The Middy August 12 1999

Letters from the killing fields of Europe

At the beginning of the Boer war in 1899, Queen Victoria ruled over a vast empire.

19 years later, at the end of the Great War, Britain had lost more than 1 million soldiers from two conflicts and was arguably a broken nation.

The assumption had been that both the Boer War and the Great War would be over quickly, but they dragged on – exposing the weaknesses of a supposedly invincible army command.

The Boer War arose out of the South African gold rush in the late 1880s when thousands of British prospectors moved into the Southern Transvaal, occupied by the Dutch-descended Boer settlers.

Boer forces invaded the British territories of Natal and Cape Colony, and a protracted war was finally won by the British in 1902

Jingoistic fervour broke out all over England. When Henry Rowe, the music master of Hurstpierpoint College, came home from the fighting, pupils in the schools army corps met him at Hassocks station and marched him back in triumph accompanied by the school band playing “Georgia."

The Great War began in 1914 on a similar wave of jingoism. Posters appeared in the press asking men to join up and "uphold the honour of the county of Sussex.”

Recruiting offices were set up at the drill halls in Hurstpierpoint, Haywards Heath and Cuckfield and cards appeared in windows declaring ‘not at home – a man from this House now serving in His Majesties Forces.”

Emmie Combridge from Hassocks recalls: 

"We were so sure the War was going to be over quickly. I remember my two uncles coming over to see us one Sunday and saying goodbye.

"They were so cheerful saying "it'll be over by Christmas. See you again soon" –but they both died.”

The grim reality of life in the trenches emerged in early letters home. One such letter, written toward the end of 1914, arrived from the son of Mr and Mrs Holden, of Hassocks:

‘We have just finished our second 10 days in the trenches and we're only too glad to get out of them… We have never been standing in less than 3 inches of water in mud. Our feet are like lumps of putty through being continually damp."

The Holden’s son wrote again a few weeks later.

His letter was so extraordinary that it made the pages of the Brighton Herald and the mid Sussex Times:

"On Christmas Eve we could hear the Germans singing carols.

Then lights appeared all along their trenches, and presently we could hear greetings shouted across to us, which we returned; and some of our fellows actually went out and met some of the Germans and exchanged greetings and souvenirs, and smoked a cigarette together. It was also mutually arranged that there should be an armistice between us for Christmas day and not a single shot was fired during that time. It seems very strange to go out and clasp your enemy by the hand and wish him a Merry Christmas.

It made me wonder why we were at war at all.”

12 months after the temporary Christmas armistice, the Leighton family of The Crescent, Keymer were eagerly awaiting news of their 20-year-old son Roland.

He was due home on leave on Christmas Eve, 1915, and his fiancee Vera Brittain travelled to Brighton to meet him.

When he didn't turn up she assumed his boat has been delayed and thought little of it.

The Christmas festivities passed in eager anticipation and when a phone call came through, Vera rushed to answer it.

The call was from Roland’s sister Clare to say he had been killed in action.

In her book ‘Testament of Youth’ Vera Brittain describes visiting the Leighton’s cottage in Keymer 

and finding Rowland’s mother and father sister "standing in helpless distress in the midst of his returned kit.”

The mud stained clothes included the uniform he had been wearing when he was hit.

"I wondered, and I wonder still,” she writes, "why it was thought necessary to return such relics – the tunic torn back and front by the bullet, a khaki vest dark and stiff with blood… those gruesome rags made me realise, as I had never realised before, all that France really meant.”

By 1916, trench warfare was firmly established as exhausted soldiers dug themselves into a line stretching from the Belgian coast to neutral Switzerland.

As the German offensive wore down the resistance of the French at Verdun the allies were in danger of losing the war.

Out of this desperate situation lay the origins of the Battle of the Somme.

The date of the first offensive by the River Somme in northern France was set for 7:30 am on Saturday, July 1, 1916.

The night before the attack , Stewart (‘Bar’) Schneider, who was serving in the second Battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment, wrote to his mother in Haywards Heath:

My dear mother, 

I am writing this on the eve of the greatest battle ever fought. Our artillery have bombarded them (the Germans) continually for five days and nights, and in the early hours of tomorrow morning the infantry are going over, led by the Royal Berks to whom I am proud to belong.

If I am killed, dear mother, don't worry, as if my time has come I don't think I should like to die in any other way.

Dad and yourself have always been awfully kind to me, and I am very sorry if at any time I have caused you any pain and trouble. 

Your loving son, 

Bar.

Heavily censored press reports of the battle alluded to a great victory.

This report entitled "the Great Offensive by the British and French" appeared in the Mid Sussex Times on Tuesday, July 4:

"On Saturday, following a weeks bombardment the "thunder" of which was heard even in central Sussex, where many windows were shaken, the British and French troops started a big push.

By Sunday night it was reported that nearly 10,000 prisoners had been taken, together with the whole enemy first line.”

In reality, the British made little impression and German shellfire had turned the battle into a blood bath. By the close of the first day, the British had suffered 62,000 casualties.

Of those, 8,170 were dead – Stuart Schneider among them.

He died as he climbed with his men above the parapet.

A bullet went through his heart and killed him instantly.