Poem ~ The Dead Stand Up - Friday, 30 October 1914

On the 29^th day of battle Lieutenant

T.H. Watson explains to a lady friend,

That rather than a battle, they are

Almost taking part in a campaign.

The 2^nd Worcestershire Regiment

Began their part on 13 September

And remained in the front line,

For a total of eight days, then moved

Away to rest – they found shelter

Out on a farm until they were shelled.

Lieutenant Watson described,

How he then lived as a nomad.

Staying in one village during the day

To spend the night in another village,

Until finally they returned to the front.

The Guards Brigade, with the artillery

And his Worcestershire Regiment,

Captured eight guns – who had lost

Some 500 men within the woods –

One enemy gun suddenly stopped

Firing - later they found that a shell,

Had ripped off the gunners head.

The following day rained heavy

As heavy – they found a barn

Half full of straw, open on all sides,

In which they buried themselves.

Lieutenant Watson on waking

The next morning found a heavy

Quarter master-sergeant,

Pinned on him, so he could not

Move - still soaked on waking,

The rain was then joined by wind.

Remaining there until the evening,

They moved to the German positions

Encountering a patrol where three

Men Were hit – they found the field

Covered with Germans, dead, dying

And wounded – they came to a trench

Where 30 Germans stood, their rifles

On the parapet, but all were dead.

by Jamie Mann.

Anon.,1914. Battle Stories – Standing Upright, but Dead. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 30 Oct. p.3. Col.6. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11186087/Daily-Telegraph-October-30-1914.html [Accessed: 30 October 2014].

Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 30 October 2014). 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11186087/Daily-Telegraph-October-30-1914.html

http://worldwaroneblogger.blogspot.co.uk/

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Poem ~ Two fathers, Twelve Sons -– Saturday, 19 September 1914

A Unionist candidate for Hartlepool, W. G. Gritten,

Informed King George of two notable working men,

In Hartlepool - between them having 12 sons and three

Close relatives, who had joined his Majesty’s forces.

One man had seven sons and two sons-in-law,

Another man had five sons and two nephews,

Who all had joined to fight - both families having

Received letters from Sir William Carrington,

The keeper of H.M. Private Purse.

The communication informing them of the King’s Pride.

Is hereby summarised one such letter sent –

Dated 15 September 1914, the King, having heard

Of your many sons, sends deepest gratification, asking

That his congratulations be passed onto them.

With His Majesty’s best wishes for their success,

In their noble chosen career, faithfully signed,

Sir William Carington – oddly how fathers only

Being addressed, with no family names mentioned.

Unlike the ten Calpin boys, who gained recognition.

by Jamie Mann.

Anon.,1914. Seven Sons in The War. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 19 Sept. p.5. Col.5. Available at:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11107159/Daily-Telegraph-September-19-1914.html [Accessed: 19th September 2014].

Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 19 September 2014). 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11107159/Daily-Telegraph-September-19-1914.html

http://worldwaroneblogger.blogspot.co.uk/

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Poem ~ Parisian Hotel Hospital -Thursday, 17 September 1914

The Hotel Majestic, in Paris,

Having been transformed,

Into an English Red Cross Hospital,

Is now receiving all wounded.

A visitor witnesses the arrival,

Of fifteen wounded soldiers –

Two of whom seriously wounded,

Since dying. More cases suffer,

From rifle bullets and shell severity,

In their legs, bodies and heads.

The injured are French and German,

With one Englishman among them,

Who is from the Oxford Light Infantry.

Perhaps curiously the Germans,

Have the more serious wounds.

Than the French soldiers - although

Many remain cheerful and eager

For war news, in Paris papers.

Now installed with a surgical theatre,

The ladies cloakroom of the hotel,

Now a place for serious operations

To be carried out, including Trephining -

Being the cutting of a hole in the skull.

The soldiers recount their experiences,

And impressions of battlefields.

A German with a shell wound in the thigh,

Says the acts of the Kaiser’s army,

Carried out at Dinant, seen as atrocities –

Are in fact, the soldiers says,

Metered out by Belgians to the Uhlans.

On entering the town the German army

Found three Uhlans, tied to a stake,

With attempts to burn them, quite evident.

Elsewhere, an injured, delirious

Frenchman is heard to say,

‘J’ai Peur: ou sont les Anglais?’

A testament to the high regard

The French hold, for the quality

Of fighting for their British Allies.

The visitor states how an officer,

Of the French army medical services

Being cultured (Of course), confirms

This thought.  He states how French

Soldiers are 'distinguished by his dash,

His impetuosity, His elan’ –

With regard to the British soldier,

‘What you admire is his patience,

His stubbornness, his stern resistance,

His perfect calmness, under the most

Unnerving circumstances'-

‘Ah!’ he said. 'We do admire gallantry

Of the British soldier!’

It is apparent the German wounded,

Have been taught to believe,

That English soldiers shoot prisoners –

A libel against The British army! -

Which explains the terror of any German,

Falling into British hands.

At the Hotel Majestic, with one British

Soldier, shot in the knee,

Being treated, is quite happy

To be out of the frontline,

In the comfort of the English Red Cross.

Unlike, perhaps, his equivalent,

In a French Hospital, being treated by medics,

Who speak no English.

Only when a lady visitor spoke to him,

In his native tongue,

did he proclaim, ‘Madame, take me out of this,

Nobody here understands me!’ 

A valuable advancement arrives by telegram,

In the Paris Academy of Science,

Of an improvement in treatment of wounded,

And for the field Ambulance work.

A simplified process of radiographic images

Of wounds. Pictures can be made,

Not on glass plates, but upon ‘papier au gelatino.’

At the Lariboisiere Hospital,

The work is completed by M'sieur Charles Vallant,

The papier Gelatino being,

1/13 of the weight and1/3 of the cost of glass plates. 

So instead of two processes,

Radiographic images can now be made in one.

by Jamie Mann.

Anon.,1914. Hospital scenes in Paris – Stories of the Field. The Daily Telegraph, [online] 17 Sept. p.9. Col.3. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11077936/Daily-Telegraph-September-17-1914.html [Accessed: 17 September 2014].

Mann, J., 2014. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal communication, 17 September 2014). 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/11077936/Daily-Telegraph-September-17-1914.html

http://worldwaroneblogger.blogspot.co.uk/

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