The Soldiers of 1918 - an introduction

The soldiers of 1918 - and later

I made the decision, early in December 2017, to tell as many stories as I could of the soldiers lost in the battles of 1918, on the centenaries of their deaths.  Had I begun blogging earlier, I might have  had much more to share - more cemeteries explored and it might have been possible to do the same for 1917.  I am restricted by time and resources - I can't use the official archive records so there will be few details in many cases and a few guesses on my part, educated or not.  Therefore, the cemeteries from which I have drawn details will be those in Otago and the southern area of the south Island of New Zealand.

1918 - the situation

The year 1918 was, as were they all, a tumultuous one in the Great War.  Like 1914, it was a year in which Germany almost won on the western Front.  Unlike 1914, it was the year Germany lost.

There were three main strategic considerations for the German Empire in 1918:

1 - Russia had been beaten and had signed a ruinous treaty (Brest-Litovsk), ceding enormous areas of productive territory and freeing about half a million soldiers for deployment against the West.  The costly French and British offensives of 1917 had left their armies exhausted and low in morale, especially the British in the minds of German High Command.

2 - The United States had declared war against Germany in April of 1917 and the resources it was sending to Europe were beginning to show their effects - a massive influx of fresh troops could only be on their way.

3 - The economic blockade imposed upon Germany by her enemies since 1914 was steadily worsening its effect.  The winter of 1916-17 was known as the "turnip winter" after the staple food from Sweden, grown for winter stock food, which replaced the failed potato harvest of 1916.  It is estimated that between 400 000 and 800 000 German civilians died from starvation and its effects during the war.  The economy was reeling.  Paper bandages were used at the Front, paper clothing by workers and other civilians as well as "shoddy" - material which was combed apart and recycled with a proportion of replacement fibres such as nettle.  For nearly all of the German people, real coffee was nothing more than a memory, as was shoe leather.

one last chance

The German High Command knew that they had one last chance to win the war before it was lost and planned their offensive.  They called it der Kaiserschlacht - the Emperor's Battle.  New tactics, later to be refined for the year 1939 an named "Blitzkrieg" or "lightning war" were developed. The assault opened on March 21st, 1918.  A few days later, the British Fifth Army had fallen back and the German army had made more progress than they had since 1914.  The New Zealand Division was sent to plug a 7km gap in the line.  Both sides knew what was at stake at this stage of the war and the fighting was savage.

As well as those New Zealand soldiers killed in the Kaiserschlacht of 1918, many died from wounds inflicted in 1917.

Another killer of soldiers - as well as civilians - in 1918 was the pandemic of Spanish Influenza.  It was a particularly virulent strain, described as the worst pandemic since the "Black Death" and it swept a world with many populations affected by war and war rationing.  For many people the victory celebrations of November were not for them.

Further soldiers, wounded and disabled in the War, died in the years after 1918.  One in particular which impressed me early in this project, was wounded in 1916 while serving at the Second Battle of Gaza with the Imperial Camel Corps.  His death notice was published in 1922.  And, for many, the War never truly ended.

A collection of opinion
I'll end this with three contrasting poems from the time.  The first is very familiar, written at the beginning of World War One, when the war was a glorious thing and those killed in it also glorious.  The second is deeply cynical, written at the time when the glory of war had drowned in the mud of the trenches.  The third is gently cynical, seen from the distance of fifty years and another war, and echoing the first.  I think that each of them are valid for their time.  I hope that what I describe in coming months brings some life and individuality to the names of young men who lived before they died.

For the Fallen, Robert Binyon, pub. 21/9/1914
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

The last laugh - Wilfred Owen (1st draft written February 1918)

‘O Jesus Christ! I’m hit,’ he said; and died.

Whether he vainly cursed or prayed indeed, 

                 The Bullets chirped—In vain, vain, vain!

                 Machine-guns chuckled—Tut-tut! Tut-tut!

                 And the Big Gun guffawed.

Another sighed,—‘O Mother,—mother,—Dad!’ 

Then smiled at nothing, childlike, being dead.

                 And the lofty Shrapnel-cloud

                 Leisurely gestured,—Fool!

                 And the splinters spat, and tittered.

‘My Love!’ one moaned. Love-languid seemed his mood,

Till slowly lowered, his whole face kissed the mud.

                 And the Bayonets’ long teeth grinned; 

                 Rabbles of Shells hooted and groaned; 

                 And the Gas hissed.

‘On Picnics’ - Roger McGough, 1967

at the going down of the sun
and in the morning
I try to remember them
but their names are ordinary names
and their causes are thighbones
tugged excitedly from the soil
by French children
on picnics