familyletters.co.uk

Oct 10/17

Dear Mother

I hear a mail goes out today, so I’ll scribble you a line to catch it. Genl Maude flew over from Baghdad today in an aeroplane to inspect our Brigade, & to thank us etc & make the usual complimentary speeches. He said we had done great things etc etc etc & from all accounts the capture of Ramadi & the rounding up of the whole Turkish force here seems to have been a tremendous event & one of great importance.

We are still camped on the scene of our victory, & we move camp tomorrow, right up near the outpost line, so we shall be very much “at the front”. We are still without tents & sleeping on the cold hard ground. There seems to be a good deal of difficulty in getting things up, grub is rather short at times, but the show is being run well on the whole, & in a few days things ought to be running as smoothly here as anywhere else; one can’t expect much, as we have only just captured the place!

I thought of asking old Maude this morning about those socks, but my courage failed- all C.O’s were introduced to him, & we shook hands and he asked us how we were etc- He did’nt impress me much, he is not the hard, stern, cold conqueror I expected him to be, he is rather the reverse, but this does’nt seem to interfere with his capabilities at all does it.

We had a sharp shower of rain last night, unpleasant while it lasted, no tents etc, but it’s been a beautiful fine day today. We have had a lot of wind & dust lately, but I think we ought to be pretty free from the latter in our new camp as it is right on the bank of the Euphrates.

I have taken a lot of photographs around here, & I do hope they come out as they should be most interesting. I wonder if the stores in Bombay ever sent you those of Amara & Baghdad which I told them to send you. I have’nt seen the prints of those myself yet, but some of the films looked as if they would print quite well.

Reuter is most optimistic in his wires about France, & we certainly seem to be giving the Boche a rotten time now, & getting the submarines in hand too. Air raids are distressingly frequent, but I see reprisals spoken of, & L-G- seems to have sanctioned them, so I expect by the time you get this some raids will have taken place over Germany. But the war seems no nearer its conclusion.

Must end up now

I’m very fit & well, & going strong. All our wounded are doing well I hear, except one Indian officer who died yesterday. He was badly wounded in the thigh, poor man, & such a good officer too. The fortune of war! Well he died a soldier’s death anyhow.

Best love to all

yr loving son

Ted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Stanley_Maude

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turkish_prisoners_Ramadi_World_War_1.jpg

Sept 17/17

Dear Mother

Just a line to tell you not to expect a letter from me for some time, after getting this one, as we are off on a strafe, so I don’t suppose I’ll get much time to write. Please don’t worry, I’ll be all right and I’ll write again as soon as ever I can, but of course on these occasions one does’nt get much time, & besides I expect censorship is strict, & letters take such years to get home don’t they – I am most awfully glad to get the chance to command the Battalion on this show & I do hope we get a good chance: I have absolute confidence in the Battalion, officers & men alike; so wish me luck & don’t worry. Wish I was nearer home all the same, so as to communicate with you more often & quicker.

I have taken a good many photographs with my new camera, & have sent the films to India to be printed. I have told them to send you the prints direct, each one numbered on the back, & I am sending you a list herewith shewing what each one is, otherwise you’ll not be able to tell. I expect this letter will reach you long before the prints, but that can’t be helped.

It’s a wee bit cooler, but still hottish for campaigning; however, we are more than ½ way through September & we should’nt get much more hot weather now.

We are going very light, hardly any kit, & are saying goodbye to creature comforts for some time I expect. However, I expect we shall all be as hard as nails before very long & shall prefer discomfort to comfort!

Well goodbye for the present & wish me luck & the regiment too- I never expected to command it in action, & am indeed proud & happy to get the chance- I’ll write again just as soon as ever I can, but you must expect short & scrappy letters I’m afraid.

Best love to all

Yr loving son

Ted

Sept 11/17

Dear Mother

Very many thanks for 3 letters from your last mail, which arrived on Thursday 6^th. Your letters were dated 12^th 18^th & 25^th July. Yes was’nt it silly of them to wire & say I was seriously ill, I asked the doctor man not to wire, but he said he had to, as it was the order, but he would just say I had been admitted to hospital. But it seems he wired seriously ill all the same. I’m so sorry, but I wired as soon as I could to say I was all right really & I’m glad you got that wire, but I expect there was some delay in sending mine off.

You will have had my letters from hospital of course, & I am absolutely fit again now, though I took a longish time to pick up after leaving hospital thanks to the trying heat & not wonderfully good or nourishing food. In fact I did’nt really turn the corner & feel my own usual self again till we had been here a day or two, & then I think the change of air & scene worked wonders & I’m as fit as a fiddle now, so please don’t worry any more about me. I’m taking great care of myself, as if one gets ill & is invalided, it only means being sent to India, & I think I should hate that more than anything else, being right out of things owing to some rotten illness & not helping things on a bit. So I determined to get well & defeat this dysentery & its after effects & I have at last succeeded.

A busy life we have nowadays as we are doing rigorous brigade training. By the way I was a bit premature in my remarks about the hot weather being over. It is by no means, & every day this month we’ve had it 112°, far above what it should be, & as you may imagine leading a strenuous life in this heat is not all beer & skittles. But it’s got to be done, as time is short now to complete our training. The nights are certainly lovely now, & the early mornings too, but one has a good deal to do right up till late in the day when it is really hot, & after that I have to start getting ready orders etc for the next day’s work, so one is at it either physically or mentally the whole day. But I love the work, being in command, as it’s all so interesting & such good practice for me; and it is a pleasure to work with such good & keen officers & men as I have got under me.

I went into Baghdad on Sunday & wondered about having a look round. The silk market here is lovely, & you would love to have got a good old look round among all the lovely stuff they have got. I have bought one or two pieces, but I don’t know if it’s any good. I also bought one or two odds & ends of brass ware, very badly made an’ all, but it’s just the stuff the Baghdadis use in their own households for making coffee etc.

I strolled round in the copper market too, a long low roofed-in bazaar, with nothing but coppersmiths all down each side. They all sit in the road-way just outside their shops & bang away at their pots & pans, & the din they all make together is absolutely ear-splitting. We had breakfast at the Hotel Maude, quite a nice breakfast – we had butter for the first time since I’ve been out here (we have’nt had any potatoes for about 4 months, by the way: I’ve quite forgotten what they’re like: it’s quite like home is’nt it!) & then we came back to camp by river. We get awful good fruit here, I wonder if I told you before, grapes & water melons chiefly, & of course dates which are very nice, but filling.

The drop in temperature between day & night here is really almost incredible; on the 6^th it was 114° by day & dropped to 67° at night, a difference of 47° between day & night readings! So no wonder the nights seem cool after the grilling days, & one has to be careful in such contrasting temperatures. However one gets pretty hard out here & can stand a good deal of knocking about.

I had a line from Jim at Singapore, he seems very happy & is by all accounts a very busy man, what with being cable censor & a few other things. Very many thanks for the Blackwoods with the I.A. article. A most interesting piece of reading, & a very fair estimate of the value of the 2 Indian Divisions in France I think. It is nice to see the regiment’s name so prominent, in such a widely read magazine too, & it is an article that is sure to be read by everyone familiar with the magazine. I am cutting it out & keeping it.

I only got Nell’s wire after I had come out of hospital as it was addressed c/o Casualties, Bombay & was sent on by post from there, which seems rather a rotten arrangement. It’s better I fancy to stick to the regiment always for an address & not try any games. I only got one letter from Nell too last mail, & that was addressed the same whereas all yours & Ben’s & several others addressed here all came direct.

Very nice of everyone to be so kind in asking after me, & I appreciate it muchly. I know several of the Queens now, and old Roderick, the C.O., was talking to me about Mr Kirwan the other night, as he is chaplain to the rgt: of course. You say something about getting home, but I’m afraid that’s clean out of the question. You have to be pretty bad to be sent home from here; they consider India quite good enough to convalesce in nowadays, & I believe they have awful good homes etc there up in various hill stations which are undoubtedly as good as you will get anywhere. However with any luck I’ll be home on a month’s leave next year sometime, & if the war’s over I may get longer.

I see in your letter of 25^th July you say you had got my cable saying “much better”, but I sent that off long before then I think, & when you got it I must have been out of hospital & back with the regiment. I cabled again when I rejoined & I think you must have got that quicker, as I sent the former ones at “week-end cable rates” which is cheap & slow but I sent the one saying I had rejoined at quicker rate, as the week end ones seem to take such years.

A good thing your getting over to Hook Hospital for a change, & I expect you liked it. Meeting all those descendents of old Hartley Rowlks too must have been amusing.

Heaps of papers arrived last mail, & very many thanks for them. I see you address my letters as Lt Col now – quite right – but I was wondering how you knew, because I figured it out that the letter I wrote & told you I had got tempy: promotion was one of the ones that was sunk. It only came out in orders out here on June 16, & even if my letter telling you had not been sunk, it could’nt possibly have reached you by July 12^th, which is the date of the first letter I got so addressed. P’raps the India office sneaked.

Must end up. I fancy D.B. is absolutely certain not to come back now.

Best love to all

yr loving son

Ted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwood%27s_Magazine

Sept 4/17

Dear Mother

I don’t quite know how the mails run here but I think I’m catching something if I write today.

We have more or less settled down now in our new camp. The weather is supposed to get cooler this month & it is certainly much drier up here, a hot burning wind most days which parches the skin and makes you very thirsty. The dust is pretty bad here, but that is only to be expected in a big camp.

Certainly the nights now are delightful, & the early mornings might even be called cold, though of course there is not yet that nip in the air that is the infallible sign of the end of the hot weather. But the days are shorter, and the mornings last cooler longer and it does’nt stoke up quite so early in the day. Of course we may yet get another hot spell, & I believe there is a week or ten days of the “date ripener”, a hot moist time that is due about now, but on the whole we may fairly claim to have broken the back of the hot weather.

We lead a strenuous life here, putting finishing touches to our training. It is indeed pleasant to join up with our brigade at last and to get to know our fellow soldiers. I told you I had met the Queens, but no one else in particular. I met Spens the adjutant & he remembered us all very well from the old Camberley-Frimley days. Was it his sister, red haired, who married Harry Harris? (what’s he doing, by the way, & where’s Charley Anderson all this time? pardon the interruption!) I did’nt like to ask him, though we had a good old talk about most other people.

The fruit here is lovely. Huge luscious water-melons, grapes, & sweet limes, also dates of course, of which I ate my first fresh one a few days ago, quite nice & they are very sustaining I believe, and of course are the chief article of diet of the local arab. I believe you get oranges & apples too but I have’nt seen any yet; we have arrived just a wee bit late for the best fruit, but we get excellent stuff still all the same.

I have of course visited the City of the Caliphs and am much pleased with it. I had heard so many fellows say they were disappointed in it that I was prepared to be so myself, though I determined to judge for myself. But I am by no means disappointed, in fact I think it’s a good spot. After all, it depends on what you expect, & naturally those who thought to see a London or Paris were disappointed.

It is a typical eastern town, mud built & brick built, with one big main street, & the usual small winding smelly arab bazaars, roofed-in to keep the sun off (and the smell in!) and lined with the usual rows & rows of tiny little cupboard-like shops. The one big street was made by the Turks by the simple expedient of cutting a wide path right through the middle of the city, irrespective of any private houses or anything that barred the way. As a consequence this wide street is bounded on both sides by mutilated houses. Here you can see half a living room or bed room, with furniture still in it; & further on a whole house cut neatly in half right down the middle, showing the arrangement of rooms & staircases perfectly!

Christian Churches, Jewish Synagogues & Mohamedan mosques – for it is a most cosmopolitan place – all suffered in the same way, hewn down altogether if they were in the line of the street, or cut in half or a piece shaved off to satisfy the Turkish street maker. It is a most curious sight, the ends of all these buildings left rough & unrepaired, as if some giant had taken two long cuts with a huge knife through the centre of the city and lifted out the debris with a spoon & so left the clear street as it now is. The Turks called it Khalil Pasha street, after the victor of Kut; but it is now called New street. As an improvement it is a decided success but it was a most ruthless method to adopt.

The best part of the town is I think the river front. The backs of all the houses are towards the river, & each house has a small garden overlooking the river. The houses on the front are easily the best & most imposing and the view from the river – some 300 yards wide here & crossed by a pontoon bridge – is most fascinating. Narrow sinister little stepped alleyways lead down to the water’s edge between each house, most suggestive of crime & murder in the dark days of the Caliphs! The finest building is the British consulate, a fine big house that stands by itself & dwarfs the surrounding houses completely.

The bazaars as I say are just like those at Amara & Basra, possibly a trifle more crowded & with a more mixed crowd too. One seems to meet representatives of every conceivable race. The shops have a good number of things for sale, but I fancy there is nothing much of any value now, as there was a good deal of disorder & looting between the time of  the Turks’ evacuation & our entry into the town last March. I believe good silks are still to be found, but carpets are positive great auk’s eggs – there are’nt any! At least not for the common herd, though I have no doubt a prolonged & laborious search might reveal some, or a visit to the bazaar with someone in authority. I shall buy one or two odds & ends of no value just to bring home & add to the Delaford collection-

I went across the river & saw the railway station, the famous terminus of Germany’s eastern aims. There was nothing much to see, a few burnt out trucks, a lot of scrap iron, a cluster of railway buildings inside which there appeared to be a lot of work going on, judging by the noise of clanging & hammering that issued from them.

We breakfasted at the Hotel Maude, (by the way I’ve never got my socks yet, & I simply dare’nt go & ask for them!) & came back to camp in a bellum, a very pleasant row down stream for 2 miles or so. The bellums here are nice sensible boats, like seaside rowing-boats, & they row them along just like those men in blue jerseys at the sea, only dressed in arab kit of course. They use that short deep-water stroke. So much safer & more comfortable than the cockle shells of Basrah & Amarah!

So on the whole we have fairly settled down now, & right glad we are to be here at last. The change will do us all good, officers & men alike, the double change of pace & life – for there are many more fellows to meet here – being most acceptable.

We have’nt had a mail since leaving Amara, & that’s just about right, as one is due here in 2 days’ time & that’ll be just a fortnight. D.B. is still in India & will not I fancy come out again as he is not passed fit for service, & is only fit for duty in India. Then his time in command is up in November, so it’s very unlikely he’ll be sent out again. So I suppose I shall keep it for a bit longer yet, & very glad I shall be too. I want to take the rgt: into a show & see how we all get on, so I hope they don’t send anyone out to take it from me, though I have always told you I expect it any time.

I went to a local revue here the other day, acted by some sappers who are in camp next us. One Gaskell took me, he was a friend of Ben’s & mine in Lansdowne. The review was’nt very good, but served to pass an evening away.

Fearful fighting in France is’nt there, & we don’t seem to be making much progress, though I have no doubt we are killing thousands of Boches, & I’m afraid our losses must be heavy. The Italians seem to be doing wonders but I’m afraid the Russians are a complete wash out. However I suppose there is still just the off chance of a complete collapse of Germany & Austria – especially the latter – this year though to the casual observer it seems as if we must be prepared to see another winter out.

Must end up

Best love to all

yr loving son

Ted

New Street Baghdad, 1917

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sandsoftimeconsultancy/11434160674/

Great Auk’s eggs

http://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/nathist.museum/treasures/aukegg.php

Map of Mespot (large file)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Ottoman_Middle_East_in_1900%2C_Edward_Stanford.jpg

Aug 29/17

Dear Mother

I wrote you a letter 2 or 3 days ago on board the old “P 93”, & posted it at Kut, & we have now arrived safely at our destination and are quite settled down in camp. We had no startling adventures on the way but it has been quite an interesting journey. We reached Kut about 7.30 one morning & started unloading the ship at once, so as to make the best use of the cool hours. We stayed on board after that till the evening, when a train came along & we loaded that up with all our kit & stuff, a long job, as shifting a big camp, tents and all, is a big business. We have to cart tons of heavy stuff about with us, which of course we should not take on active operations.

I did’nt see much of Kut itself. To begin with we anchored about 2 miles below the town, where a sort of new Kut has sprung up, consisting of dumps of stores & depots and a hundred & one things necessary for an advanced base. The railway ends – or begins – here too, so in the short time between getting in by ship & going off by train there is’nt much opportunity for sight seeing. It was a frightfully hot day too, much too hot to move about unnecessarily between 8 & 5. I met one Bunbury there, a pal of mine, whom I last saw in Basrah, & he has a job in Kut now. I had tea with him & after tea we strolled up the river bank towards Kut just to have a look round.

There is really very little to see. A jumble of broken down trenches, which might be ours or the Turks, it’s impossible to tell which. Barbed wire, bones, & dud shells here & there testify to something having happened round about here, but otherwise the place must be rapidly assuming its former aspect. You see we captured Kut once, & then the Turks got it, & then we got it again, so the whole countryside is seamed & scarred with trenches belonging to both sides.

The town itself – an ordinary fairly large mud-built town – was rather knocked about, but has since been considerably repaired so there is nothing much to see there. We got within a mile of it but had no time to go further. It stands out very clear & plainly in a bend of the river, & it is curious that such an unimportant and small town should gain such world fame, is’nt it? For it is quite an insignificant place really & but for the war would I suppose have remained so.

There is one rather interesting thing there, on the river bank, about a mile below the town, the Germans built a sort of column of Victory or it may have been built by the Turks in memory of those who fell, both British & Turkish, in the siege of Kut. I have heard both explanations, at any rate it is an obelisk, shaped something like Cleopatra’s needle, & surrounded by a wall. It has no inscriptions on it, but at its base are 2 guns captured from the British at the siege. It is in bad repair, & will not survive long, as it is only made of inferior bricks & mud; but it is a curiosity in its way, & we have made no attempt to keep it in repair or to destroy it. Close by are the graves of several Turkish officers.

We left by train about 9 pm travelling in open trucks. It was a jolly journey, as the line was hurriedly & none too smoothly laid. And lying on the hard floor of a truck you feel every bump and jar ten thousand times magnified. However we all slept like tops, & missed seeing the famous arch of Ctesiphon; the railway runs past it, about a mile distant. In any case I doubt if we should have seen anything as we must have passed it in the dark in the early morning. This railway was very quickly laid and it speaks volumes for the engineers in charge and their workmen.

We arrived here about 7 in the morning and marched to the camp, about 1½ miles off, & got settled in more or less by about 2 p.m. Frightfully hot it was, but we were right glad to reach our journey’s end & that kept us going. Other regiments in camp here gave us breakfast & cold drinks, while we were getting our camp ready, which was very kind of them. I have met some of the Queens; one Mudford (Mumford? or some such name) claims to know the family: also one of the Spens, I think, from Frimley, is with them, & though I have’nt met him, still he asked one of our officers if I was here & said he knew me at Camberley. Desmond Gabb is, as you say, in India & has joined the 84^th Punjabis. But I have met very few of the Queens as yet, we’ve been too busy to go about much.

The camp we are in is about 2 miles below the town, & of course I have’nt had time to go in & have a look round yet, as we only arrived the day before yesterday. I have met Sam Orton, who is on the division staff, & also our own Brigadier & divisional commander have been round to see us & see how we are getting on.

A very dusty camp this, & about ½ mile from the river, so different from our river frontage at Amara! However I’m afraid our days of real good camps & such like are over now, & when we leave here we shall travel light and say goodbye to creature comforts for some months. It’s still very hot & not much breeze. September should be a trifle cooler, the nights will be nice anyhow, but oh I shall be so glad to see the last of this stinking hot weather. How I loathe it! I fail to see one single redeeming point about it. I’m looking forward to the cold weather immensely: that’s what I like, & it likes me too.

English mail goes out today, so I must post this. I see they are still on the fortnightly mail business, though they said they were going back to the weekly ones.

Best love to all    yr loving son

Ted.

Images of Kut, including the obelisk

http://www.iraqkhair.com/vb/32879-post1.html

Arch of Ctesiphon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taq-i_Kisra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/84th_Punjabis

Sam Orton & Lumb mentioned in With The Indians In France

https://archive.org/stream/withindiansinfra00will#page/130/mode/2up

Ted’s photograph of the Obelisk at Kut