Amid the Somme rain, a posy for each man who fell
WILL you please tell me, if possible, where my husband was struck,’ Florence Scarlett wrote to her husband’s commanding officer a hundred years ago. ‘After the war, I hope to be able to visit his last resting place.’
Married to Harold for just five months – and not yet aware that she was expecting their child – she added: ‘What I would not give to have had one last message from him.’
Florence never did find that resting place. Like 72,000 others who fell on the Somme and have no known grave, Harold is remembered on the colossal Thiepval Memorial to the missing. How proud, though, both she and Harold would have been, a century on, to see their granddaughter, Clare, at his memorial yesterday reciting Florence’s words in front of two heads of state, the Royal Family and an audience of 10,000 people (including both our embattled party leaders).
The Prince of Wales and Prime Minister David Cameron were among the main participants here at the principal international event to mark the centenary of the bloodiest battle in our history.
Another main player – and a lastminute surprise – was the French President, Francois Hollande. Until 48 hours before, yesterday’s host was supposed to be French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls. He had been elbowed out of the way by the President who had let it be known that, at this fraught moment in the Entente Cordiale, he wished to show his solidarity with the British.
A laudable sentiment, perhaps, but did he really need to hold an impromptu news conference on France’s Brexit position moments afterwards on such a sacred spot? Here, surely, was an event which puts current political squabbles into perspective. It was certainly not the moment to intrude on the private grief of an even more lugubrious than usual Jeremy Corbyn.
Just in front of him sat the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (her great-great-uncle, Lt Lionel Lupton, was killed here) and Prince Harry.
For all the international grandeur and spectacle of this stunning commemoration, it was still the little personal details which packed the greatest punch: Grainy film footage of a departing troop train as the Morriston male voice choir sang Ivor Novello’s Keep The Home Fires Burning; a servicewoman reading the words of schoolteacher-turned- Great War nurse Olive Dent who had been ‘too tired to shut out of sight and mind the passionate appeal of two dying eyes and the low faint whisper of “Sister, am I going to die?” ’
And then there was the testimony of one of the 49 men to win the Victoria Cross at the Somme, Lt Tom Adlam VC of the Bedfordshire Regiment. His words were read out – beautifully and dramatically – by his son, Clive, 87.
The fact that we are only one generation removed from this cataclysmic moment in our national story underlines our proximity to what unfolded here. Those names on all those village war memorials are not long-lost relics of history.
The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery – who fire those splendid gun salutes at our state occasions – came riding by and lined up their guns for an opening salvo. All their pristine field guns actually saw action in the Great War. The one surprise was that they were aimed to the West; pointing that way a hundred years ago, they would have been firing straight into the British lines.
Actors Charles Dance, Joely Richardson and Jason Isaacs turned in polished performances narrating the main elements of the story.
These were interspersed with readings from ordinary members of the Armed Forces. If Private Sean Fendley of the Yorkshire Regiment was not as mellifluous as these thespian pros, stumbling over the odd word as he delivered the shocked words of a private in the York and Lancaster Regiment, it didn’t matter a jot. In fact, it added pleasing authenticity to the atmosphere. Think how nervous those 120,000 young men were on the eve of battle. When it ended, 141 days later, 128,000 Commonwealth soldiers lay dead in return for six miles of enemy territory gained.
Importantly, yesterday’s event included a substantial Irish contribution, with a member of the Irish Defence Forces reading the words of Tom Kettle, nationalist politician and journalist who died leading his company of Dublin Fusiliers into battle. Gallant Irishmen died in their thousands here, serving what was then King and country. Until recently, the Irish government could not have countenanced taking part in a major British military anniversary. How things have changed. Yesterday, the President of the Republic, Michael D Higgins, no less, was here.
Nice, too, to hear a corporal from today’s German army reciting (in German) the report from the 4th Bavarian Infantry after encountering
a terrifying new secret weapon. The tank made its battlefield debut here at the Somme (with mixed results).
Up stepped former England footballer, Sol Campbell. He had been invited to read the words of a sergeant serving alongside William Jonas, a much-loved stalwart of Clapton (now Leyton) Orient Football Club. ‘Willie turned to me and said: “Goodbye, Mac. Best of luck, special love to my sweetheart Mary Jane and best regards to the lads at the Orient.” No sooner had he jumped up out of the trench, my best friend of nearly 20 years was killed before my eyes.’
Football, then in its formative years, is deeply intertwined with the story and mythology of the Somme. Many soccer stars of the day were killed here. Hugh Sebag-Monte- fiore’s acclaimed new history of the battle reminds us that Captain Billie Nevill of the East Surreys had the bright idea of giving his men footballs. That way they could dribble their way across No Man’s Land that ghastly morning instead of worrying about those silly enemy machine guns.
He was never seen again, though one of his footballs is still on display at Dover Castle. Among the famous footballing names on the walls of Thiepval is that of Tom Rowlandson. A Charterhouse schoolboy, he went on to play for England and for the Corinthian Casuals, the celebrated amateurs, who were embarking on a tour of Brazil when war broke out. They immediately turned round without kicking a ball and went home to fight. Rowlandson, a winner of the Military Cross, is still remembered as the goalkeeper who would step aside whenever the opposition had a penalty. The embodiment of what we still call ‘the Corinthian spirit’, he refused to believe that any player was capable of ‘intentional’ foul play.
And to think that the current England squad failed to make the short trip to honour these men while staying just down the road during Euro 2016...
THErain was tipping down as the Prince of Wales stepped forward to read the Somme reminscences of the writer John Masefield. He pressed on, sans brolly. So did David Cameron, attending what was probably his last state occasion as Prime Minister. He told the inspirational tale of a Major Anderton who marched ramrod-straight through No Man’s Land to pluck a wounded man from the barbed wire – cheered on by watching Germans.
After everyone had joined in with that perennial throat-gulper Abide With Me, the VIPs proceeded through the adjacent cemetery to lay wreaths.
They were followed by 600 children – 300 French and 300 British – who laid a posy of flowers at each of the 600 graves in the small cemetery alongside the memorial.
From here, the younger members of the Royal Family went to open a new Thiepval visitor centre. Prince Harry diplomatically attempted some French, before conceding that his repertoire did not extend much beyond ‘Bonjour’.
The Prince of Wales and the Duch- ess of Cornwall moved on to other parts of the battlefield. The first day of the Somme remains the worst day in the history of Newfoundland, then a small dominion rather than part of Canada. Of the 800 men of the Newfoundland Regiment who went over the top that morning, only 68 made it to the subsequent roll call. Theirs was the second-highest loss of any regiment. ‘They gave without reserve and we pay homage to them,’ the Prince declared at Beaumont Hamel. A huge bronze caribou now dominates this sacred piece of Canadian soil.
The royal convoy also visited Carnoy Military Cemetery where the Duchess of Cornwall laid a wreath on the grave of her great-uncle, Captain Harry Cubitt. He was 24 when he was killed at the Somme leading a Coldstream Guards attack at Ginchy. Within 18 months, younger brothers Alick and William would be killed in action, too. Another family for whom there was no fathoming the scale of the slaughter.
‘It’s a lost generation – and for what?’, the Duchess reflected afterwards. She had been touched that a stranger had left a photo of her great-uncle by his headstone earlier in the week. ‘I’ve never seen a photograph of him,’ she said. ‘But it is him, because it looks exactly like my grandfather, who never forgave his parents because he wasn’t allowed to go and fight. He was also in the Coldstream Guards. Because three [brothers] had been lost they said, “Sorry, no more”.’
These commemorations have been profoundly important to so many families.
Tony Lambert, 78, from Peterborough, had come in memory of his father, Henry, and his uncle, Ernest. The latter is on the walls at Thiepval. But Henry was lucky. He managed to make it to the enemy trenches at the Somme and back again. A year later, he was being treated for an injury near Ypres when a sniper shot his doctor. Yet Henry survived the war and lived to be 76. ‘He never made it back here. I am here for him and for my uncle,’ Tony explained. ‘It had to be done.’