Correspondence between Field Marshal Lord William Birdwood and Lady Janetta Birdwood, 1915 - Part 15

Could believe possible - Latterly, I have been sending off

200 men daily sick - today it has been 400 in addition

to about 150 wounded, so the drain becomes awful - of

course when the weather gets cooler, things will I hope

improve much, but in the meantime it makes me very

apprehensive about my next big move. I feel it myself -

we all do - fortunately (some can never be sufficiently grateful)

I have the strongest of insides & have kept well - also I have not

all the hard work - fatigues - carrying heavy loads - digging etc

which the men have, even then I often feel it is all I can

do to drag my legs after me when I have had a long 

day in the trenches - but seeing & talking to the men

makes it well worth it. I enclose a very nice lett
telegram Sir Ian has sent me which you may care to see

& keep. I feel very sorry for him as he must be very worried

& anxious at present about the uncertainty of the success

of his last move - It partly depended on me & I practically

did all that was possible - but to my left Genl Stopford's

Army was landed & much depended on him shoving on

& occupying an important position without delay - &

which I think he could & should have been able to do.

But he had all these new troops who don't yet

know how to fight - I have four Brigades_^ & 6 Battalions after me at

3) present in addition to my Army Corps - & didn't manage

to shove along anything like what was hoped & has given

the Turks time & opportunity to concentrate & dig which they

should never have had - Had he shoved along it would have

ensured my success & we would have been near the end here. In

my own mind I can't help blaming Sir I. to some extent, as

knowing Stopford to be rather old & slow, he should ( at least I 
would) have taken much more personal charge & insisted on things 

being done & really taken command which he has never yet done -Now
that it is late he has removed from Stopford (who though a real 
charming gentleman is not really up to it) & has put De Lisle in

to command. The latter is a real thruster- everyone hates him as 
he is a brute, with no thoughts for others - rude to everyone & 
has no principles, but I believe him to be the right man in 
the right place, & by his brutality I hope he will see things

through - I hear that some of his material in the shape of

Territorials is very bad with no idea of fighting - What their
officers can be like I have no idea, but they they simply have got

to be taught to fight & will lose heavily while doing so.

This is so very different from France where all are

merely pieces of a huge machine, with no chance of

exercising individuality or initiative. Here troops are 

much more on their own & training comes in enormously
I am afraid I am now losing Genl. Williams who
is also going to Head Quarters, where as a matter of

fact I think he will probably be better placed

than here, as he is perhaps just a little old for the hustle

and knocking about. generally all have to do with me here.

I am afraid poor old David Shaw has rather come to grief

at Aden. The Turks suddenly appeared & attacked there, & he

seems to have sent out an insufficiently equipped column in a

hurry who were to some extent overcome by the fearful heat &

retired hurriedly letting the Turks capture a good of what they
possessed. Poor Shaw was sent back again to Karachi &

Genl. Younghusband sent tk to Aden from Egypt with his Brigade

& he is now commanding there & the Turks have retired from 
the immediate vicinity.

Do you see that that that rather nice young Johnston girl is 
engaged to Viscount Sidmouth who has I fancy been
stationed ^in Lahore with his Lahore Territorial Regiment all

last winter- the Johnston family must be rather pleased!

Goodbye little lamb & all my love to you

Ever your very loving old

Will

 

Stamp

DONATED RECORDS LIST

3376

3rd Series (15)

X I expect you will probably have

referred to Lou Onslow's death in 

one of your letters after getting my

news? That letter I have not received.

Med Expdy. Force

22 Aug 15
My own darling Jenny Jane.

Something has been going very wrong with 

the mails as I have just got two weeks letters of

yours in both of which you say you have written before

& that these are just [[?]] up letters - while the first

ones you wrote haven't ^X put in an appearance - perhaps

they will do so later on- I do hope so- but they may

have gone down in the bags sunk by the Turkish shells.

I got the photo of memorials in Twickenham Church

which are I think very good & it is nice of Pickering to

have taken so much trouble about them, as he evidently

has done they look well.

de Crespigny has just joined me as A D.C from Aden

and as Lord Angelsey is also with me, I am rather

embaras de richesse with 3 A.D.Cs for whom I am blowed

if I can find enough work to do! Everyone here has taken

such a liking to Angelsey who is so quiet &

unassuming that it is hard to get rid of him, so I

must just keep him on as extra for the present-

fortunately "pay" makes no difference to him which is

generally where the difficulty comes in in such

cases - I fancy he has many thousands! He was telling
me one day how his predecessor in the title - the

extraordinary fellow who used to love covering himself

with jewels was really no relation whatever,  but it
is too long a story to write

Bingo -Byng has just arrived here - or rather on my

left to referee Stopford & I am glad to have him there.

I haven't yet seen him but will do so soon. Genl.

de Lisle has reverted to the command of a Division -

Genl. Peyton & Col. Cole are there also with the

Yeomanry who have come dismounted - both are

I hope all right, but Sir J. Millbank was killed

there a few days ago, Capt Wilmer [[? 14^th Sikhs]]

the husband of the lady [[?]] went to in [[?Pesham]]

when we left. D Ellis has also been killed - this

happened before his Regt came under my

command. How is Mabel ? Is she still 
with [[?]] [[?]]; as if so I can't understand

2) her allowing the house to be dirty as both

he & you say it is!

By the bye did you order the Weekly Times to

be sent to xx me as it has been arriving lately?

If so you might stop it as I nearly always get

daily issues of it in Morning Post from some one
else here these are always so far more satisfactory than 

the Weekly issue which I never read if I can
get the others - I was wondering why it had suddenly
begun being sent to me. I heard from that [[?mad]] M^rs
Gunn in Egypt the other day - Miss [[Carr?]] [[Harris?]] that
was & she tells me her sister has broken off her engagement
with the fellow with the [[?German]] name who said he
was Swiss and that she is now nursing in the Canadian
hospital at Taplow Lodge so perhaps you may come 
across her.
There is at all events one thing my recent advance has
done for me & that is, it has given me command of quite
a nice bit of open country which it is a pleasure
to walk about over, after being confined to the
trenches among those hills, with practically no
open ground to walk round in safety. On my rear

bits there are lovely olive groves - with olives now
ripening on them - figs - mulberries & blackberries. This

latter seem so homely, but if two or three of you stop
to pick them, the chances are the Turks will get
a burst of shrapnel over you! But don't ever 
think little one I take any undue risks - my staff
simply won't let me & run after me like a cat after
her kittens! I simply can't escape them &if ever they
hear a shell coming along in my direction they are
after me to hustle me to a place of safety - things 
are certainly much better now since we have
occupied so much more ground and half the shells
fall on the small beach as used to. I don't think
I've had one arrive when bathing for the last 10
days or so - the sniping &stray bullets too are
not nearly so bad, as they can't concentrate on
a few places as was previously the case - but 
of course they do come along still in places
& I hate hearing of men being hit in this way -
but they say it takes 499 of them to kill one
man!  Of course little one, I didn't mean you

3)  could invest £200 a month in War loan - one
month after fl paying Chris's school bills etc - you might
have nothing - Another you might have £100 - another £200
etc. - by accumulations after 9 months you might have
sent nothing - however I am sure you will understand
this &do as you think best. I do hope you will have
nice weather when you are down at Harefield as it
should be lovely there then- will Chris have a bicycle
with him? He would see some lovely country if he
had. Kinky White's cake will I am sure be much
appreciated when it arrives as it is sure to do - I
thought a large box which came yesterday must be
it, but found it was bottles of sweets Edie had
sent from Sister & which all here seemed to like.
I can't say how disappointed I am after non-success
of poor old Stopford's Corps on my left - if only he
had shoved on I believe we could have turfed the
Turkish army out of here in a month - now I see
no clear road before us & we may be here all the
winter - an awful outlook in this country of
desperate & continuous storms & blizzards!
Of course any change in the Balkan situation may

put things right, but all are naturally sitting tight
on their respective fences till they see more clearly
who is going to win, though there are rumours today of
Greece & possibly Bulgaria showing signs of coming along
which would mean everything. Of course all this
time we expected the Russians to have been menacing
Constantinople with over 60,000 men which would
have made all the difference. Russia not being
able to do so has meant Turkey has been able to
bring 100,000 more men against us here.
I enclose rather a nice letter from an old Australian
lady about her son which is a good example of some
I now get & which shows a fine spirit - also a bit
of a letter Clive Wigham sent me which was
written to him by one of my Sergeants (I haven't
any idea who) &who was in an Irregular corps
with him in S. Africa - &which you may care
to see. Goodbye my own little lamb & all
my love to you dear heart. Ever your very 
loving old     Will
 

3
DRL
3376 (15)

Med Expdy Force

4 Sept 15

My own darling Jenny Jane
We have been rather cut off from the outside world
for the last few days by a South-Westerly wind which has
made landing extraordinarily difficult & done a lot of damage to
our boats &piers. As it was really quite wild, one begins to 
see what things may be like in the winter when we may 
be entirely cut off for days & almost weeks from any communications
of any sort! A lively sort of existence if it comes about!
I haven't any more news at present as we are now likely to have to
settle down for a bit before any other move can be contemplated
& I am waiting for Bingo Byng on my left to be ready & able to
shove on. I hear that Col. Cole was wounded over there on 21^st
last month, but I have heard no particulars - in the shoulder I
believe but not very bad. I had just been asking that he might
be given a Brigade command. I fancy he will have gone to
Egypt, but - once a man leaves here in a hospital ship we
never hear of him again. Col Bateman- Champain has
just arrived with the 4th Gurkhas &we are glad to have
the reinforcements as my other Gurkha Regiments are
about 300 short each only. None of my Australians are
any better as the numbers I have to invalid
daily are awful. I am glad to say I am now getting