In all 28 New Zealanders were sentenced to death by firing squad and five of them were shot.

The remaining 23 had their sentences reduced to prison terms.

The five were Private Frank Hughes, Private John Sweeney, Private John Braithwaite, Private John King and Private Victor Spencer.

Victor Spencer, from Invercargill, was just 18 and had lied about his age. He was found shell shocked and terrified in a French house.

Although there was the rare truce, to recover wounded and bury dead, most rescue attempts, even by unarmed stretcher bearers, attracted enemy fire.