First published 16 November 2020
In the book I have been reading for the past week historian David Cannadine quotes A. J. P. Taylor in 1966 who said that in 1914 'no man in the prime of life knew what war was like. All imagined that it would be a great affair of great marches and great battles, quickly decided'.(1) I don't own the Taylor book so I looked it up online - a slightly later version is available on Google Books, with limited page accessibility, but fortunately that did include the page with the quote Cannadine used.(2)
The
context of the quote amends its meaning slightly. What Taylor actually
said was 'There had been no war between the Great Powers since 1871.'
Then the quote above, and then 'It would be over by Christmas'. So he
was excluding the South African wars of 1879 to 1915 and, specifically
for my case, the Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902. If a Barnsley man was
old enough to have served in that war, say 18 years old in 1900, he
would only have been 32 years old in 1914.
However,
we have to consider what Taylor may have meant about the 'prime of
life' - it could be that what we think as still young today was not the
case when he wrote in 1966 and probably even less so in 1914 when life
expectancy was shorter. If he meant 18 to 30 years old then, yes, I
suppose his proposition was accurate.
Analysis of the First World War Roll of Honour created by the Barnsley War Memorials Project in 2014-2018 shows that nearly 400 men who died were over 35 years of age and of those 125 were over 40 years of age.(3) The approximate percentage of men who died from those who served was one in eight or about 12.5% according to J. M. Winter. But note that Winter states that 'men under 20 were more likely to be killed (more than one in six)', and that the chance of men in his oldest cohort, ages 45-49, being killed was only one in seventy. (4) This is because they were more likely to have served behind the lines, or on the home front.
 |
| Winter, 'Britain's Lost Generation', p. 451. |
Using Winter's table of age distribution of British men who served and who died in the First World War (above) I see that 9.8% of men between 35 and 39 were killed and 5.1% of those age 40-44. So the 275 deaths of Barnsley men 35 to 39 years of age, might be translated into as many as 2800 men who served, and the 125 who died over the age of 40 into another 2500 who served. That is an awful lot of men who enlisted who might have served in the Second Boer War and even if they didn't actually serve in the Boer War there was a very good chance they knew some one who had.
In 2012 I wrote a blog post about Tom Charlesworth, born in 1864 in Hoyle Mill, who served in the South African wars prior to the Boer War and also in the First World War. By 1914 he would have been 50 years old! The family story was that he was a guard at a prisoner of war camp in the FWW.
Another Barnsley man with prior experience of war was Lieutenant (later Captain and Major) Tom Guest, who joined the Barnsley Pals. Jon Cooksey writes that Guest had served in the Boer War as a Sergeant and also notes a number of other old soldiers.(5) I wrote a blog post about Tom Guest's origins in 2015. Cooksey interviewed many First World War veterans and they remembered Major Guest as a genial old soldier, a good leader and who got on well with his men. He was born in 1875 so he would have been 39 years old when the First World War broke out. He was killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1 July 1916.
John Edwin Cornish, who lived in Worsborough Common had served in the army in the Royal Field Artillery between 1901 and 1911, and was called up out of the reserve in 1914. He had not served abroad during his service, but we might presume that he had served along many men who had. He was killed at Ypres on 18 November 1914. He was 31 years of age. The 69 Barnsley men killed in 1914 would have been in the regular army (or the navy) or the reserve. Although the Territorials were called up immediately they did not see action overseas until April 1915.
The prior service of men is often mentioned in reports in the Barnsley Chronicle.
Thomas Patrick Knight, born in Ireland, but living in Barnsley by 1911, had served in the Second Boer War with the King's Shropshire Light Infantry. He was awarded the DCM in 1915 for 'conspicuous gallantry and initiative' on 9 August. He was killed less than two months later 17 September 1915, aged 39 years. The Barnsley Chronicle reported that 'Corporal Knight went through the Boer War and did good service there'.(6)
George Jaques had originally joined the army in 1890 aged 17 and had served seven years, although during that time he had not seen active service, according to an article in the Barnsley Chronicle on 3 February 1900. He was called up from the reserve for the Boer War. He later wrote a very detailed letter about how he was wounded fighting the Boers which was published in the newspaper.(7) He described 'very hot work, bullets dropping all around us' and as they advanced 'it was just like being in a heavy hail-storm'. He added 'We could see our fellows dropping, but we kept going'. George made it home from South Africa and re-enlisted in September 1914, by which time he was 41 years old. Probably as a consquence of his age he was assigned to guard duty in this country, but unfortunately he was killed during an incident at Frenchman's Point detention centre in Durham on 9 September 1915. (Follow the link on George's name above for more information on this.)
The Second Boer War was well covered in the Barnsley Chronicle - you can read the newspaper articles for that period via the British Newspaper Archive (for a fee).
I am sure that given a few more hours to work through my files I could find many more examples of men who served in the First World War who had experience of battle - this seems to refute A. J. P. Taylor's assertion quoted at the start of this post. As I write in my story of Tom Charlesworth I imagined these older men regaling their younger family members and work colleagues with exciting stories of their service which might have inspired many to volunteer for the FWW. Yes, the Boer War was comparatively short and only resulted in the deaths of 16 Barnsley men as far as we know, 14 of those are remembered on the memorial in St Mary's, Barnsley, but the Wombwell Boer War Memorial, which records two men who died, names 43 other local men who served in that conflict. There is no reason not to assume that these figures might have been repeated in other Barnsley townships and villages.
I contend that many Barnsley men had first hand experience of war before 1914, and many more will have read about war in the local newspapers and heard stories from those who had served.
References:
(2) Taylor, A. J. P. The First World War: An Illustrated History (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974) via Google Books, https://tinyurl.com/y4pynlqk (accessed 16 Nov 2020) - no page numbers available.
(3) Barnsley WW1 Roll of Honour, https://barnsleyremembersww1.home.blog/ (accessed 16 Nov 2020)
(4) Winter, J. M. 'Britain's 'Lost Generation' of the First World War', Population Studies, 31 (3) (1977), p. 450-452.
(5) Cooksey, J. Barnsley Pals: The 13th & 14th Battalions York and Lancaster Regiment: A History of the Two Battalions Raised by Barnsley in World War One (London: Leo Cooper, 1996 [1986]), p.37, 43, 46, and 76.
(6) Barnsley Chronicle, 6 November 1915, p. 1.
(7) Barnsley Chronicle, 24 March 1900, p. 6.