Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front. Richard Holmes

will be.’¹³⁶

      In September 1914 Graham Greenwell, instantly commissioned into the infantry, told his mother that: ‘I am having great fun and enjoying it all immensely.’ The only setback, though, he wrote, was that: ‘I can’t get a sword or a revolver for love or money, though Harrods are getting me one.’¹³⁷ One fond mother earnestly advertised in The Times for a loan to buy a revolver for her officer son, promising donors that the best possible references supported her application. North Whitehead feared that his mother might not be so supportive. He wrote from Rugby school that he was persuaded, ‘not only by the leader writers but by letters written by officers’, that all able-bodied men really should join. He knew that she would worry about him, but assured her that:

      our navy will play the chief part in our share of the war.

      A man who has just joined the army is nearly useless at first, although I can handle a service rifle …

      Darling Mummy, remember that in all probability I shall never go beyond the drill ground & that if I do I shall in all probability never be more than a reserve.

      He was commissioned into the Army Service Corps, Special Reserve and was in France by the month’s end. ‘The officers who have just got their commissions owing to the war are markedly less pleasant than the regular officers who are simply charming,’ he wrote. ‘In active service the relations between officers of different ranks is much easier than in peacetime.’ There were some pleasant surprises. ‘It is almost impossible to pay for anything in the shops, they want to make a gift of everything,’ and: ‘The foreign soldiers all salute one as if their lives depended on it.’¹³⁸

      Family connections were useful. Julian Tyndale-Biscoe was at OTC camp on Cannock Chase when war broke out, and gleefully reported that there was a huge inter-fight to celebrate the news. When the guard charged the offenders in an attempt to restore order, ‘they were soon thrown to the ground and parted from their rifles and hats’. He wired his cousin Victor, commanding King Edward’s Horse, who replied: ‘Regiment full strength – join something.’ His uncle Albert, commanding a brigade of field artillery at Woolwich, suggested that he apply for a regular commission in the gunners. But the war, he thought, might be over by then, so instead he wrote to the War Office. There was a brief interview: ‘When he heard that I had Certificate A and was in the shooting eight, etc, etc, he gave a grunt and told me that he would arrange for me to be gazetted in the next week or so.’¹³⁹

      Tyndale-Biscoe happily went off in his OTC uniform with hasty alterations to the sleeve for his new badges of rank. But he received a rude shock when he joined his battery at Deepcut in Surrey.

      Where were the guns and horses? All I could see was a large crowd of men in their civilian clothes marching unendingly to the voice of various sergeants, on a gravel square, much to the detriment of their boots. The Major said, ‘Here is the Battery — I want you to train these men.’ When I told him that I had no artillery training, he said ‘Oh, that does not matter, you just watch the others do it, and do it yourself;

      He managed to get posted to Woolwich for some proper training, and the other officers he met typified the young men commissioned by these rough and ready methods. ‘I have met a lot of nice fellows here,’ he told his father. ‘Apart from Paul, there are two from Cambridge – one shared the same staircase at Jesus with Harold [his brother] and the other who is in my battery stroked the Trinity boat.’ Posted back to a battery at Aldershot with some decent training under his belt, he found that he had fallen into the clutches of a battery commander of the horsier persuasion. ‘I don’t believe in all these angles and things,’ he announced. ‘What I say is – “Gallop up to the top of the hill and poop off”.’¹⁴⁰

      On 1 December 1914 Second Lieutenant Jim Mackie of 2/4th Somerset Light Infantry, himself only commissioned in September that year, told his brother Andrew:

      I heard the Colonel saying this morning that he wanted one more subaltern so I at once approached him and said that I had a younger brother who would like to join. He jumped at the idea at once and said that he should be delighted to have a younger brother of mine in the regiment …

      I asked you to send your birth certificate and medical certificate tonight because the Colonel is sending to the War Office to-morrow & if your certificates are sent up you will get gazetted more quickly … As the Colonel has definitely decided to take you, you need not wait till you are gazetted before you get your uniform but can begin at once.¹⁴¹

      When the battalion sailed for India there were three Mackie brothers in its officers mess.

      In August 1914, Harold Macmillan, the future Prime Minister, enlisted in the Artists’ Rifles and was speedily commissioned into a New Army battalion of the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. Sir Thomas Pilkington, his CO,

      with his white hair, rubicund complexion, and aquiline nose … was a figure from the past. He treated us with kindness, but seemed somewhat surprised at the strange collection of officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of which he was the Chief … I can see him now, with well-cut uniform, smart polished boots, and spurs, gazing mournfully at a number of men – some of whom had tunics but civilian trousers, others with khaki trousers but civilian coats – all constituting a formation of troops which must have struck him as extremely unlikely ever to become soldiers.¹⁴²

      It struck young Harold that he could get to France quicker with a better regiment, and after an interview with the regimental lieutenant colonel found himself translated to 3/Grenadier Guards, whose legacy never left him. ‘I have preserved the habit of being five minutes early for appointments,’ he acknowledged in later life.

      This spate of commissioning went on into 1915. Bernard Martin, still at school, was summoned by his headmaster to be told:

      ‘You, and some of your friends, will be interested in a War Office pronouncement that I’ve just received. The regular Army has a Special Reserve of Officers; something to do with filling unexpected vacancies in the Indian Army … Applications for commissions in this reserve are now invited from school cadet corps members. It is not like Kitchener’s Army volunteers, serving for the duration. These special reserve commissions are permanent …’. He picked up a paper from his desk. ‘Applicants must be recommended by someone of good standing who has known the applicants personally for at least three years. The age limit is eighteen.’

      ‘Nineteen, sir,’ I murmured in polite concern.

      ‘Nineteen for Kitchener’s Army,’ he explained. ‘The Special Reserve for Officers is eighteen …’ So a miracle came to pass. On the 25th April 1915, one day after my eighteenth birthday, I was gazetted a Second Lieutenant in the reserve battalion of the 64th Regiment of Foot in the regular army, an infantry regiment which boasted a long list of battle honours …¹⁴³

      A public school boy who wanted a commission could scarcely fail to get one. But when R. C. Sherriff was being interviewed he gave the name of his school, only to discover that it was not on the approved list: the fact that it was a grammar school with a long and distinguished history did not help. His interviewer regretted that there was nothing that could be done, and Sherriff duly signed on as a private, to gain his commission the hard way.

      Not all public school boys, students or graduates wanted commissions. Sometimes this was a matter of principle. Frederick Keeling (‘Siberian Joe’) was twenty-eight in 1914, a Cambridge graduate and a member of the Independent Labour Party. He enlisted in 6/Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, and refused a commission, though he rose steadily through the ranks to become a company sergeant major in 1916. That summer he wrote to his mother-in-law:

      I may be knocked out in the next few days. If