The incredible courage of bomber killed in doomed trench raid
JAMES Ireland was my grandad Alfred’s twin and they lived in Bolton, Lancs. James enlisted in the Army in 1915, joining the 1/5th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and trained as a bomber. A bombing team usually consisted of nine men; an NCO, two carriers, two grenadiers, two bayonet men and two spare men for when casualties were incurred. They would charge the enemy trench and the grenadiers would throw Mills bombs into every dugout. Can you imagine how terrifying that must have been, how courageous they were? James was soon wounded and invalided home to recover. Yet he was back in 1916 and took part in the Somme offensive, in the Battle of Guillemont. In September, his battalion moved to Ypres and on January 10, 1917 the decision was made to raid German trenches.
It was badly planned. The party was divided into two and artillery bombardment started. The parties crossed the front line and the left party met little opposition. Tragically, the right party found that the enemy wire was uncut by the bombardment and met heavy fire. Almost half of the 148 raiders became casualties and nine lost their lives. My great-uncle was one of them, aged 21. He was buried on the battlefield but after the war his grave could not be found. He is commemorated on Ypres’ Menin Gate. Never was the phrase “rest in peace” so apt. Never was the phrase “horror of war” so graphically highlighted. God bless them all.
It is one of the most haunting and memorable dates in our history books – the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918 – the day the Great War ended.
But if Prime Minister David Lloyd George had his way, that unforgettable time and date
100 years ago this Sunday would not have been so evocative.
Worse, it would have cost thousands of lives.
A century ago Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, First Sea Lord – known as “Rosie” to his family – was chosen as the British delegate at the signing of the Armistice.
The agreement would bring an end to four years of the most bitter and bloody fighting Europe had seen.
In a rickety railway carriage, a former dining car turned makeshift office, parked up in woodland in Compiègne, in northern France, Sir Rosslyn joined the Supreme Allied Commander, Frenchman Marshal Ferdinand Foch, and the German delegation.
After much shuttling between that carriage and the Germans’ own – parked a few metres along the track – the Armistice was signed at 5.20am, and the ceasefire announced at 11am. But today, Sir Rosslyn’s greatgreat-nephew, Michael Wemyss, 71, reveals Lloyd George wanted the ceasefire at 2.30pm, rather than the famous 11th hour. It would have a been a costly choice...
He says: “He was instructed by Lloyd George to ensure the Armistice took effect at 2.30pm. The story is, Rosie rang King George V and between them decided there was no point holding off, so they brought it forward to the 11th hour, 11am. “Lloyd George wanted to announce it in the Commons and take the glory. But George V announced it and Lloyd George had the rug pulled out from under him. Every hour saved lives.”
But siding with the King against the PM cost Sir Rosslyn, then 54, dear.
“Lloyd George was furious and withheld Rosie’s £100,000 grant – all the service chiefs got a thank you. They all got earldoms too!” says Michael.
“Rosie was furious. He felt what he had done was to everyone’s benefit other than Lloyd George personally and this was a vendetta.” Sir Rosslyn’s decision, which was backed by George V, a cousin and friend with whom he had served in the navy, was not his only lifesaving action during the First World War. Remembers He was responsible for getting all the British and Australian troops out of Gallipoli in Turkey in 1916, after their campaign failed spectacularly. “When the army decided to retreat he managed to get all the soldiers off the peninsula without a single death,” says
Michael proudly. Alongside him was Captain John Peter Ralph Marriott – and it was to Marriott that Sir Rosslyn turned to assist him at the momentous signing of the Armistice.
Today, his grandson Charles Marriott, 68, says his ancestor was also always hugely proud of his presence that day.
And it was he who phoned the King’s personal secretary to confirm that the document had been signed.
“It took him hours desperately trying to get through,” Charles reveals.
Then only 32, Capt Marriott was given the blotting paper that was used to dry the ink of the signatures as a memento. He always told of the tense atmosphere in the carriage – and the aggressive exchanges between the rather cocky Allied contingent and their crushed enemy.
The Germans had been forced to hand over all their artillery, machine guns, naval fleet and air force.
“There was quite a lot of rudeness in the carriage,” says Charles. “The German delegation said, ‘We need an Armistice, our people are starving’ – the Navy had
blockaded the German ports. And Wemyss told them, ‘You look fat enough!’ The German replied, ‘As you well know, Admiral, we are the people who don’t suffer in these situations’.”
On the French side, Éric BécourtFoch, great-grandson of Marshal Ferdinand Foch, says his forebear had a very personal reason for relishing his signing of the Armistice.
Foch lost his own son, as well as his son-in-law, Éric’s grandfather, on August 22, 1914, during the Battle of the Frontiers when 27,000 French soldiers were killed in less than 24 hours.
“He did not learn of their deaths for a number of months, the armies were in retreat and it was a great mess,” says Éric, 80. “News didn’t get through.”
Movingly, family man Foch, in deep mourning, wrote to his wife nearly ever day during the conflict.
“It must have meant all the more to him to finally sign the Armistice,” says Éric of that incredible moment.
It was Foch’s carriage where the signing took place – and 22 years later it was also the location of another historic moment.
When France signed an armistice with the Germans in 1940 during the Second World War, Adolf Hitler ordered that it take place in the same carriage in Compiègne, so the Germans could lord it over their enemies.
Then the carriage was taken to Berlin and exhibited – until in 1945, as the Nazis realised defeat was coming, they blew it up in one final act of revenge.