Call goes out for volunteers
In this fortnightly column Carol Bell looks at events as they were portrayed in The Timaru Herald locally, nationally and internationally as the world was engulfed by the Great War.
5 August 1914
A special meeting of the Waimate Automobile Association was called to ascertain how many motor cars in the district were at the disposal of the Defence Department, should occasion require. On the international front, Britain’s navy made ready to defend the coasts of France against Germany and Belgium refused German requests to transport German troops through their country on the way to France. 6 August 1914
The formal announcements of war were reported. The Timaru Herald editorial intoned: ‘‘Today the Empire is at war. Without panic, without excitement, intoxicated by no hysteria, Great Britain has entered upon the most serious struggle which she has had to face for a hundred years.’’ The cable page announced Britain’s declaration as Germany invaded Belgium and the Czar’s statement that the Russians were related to Slavs ‘‘by faith and blood’’ and they would ‘‘rise with unanimity and devotion to repulse Germany’s insolent attack’’. 7 August 1914
Meetings were being called to discuss the crisis – the Chamber of Commerce and the SC committee of Public Safety; also a meeting of ladies was to be held to form a committee for providing comforts for mobilising troops.
The 8th South Canterbury Mounted Rifles called for volunteers from territorials and those with previous military experience, requiring eight sergeants, one farrier sergeant, one shoeing smith corporal, three shoeing smiths, one saddler, two trumpeters, eight corporals, 103 privates, one signaller corporal, two signallers privates, four drivers first line transport, one driver for spare horses and 12 batmen; total 155. All were expected to bring with them a complete set of saddlery, horse clothing and picketing gear in addition to the horse. Registrations were to begin at 3pm but the queue formed at 1pm and by 4pm 60 had offered. 10 August 1914
South Canterbury had already subscribed £4000 to the War Fund and the figure was expected to reach £5000 that same day. Mr H H E Kurzel, a retired German who had bought property in Temuka four months earlier, was placed under military arrest and detained in the lock-up overnight but then released to be held under police surveillance. 11 August 1914
A crowd gathered at the railway station to bid farewell to the first of the volunteers leaving ‘‘for the seat of war’’ – members of the Railway Battalion of New Zealand Engineers joined the 200 leaving for the front. Those who joined the train at Timaru were Sgt-Major Forsyth, Sgt Willsteed, Sgt Whittleston, Sappers Hutchings, King, Guthrie, Moody, Craw, Smith and Agnew. The crowd cheered heartily as the train steamed out of the station and the departing soldiers responded with Rule Britannia. . 12 August 1914
At the request of the Defence Department, the railway bridges throughout South Canterbury (and presumably the rest of the country) were guarded by Honorary Territorials as a precaution against possible destruction by German or Austrian reservists. The bridges were to be guarded night and day until all the troops from the south got away to the central camp at Addington. It was reported that Germans had been arrested in several parts of Britain when apparently tampering with rail bridges.