This is the Chapel, Here My Son

8/14/2019 This is the Chapel, Here My Son

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THIS IS THE CHAPEL: HERE, MY SON

Rudyard Kipling and the Battle of Loos

Dedicated to the Memory of Patrick Neafsy of Achadh Mr,

Private 6534, 2nd Battalion Irish Guards,

killed in action, 27 September 1915

Edward Neafcy, October 2008

After 93 years, my brother David has

brought home to Mayo the story of PatrickNeafsy and his short life as a Britishsoldier. He was in the 2nd Irish Guards. TheBattle of Loos was fought from the

25 September to the 8 October, 1915. Itwas the biggest battle in British history upto then. Today if people know of it at all, itis generally because Rudyard Kiplings

son John was lost there. He was an officerin the Irish Guards. Patrick and JohnKiplingdied in the same action.

Patrick and John were among 32 IrishGuards who died on 27 September 1915on a flat Flanders field exposed to Germanartillery, machine gun and rifle fire. Suchwas the slaughter that the Germans calledit the Leichenfeld (Corpses Field) vonLoos.

Despite Remembrance Day having been so well observed in my lifetime, I hadnot been motivated to think too much about the Great War with its apparentsenselessness. Davids and my trip to Loos made me wonder about the

motivations of lads such as Patrick who responded to Kitcheners YourCountry Needs You recruitment campaign, and the motivation of such a man as1


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Rudyard Kipling to support the war. The thoughts of the private soldiers areseldom recorded particularly as personal diaries were discouraged as theymight fall into enemy hands - but Kipling set down in verse and prose so manyof his thoughts and the world literally bought them. To look at what Kipling

thought therefore, should show what the country thought. What wars had helooked to for material for his poems of battle? Why had he encouraged his sonto take such risk? How did he cope with the grief of bereavement?

My wife and I live in Sussex not far from Burwash, where Kiplings house,Batemans, is to be found. This is where John Kipling was raised. Batemans isa National Trust property now, and is open to the public. With AD 1634 over the

door and standing on 33 acres, ... in reality the house is little ... wrote Kipling.At the high point of empire, he was also at the cutting edge of technology. HisRolls Royce could take him with ease from one historically fascinating place toanother. He did not drive himself: cars could break down, flat tyres werefrequent then, and telephones hard to find. Better to have someone to drive whocould fix things that went wrong. He harnessed what they call a river on hisland to drive an electric generator rather than the flour mill it had driven before.An underground cable brought a direct current to batteries in an outbuilding.These powered carbon filament lamp bulbs, each emitting 15-20 watts - slightly

better than a candle - for a few hours each evening. No doubt a must at that timefor a man who had everything, electric lights would have been especially usefulto a writer with myopia.

David had Kiplings 2nd Irish Guards. I bought the Wordsworth Librarys TheWorks of Rudyard Kipling, 1994, which has an introduction by George Orwell,written in 1942. I also bought a biography of Kipling, The Unforgiving

Minute, by Harry Ricketts, 1999. I had often wondered where the nameRudyard came from. It was a place name a lake where Kiplings parents hadgot engaged. His family name was Joseph. The family tradition was to alternateJohn and Joseph between the generations. Kiplings first son would be John.Later I read his little autobiography, Something of Myself.

If the millions who flocked to the colours for the Great War had been taught onepoem in English literature, it would have been Tennysons The Charge of theLight Brigade theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die. If English,

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ipling delivers a recruitingpeech - Southport, Lancashire,ngland. June 1915


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Kipling was the author of what is almost certainly the best known poem in theEnglish language If. Then there are the perennials, Jungle Book, Kim and

the Just So stories. These are all aimed at children, though perhaps particularlywith If the message is meant to go to them by way of their parents. ButKipling also wrote for adults and without looking at what he wrote, we all havethe impression that he was an imperialist and a jingoist.

Apart from Jungle Book, which I knew from the film, the only Kipling work Iknew was the poem, Gunga Din, and that was because when I turned eighteenand went in our local pub, a World War II veteran used to recite it. I was to find

that, like many people, I know many lines of Kipling without knowing who theauthor was. I found that he was not just an average patriot; he was passionatefor the British Empire. He was therefore a vociferous opponent of anything thatchallenged its integrity. Born December 30th 1865, in India but boarded out atsix - unhappily - in England, then schooled there, he returned to work at 17 inBritish India. As a young travel correspondent for a British magazine in India,he saw no military challenge from Japan and made light of the efforts Japan wasmaking to Europeanise itself. On the other hand he feared China for its

potential. The Japanese were neither natives nor sahibs. At Kobe, Japan, ... asin Nagasaki, everyone smiled except the Chinaman. I do not like Chinamen.They stand high above the crowd and they swagger, unconsciously parting thecrowd before them as an Englishman parts the crowd in a native city. He goeson:The Chinamans an old man when hes young ... but the Japanese is a childall his life.

He makes a distinction between Chinese and Indians:

If we had control over as many Chinamen as we have of natives of India, and hadgiven them one tithe of the cosseting, the painful pushing forward, and studious, evennervous, regard of their interests and aspirations as we have given to India, we shouldlong ago have been expelled from, or have reaped the rewards of, the richest land onthe face of the earth.

In passing, the word Chinaman has been discouraged in English long beforethe term politically correct was coined. Presumably it was considered to be

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pejorative. Yet one hears Chinese speaking amongst themselves today and theysay Chinaman.

When at 24 Kipling arrived to work in London, already having made a name forhimself, he found he disliked the city and was not impressed with the English,living as they did in black houses and ignorant of anything beyond the Channel.He was to become most forcefully anti-German quite early in his life. Prussianarrogance was intimidating to all neighbouring states. Germany thereforeattracted his ire rather than the people of different colours and creeds the littleBritish army had to fight on the fringes of their Empire. Internally, he wasimplacably opposed to the movement for Home Rule in Ireland.

He thought there should be national service to put the British Army on a moreequal footing with Germany. Instead, the England of Kiplings day wasdeveloping games and sports which would be the staples of leisure world-widein the 20th century. It meant that rather than preparing themselves to defend theircountry, the English ... contented their souls With the flannelled fools at thewicket or the muddied oafs at the goals (1). Events were to prove that beingmuddy in goal was not incompatible with being a Great War soldier, and

football featured in both advances and truces.

Orwells introduction to The Works of Rudyard Kipling makes the point thatwhat Kipling said was not true, but it was true occasionally. When it was truefor you, you thought of Kipling or recalled his lines without necessarilyknowing who had written them: He travels the fastest who travels alone (2).The same could be said of the poem, If. Nobody can measure up to all the

conditions in If, but we all make some of them some of the time. People couldtherefore enjoy Kipling whilst at the same time seeing what was wrong in hiswork. I can see that this is a supply side quality. It occurs to me however thatthere was a new demand side factor at work. A newly literate working classwas emerging from school throughout the western world as a result of newlyintroduced compulsory universal education and there was a publishing capacityto match. Kipling was pre-eminent amongst authors tapping into this market.His work was to become a staple in schools. Celebrities in the industry of musicwould wait just a little longer for technology to provide a platform for

performers such as Enrico Caruso and John McCormick.

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Kipling never raised his voice, even if he had cause to, but his voice andconversation commanded the same interest and attention as his written work. He

interviewed Mark Twain for the Indian magazine and impressed him. Beforewomen had got the vote, he thought equality for women was a cause alreadywon. It would not lead to less belligerence, because, so often, The female of thespecies is more deadly than the male (3). His attitude to tobacco And sinceroll, twist and leaf, Of all comforts is chief (4); and A woman is only awoman, but a good cigar is a smoke (5), finds an echo in the words of GreatWar song While youve a lucifer to light your fag, smile boys, thats the style.

Kipling wrote of and for the common man. He was said to be vulgar. It seems itwas not so much that he could afford to be, as that it paid him to be. He had

been born in India. His wife Caroline was a New England American and helived in the USA for the first years of his marriage. Gettysburg was well knownfor the scale of slaughter industrialised warfare would bring and for PresidentLincolns address there. Kipling must have known that the volume of coffins intransit was on such a scale that the cargo had to be called caskets so as not toalarm the public and so the American vocabulary came to be changed. And if

that is not true, he would have known the story.

Kipling wrote a poem about the survivors of the Light Brigade whose famouslyfutile charge is all we remember of the Crimean War of 1854-56. He drewattention to the shame of their poverty in their old age. A neighbour in Sussexwho became a friend was a colonel who had been an aide de camp of theConfederate General Robert E Lee. Curiously, given that America must have

been an important market for his works, and given that American Civil War

veterans around him must have been far and away more numerous than the menof the Light Brigade, he wrote nothing about the biggest battle that could have

been material Gettysburg or of veterans of that or any other Civil War battle.Perhaps small scale action was just easier to handle.

I knew about Kiplings patriotism for England but had not realised that he hatedthe Germans. I wondered when it started. He would have been about 6 years old

when the 1870/71 Franco-Prussian War was fought and the German Empirefounded. Perhaps there was talk around him that affected him. The German6


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equivalent of Un pour Tous had perhaps been Deutschland ber Alles. Thismay have been innocuous when it was written, when it meant Germany aboveall the little independent states that comprised Germany. After the foundation ofthe Empire, neighbours felt it meant Germany above everybody else. (The

Germans dont sing that verse any more.) Also, the Kaisers title was perhapsmenacing to neighbours. His grandmother, Queen Victoria, had taken the title ofEmpress of India, but when Germany was declared an empire, the imperial titlewas not Emperor of Germany, which would have shown on a map where theKaisers rule ended, but German Emperor. Kiplings patriotism and hisantipathy to Germany seem to have developed at the same time. It becameapparent in 1896 when Kaiser Wilhelm II sent a telegram of support to theBoers. Queen Victorias Diamond Jubilee the following year brought forth an

outpouring of British patriotism. The Kaiser was a grandson of Queen Victoria,but so what?

In 1898 he had spent two weeks with the Royal Navy in the Channel and said ina letter that any other breed of white men, with such a weapon in their hand,would have been captivating the round Earth in their own interests long ago ...Even so, he famously pointed out the downside of overseas empire when theUSA took the Philippines from Spain in 1898: Take up the White Mans

Burden.

In 1899 Kipling suffered a severe case of pneumonia in New York City. For thefirst time in history, the health of a celebrity grabbed the attention of the worldsmedia. Amongst the well-wisher letters and telegrams from around the world,was a telegram from the Kaiser congratulating Kipling on his recovery.Kiplings daughter had had pneumonia as well, but for her it had proved fatal.

This was kept from Kipling until his own recovery was assured. The Kaisersconcern, or gaffe, does not seem to have improved Kiplings opinion ofGermany.

Kipling wrote of nineteenth century British India. It turns out he was the onlyone who did so but perhaps of small events in a big country. He was also theonly one who wrote of the tiny nineteenth century British professional army not much different in size from what it is today. He had sent his son into a

different league. Before John and Patrick got into battle, the British army had

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lost more men at Loos than it had lost in the entire three years of the Boer War.Kipling has a poem about the Boer War. He says:

Let us admit it fairly, as a business people should,We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good. (6)

Small scale war had meant detailed and human scale attention. The poem Pietrecalls to mind that boer is Dutch for farmer. I expect most of Englandsopponents in the Boer War would have been small farmers. Piet, gets a lot ofrespect from Kipling:

The wonder wasnt ow e fought, but ow e kep alive,

With nothin in is belly, on is back, or to is feet,

Ive known a lot of men beave a dam sight worse than Piet. (7)

Kipling needed to have the human scale, and when he had it he could beoverwhelmingly sentimental about the most unlikely people.

Fuzzy Wuzzy in the Soudan was

a pore benighted eathen, but a first-class fightin man. (8)

The water carrier in India, Gunga Din, is probably the most famous. He diessaving the wounded soldier who says:

Though Ive belted you and flayed you,

By the living Gawd that made you,

Youre a better man than I am, Gunga Din. (9)

Still seeking to preserve a soldiers dignity, Kipling could ring emotion out of

the most unexpected predicament:

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When youre wounded and left on Afghanistans plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,

An go to your Gawd like a soldier. (10)

Afghan knives feature in another verse as well. A soldier is fleeing from Afghanfighters:

I eard the knives beind me, but I dursnt face my man,

Nor I dont know where I went to, cause I didnt alt to see,

Till I eard a beggar squealin out for quarter as e ran,

An I thought I knew the voice - an it was me! (11)

On the human scale, Kipling is so believable, but the characters he featured hadoptions and it was the options that made the poetry. It was Gunga Dins conductunder fire that made him a better man than I am. It was his commitment that

made Fuzzy Wuzzy a first class fighting man. It was Piets humanity that hedidnt give us hell, when he could have. Even the soldier blowing out hisbrains rather than fall into the hands or to the knives - of the Afghan women,was still in control.

When Germany proposed in 1902 that England should join her in a navaldemonstration to collect debts from Venezuela, Kipling called her theshameless Hun. He began to use the word Hun immediately war broke out in

1914. Both Rud and his wife, Carrie, were committed to war with Germany - acrazed and driven foe (12) - and committed to their son taking part in it. But itwas not just negativity to Germany: he was positive about Britain. He had doneso much work in America and may well have settled there for good, but for the

border dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana. The USA in the spirit ofthe Monroe Doctrine had assumed a right to arbitrate. Kiplings patriotism forBritain had made life in the USA uncomfortable. His return to England wascounter-current: every passenger ship from Europe was laden with immigrants

wishing to live in America. Nevertheless, he retained an affection for America.

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Despite his comments about what any other breed of white men would do ifthey only had the British Navy, he begins to make an exception for France. The

1913 poem France ends:

First to face the Truth and last to leave old Truths behind

France, beloved of every soul that loves or serves its kind. (13)

Kipling had wanted his son in the Royal Navy since his birth. This was and isthe senior service, but Johns myopia ruled him out. Competition for

commissions would have been tough. In 1914 Britain had the mightiest navy inthe world, but its army was tiny. Kitcheners Your Country Needs Youadvertising campaign was to bring the army up to scratch. The thousands ofvolunteers would need officers. Rudyard had the connections to get his son acommission, even though his eyesight technically made him unfit for service.

Whilst condemning the absence of national service, Kipling campaigned to

recruit volunteers for the army. By the time of his speech in Southport in 1915(over the White Ensign of the Royal Navy! - photo, page 1), about 10% of themen of the United Kingdom had already joined up. These included his own sonand Patrick Neafsy. Now was the time for the rest of the fit and eligible to do so.He only stopped recruiting when conscription was introduced in 1916.

I joined David on his second trip to the Western Front in September 2007.Before we set off for Loos we paid a visit to Batemans and walked around the

house and grounds. This was to get the feel of the difference between thebattlefields and trenches we were going to see and the home John Kipling hadleft behind. We had two nights in France. The first was in a Logis de France -Le Manoir de Gavrelle, because its photos on the web made it look like the kindof place a chateau General would have chosen ( if it had been on our side ofthe Front!) The second was the Campanile motel for the town of Lens, which ison the Lens - La Basse road, (now D947) and on the outskirts of Loos. It is asclose as can be to what the Great War made known to the world as Hill 70

located on the far side from where the assault had come. It was easy to drive

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and walk around the battlefield from there, though there was no reference to thewar in the motel.

In Loos museum I found a book of postcards, Loos-en-Gohelle 1870/1935,by Louis Hermant. Under each was a commentary. Some of the postcards werephotographs or prints of scenes in the Great War. So much of the village hadbeen destroyed 1915 1917 that these photographs are particularly important toLoos. Instead of a line about copyright, I was touched to see Cet ouvrage nest

protg par aucun droit dauteurs, il constitue un outil pour toute personneinteress. (This work has no protection by any authors rights, it is a tool forevery interested person). An article was available in several languages:The

Battle of Loos (A short, localhistory) by Peter Last of the Western FrontAssociation and Isabelle Pilarowski, Association Sur les Traces de la GrandeGuerre. It was from official British sources and evidently prepared for the 90th

anniversary of the battle. I was taken also by a print on the wall of the museumand asked for a copy. It was from the weekly, Illustrated London News andfeatured action on 25 September. Rather than chase battle references from allsources, for a local interest piece such as this for Glr, I decided to rely mainlyon this and the two local works for Loos. I found also, on the internet, a quotefrom a survivor of Hill 70 which fitted well with the Last and Pilarowski article.

Known as The Big Push, the master plan of the Commander-in-Chief, FrenchGeneral Joffre, for the Second Battle of Artois on 25 September 1915, had beento break through the German lines on a 30 kilometre front and to press on tovictory: the Germans had no back up, the whole army being at the Front. TheFrench would attack south of Lens and 60,000 British would attack to the north.

Of the British, about 20,000 would cover the area we were interested in: thesouthern end of their sector facing Loos itself and beyond to the section of thenorth-south road to the east of Loos connecting Lens with La Basse. Theywould include eight battalions of volunteers in the 15th (Highland) Division,including the 9th Black Watch. These Scots would capture Loos itself first tosecure the flank against possible German counter-attack from Lens. Combiningwith the Territorials of the 47th (London) Division, they would then move on totake Hill 70. This would be the break-through. Then they would head east for

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Annay, link up with the French and isolate the Germans in Lens. The Germanswould not be able to catch up and form another defensive line.

In the Illustrated London News the artist covers a panorama of the advance.There is a commentary with it which gives the official view of the assault. Thearticle is dated 9 October 1915. Loos was the first action of the Kitchenervolunteers and was the most heavily Scottish of all the Great War British battles.Despite the kilts, there is no mention of Scots in the commentary.

WITH BOMBERS LEADING THE WAY: BRITISH TROOPS SWARMING OVER THE GERMANFIRST LINE AND DASHING TOWARDS LOOS, THE TOWER BRIDGE ANDHILL 70

It was between 6 and 7 am on that memorable Saturday September 25 when theBritish guns lifted on to the German rear, and the long looked for signal to assault

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THE ADVANCE IN THE WEST: BRITISH TROOPS CHARGE OVER GERMAN TRENCHES IN

THE BATTLE OF LOOS


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was given. With a roar, the men rushed from the trenches in front of Le Rutoir, and,quickly covering the intervening ground, dashed upon the German first line. The

bombers in front flung their deadly missiles, and soon men were over the trench andmaking for the enemys second line, bayoneting and bombing as they went. Theenemy in the particular part of the field shown in this drawing, demoralised by thefearful carnage of the shells and the suddenness of the attack, did not stand, and awave of flying Germans spread out before the bayonets of the onrushing Britishtroops. Right over the second-line trenches and right through Loos they stampeded,occasionally making a stand in little groups. British reinforcements followed up thefirst advancing regiments, and the troops then assaulted the German third line at Hill70. To quote Sir John Frenchs Special Order of the Day: After the vicissitudesattendant upon every great fight, the enemys second line posts were taken, thecommanding position known as Hill 70, in advance of Loos, was finally captured, anda strong line was established and consolidated in close proximity to the German third

and last line ... Our captures amounted to over 3000 prisoners and some 25 guns,besides many machine guns and a quantity of war material. In the background of thedrawing is the now famous mining structure which our soldiers have nicknamedTower Bridge (or Crystal Palace) of Loos. Further to the right is Hill 70. In theforeground, on the left, may be seen a British soldier carrying a bomb ready to throw;while other bombers are in action ahead. On the right are two Germans holding uptheir hands to surrender. (18)

The men are carrying what appear to be goggles. They are primitive gas masks

for protection against the possible blow-back of British gas. Neither British norGermans are wearing steel helmets. This was too early in the War.

A postcard provides a detail of the taking of Loos village by the 9th BlackWatch. Here, in Loos itself, they are not wearing gas masks. It was a wet dayand the artist has captured that well. The Germans are not identified, but asother card commentaries indicate that the 110e Rgiment badois had occupied

Loos, I take it they are from the 110th

Baden Grenadiers. The 110e badois hadbeen in Loos for about eleven months longer than the Scots volunteers hadbeen in the army. They must have known the local terrain well.

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A laube du 25 septembre 1915, les allis arrivent et se dirigent vers la fosse 15 ...

Dawn 25 September 1915, the allies arrive and head towards Fosse 15 ...

The coal mine winding gear Fosse 15 was known to the British as Tower Bridge, afterTower Bridge in London).

The Loossois themselves, northern French whom their compatriots in theFrench army had begun to call the Chti (pronounced Shtee this being fromtheir rendering of cest toi its you), had made for their cellars at theBritish bombardment which preceded the attack on the German positions.

Through the ventilation slits and small glass panes of their shelters, they saw thearrival of men in skirts. Though the village was soon taken, isolated groups ofGermans continued to resist all day. Casualties were heavy.

Of the 750 men of the 9th Black Watch, only 9% survived the day unscathed;31% were killed and the rest wounded. (19). Too feeble to hold the village,Loos was taken over on the 26th by the London Irish Rifles, who were soon tomake their own advance, famously kicking their football before them. Perhaps itwas they who thought of Tower Bridge when they saw Fosse 15.

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Hill 70 was taken, as Sir John French says. He does not say that it was by theScots or that they had to abandon it later. Bringing in from the internet the

recollections of a survivor, Richard Hilton, a Forward Observation Officer:

The real tragedy of that battle was its nearness to complete success. Most of us whoreached the crest of Hill 70 and survived were firmly convinced that we had brokenthrough ... There seemed to be nothing ahead of us but an unoccupied and incompletetrench system. ... All that we needed was more artillery ammunition to blast ... clearlylocated machine-guns, and some fresh infantry to take over from the weary and depleted'Jocks.' But, alas, neither ammunition nor reinforcements were immediately available, andthe great opportunity passed. (20)

Hilton talks of the chance to move into the suburbs of Lens. He had lost the plotand so had the Jocks. They had suffered thousands of casualties to get to Hill70. Now down to just a few hundred men and hardly any officers, instead ofcarrying on eastwards, (or better still, it seems to me, staying put), they turnedsouthwards to chase the fleeing foe towards Lens. Devastating as fire from ithad been, the German front they had just broken had been lightly defended. TheGermans had never expected to be charged over open fields. Lens had a Germangarrison. The Scots ran into intense machine gun and shell fire. Many were hit.The survivors were forced back to Hill 70. They were then too few to hold itwhen the Germans in Lens came out to close the breach in their defences.

Reinforcements of men and/or ammunition would have altered the course of thewar, but could reinforcements have been found? Evidently not, it seems. SirJohn French had thought it unnecessary to provide his HQ with a telephone.Even if he had had one, we know from John Kiplings last letter to his parents,

written 5.30pm, 25 September, that the 2nd Irish Guards were still footsloggingand still nine miles away. The guns have been going deafeningly all day,without a single stop, he wrote, They are staking a tremendous lot on this greatadvancing movement as if it succeeds, the war wont go on for long ... Joffrehad ordered that the men be told of the plan to break the German line: it would

be good for morale. As they trudged on to the Front in the rain, no doubt it was.The Germans were subjected to preliminary shelling again, but when the 2nd

Irish and the Scots Guards attacked late in the afternoon of the 27th, the enemy

was reinstalled and reinforced with all his machine guns back in place.

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The battlefield is flatter than portrayed in the Illustrated London News and Hill70 is less pronounced. Though the daily rate of casualties at Loos would notexceed that at Gettysburg, the vulnerability of the men to even a small numberof machine guns is obvious. I wanted this feature of this first advance because it

showed how the Guards, including Patrick Neafsy and John Kipling, wouldhave attacked two days later, give or take a smoke screen. Ignoring any mentionof danger, the boys comic commentary would have been fine for a victory.Coming out on 9 October though, casualty lists would have already been

published in the daily papers. Perhaps it would have been boys comicanyway, but perhaps it was thought that the public would take it better if theywere left with the impression that their lads lives had not been lost in vain.

On 8 October the Germans counter-attacked.

Loos, battlefield. October 1915. (NL) = non localise = not an exact location)

(N.L.) The advance by the Scots and Irish brought on a German response on a totally devastated field.Further, on 8 October, a violent counter attack was attempted and was spearheaded at the Loospositions. The assault was made in three very dense waves, one after the other, followed by task-forcesin columns. All of themwere terribly mown down by our rifles, machine guns and artillery.

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Note: battles in our region as they were represented at the time.

Tower Bridge is not in the background to this action. Neither are the Double

Crassiers the landmark twin spoil heaps of Loos. Wherever this unidentifiedsite was, it is obvious that the British were the defenders. If the action was infront of Loos itself, it may be that the smoke plume cuts out TowerBridge.There had been changes following the British losses. By 3 October the British

positions east of Loos had been taken over by the French IX Corps. I take ittherefore that the our of the rifles, machine guns and artillery in the Frenchcommentary means French and not allied. There is a lone Indian soldier.Indian troops as a battalion were a little further north along the front.

German records of the Loos offensive show their incredulity at the Britishadvance over open fields. The Germans in the end had held the line. Theircounter-attack must have been intended not simply to recover Loos, but to breakthe allied front and end the war on their own terms. Nobody had planned for along war. The British feared their losses had fatally weakened them and that iswhy the French had relieved them. Why the Germans abandoned the counter-attack is easy to understand their own loss of life was too great.

Though the reality of the battle was the impersonal mowing down of men inthe mass, the artists of all three drawings show human contact: hand to handcombat in the taking of Loos village; Germans with their hands up in surrenderat the advance on Hill 70; and Scots being bayoneted and an Indian throttled inthe German counter attack. The human scale of these incidents was perhapswhat the public and Kipling and the soldiers were expecting war to be like.

Yet despite the distance between the opposing forces, there was somecompassion in the field. German gunners ceased firing on the leichenfeld toallow the British to tend to their dead and wounded. Fraternisation by theBritish was strictly discouraged. Two of the officers of the Indian battalion, nodoubt well bred young British officers like those in charge of the Irish,countenanced a German Christmas Day peace initiative. Senior officers saw andoverruled, and the young officers had their leave stopped. How could artists

represent reality anyway?

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If you were wounded and left on the Leichenfeld von Loos, who would you liketo see most Fuzzy Wuzzy, Piet, Afghans women or men, Gunga Din, or

stretcher bearers of the Imperial German army? Gunga Din died helping awounded soldier of his own side, but would he have risked his life for theenemy? German medics did at Loos, and some got killed doing so. Kiplingrecords this in his 2nd Irish Guards in the Great War. He records also that in1918, after the Germans had abandoned the war and gone home that the IrishGuards encountered resentment in Belgium as they passed through on their wayto Cologne. Local people had evidently got to know and like German soldiersthey had met.

Kipling also records a conversation between the Irish Guards and a Germanprisoner, an officer of the Hanoverian Fusiliers. The man had Gibraltarembroidered on his tunic. A former boss of mine had been a Royal Marinesofficer. He told me they have Gibraltar on their belt buckles. King George Ihad told them that after the taking of Gibraltar in 1704, they need show no other

battle honour. The same George had evidently, as Elector of Hanover, told hisGerman soldiers the same thing. Kipling lets the opportunity to tell this story

pass by. The officer spoke of the British love-hour. This puzzled the IrishGuards, until they realised that the man had learnt his English on tennis courts. Isuspect the Irish would have got a smile out of this, but Kipling remarks that theman would find there was no love in a British zero-hour.

Leaving others to find consolation for the failure at Loos in the lionising ofindividual acts of bravery, Kiplings next works in 1916 were a series ofsketches and poems, Fringes of the Fleet. As usual, these were popular and a

retired Admiral got Sir Edward Elgar to do something with some of thismaterial. Elgars Fringes of the Fleet concert tour featured four baritones andorchestra and opened in June 1917. He conducted himself. Kipling wasunenthusiastic about this from the beginning and despite the success of Elgars

programme, he withdrew permission and called it to a halt six months later.

Last and Pilarowski highlight two individual acts of heroism in Loos, both by

what they describe as non-combattants. A young Loossoise, Emilienne Moreau,and her mother had volunteered to tend British wounded in the village, where19


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survivors of the 110th Badeners were still fighting back. Emilienne was awardedthe Military Medal by Britain and the Croix de Guerre by France. She had killedtwo German soldiers with a borrowed pistol. They may well have deserved itand were certainly perceived to have deserved it at the time. The story is briefly

covered in the postcards and in more detail on the internet. Today, however,when the soldiers at risk from deadly civilian women are those whom ourWestern governments have committed to fight The savage wars of peace (14)in Afghanistan and Iraq, our default view of this kind of intervention isdifferent. Kiplings poem shows that often the female is More deadly than themale for good reason.

Piper Daniel Laidlow of the 7th

Kings Own ScottishBorderers is the other hero featured. The young Kitchenervolunteers of his battalion - and no doubt the rest of the 15th

(Highland) Division - were reluctant to get their firstexperience of war by leaving their cover to face machineguns. Laidlaw walked along the parapet of the trenches

playing his bagpipes until they were all out and making forthe German lines. He followed them, still playing. Some 92%of the 750 men were hit and of those a third were killed. Only

8% got through the day unhurt. Laidlaw himself was hit inthe leg twice but survived to be awarded the Victoria Cross

after the war. In our days, when men shot at dawn in the Great War fordesertion or cowardice or whatever have been pardoned, what do we make of amedal given For Valour of this kind? Why did not they all get it?

At the time, the Battle of Loos was the largest offensive ever made by the

British Army. When the fighting stopped, 50,000 men had been hit of whom15,800 had been killed. The bodies of the fallen now lie in the local cemeteries,some identified, many not. Some remain undiscovered on the leichenfeld.

Patricks body was found and buried on the battlefield, but as often happened,the identity of the grave was lost in subsequent action. Lack of non-perishabledog-tags at this early stage in the war meant that when bodies were recoveredafter the war to be reburied, he went to a Known Unto God grave in DudCorner Cemetery. There had been a long tradition of soldiers wearing home-

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made IDs, but the volunteers would have had only the makeshift army issue.Johns body was not found. Correspondence at Batemans shows that on 19September, he had written home with a list of requirements. Ironically, one itemrequested was a replacement aluminium identity disk. He had lost his, and It is

a Routine Order that we have to have them. I take it that by we, he meantofficers. There is a drawing by John of the disk he wanted from the Store. It wasabout an inch in diameter. The words he wanted on it were: 2ndLt . J. Kipling Cof E Irish Guards. (C of E = Church of England). It must not have got to himin time.

After two years of fruitless effort trying to find his son as a prisoner of war or to

find out how or where he had died, Kipling wrote a moving couplet that becamethe epitaph of all youngsters lost in the war: If any question why we died, Tellthem because our fathers lied(15).

Kipling was for a long time in denial about the loss of his son, most probably indeference to his wifes continuing hopes. He interviewed all the survivors hecould find who might have seen what happened to John. Friends rallied round totry and help: the Prince of Wales, whose father would have been a cousin of the

Kaiser, and the Ambassador in London of the then neutral USA. They wouldhave known the Kaiser had been a Kipling fan and would have gone in at thetop. Kipling himself as Germanys highest profile critic, could not compromisehimself by accepting any human kindness from the Germans directly, at anyofficial level.

Another friend checked out Roman Catholic channels. It had been intimated toCarrie during their engagement that Kipling was a covert Catholic and it brokethe engagement. She was a Methodist. He made things right, obviously

managing his beliefs so as not to upset her. At Loos, with his sensitivity to suchmatters, Kipling would have seen immediately with Scots and Irish fightingagainst Badeners in French countryside, that this was a predominantly Catholicenvironment.

He also had Royal Flying Corps aircraft drop leaflets over the German linesappealing for information. On the postcard showing the action on 8 October, a

biplane flies over the battlefield. The definition is poor, butits markings seem tobe more like a German cross than a British or French circle. No matter whether

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The Irish Guards in the Great War was published in 1923, at 1 per copy.Royalties went to the widows. This was a nice gesture, but the families of singlemen like Patrick would get nothing.

I remember reading many years ago a Victor Gollantz book published beforeWorld War II. I dont remember the author, but he made the point that theconduct of the Great War had caused or had contributed to unrest in townsthroughout the United Kingdom in the spring of 1916. The unrest wassuccessfully suppressed everywhere except in Dublin, where, in someone elseswords, a poets dream had sparked a flame. I have not seen that point madeanywhere else, but perhaps unsurprisingly. People were lobbying for America to

come into the war - Kipling in a 1916 poem was trying to shame her into doingso. America would see trouble in Dublin as a move for Home Rule and wouldunderstand it. Trouble elsewhere in Britain would have been embarrassing andnews of it would not have been allowed to get out. Probably at that time onlyVictor Gollantz would have touched the story anyway. In 1917 Kiplings verseshowed his delight that America had joined in.

I have another anecdote, which, though it relates to the Battle of the Somme, ten

months later, I would like to record here. I was amongst the guests at anInstitute of Builders dinner about 25 years ago and found myself sitting next toa man who turned out to be Chairman of the Chesterfield branch of the OrangeOrder. I said that I thought this order only existed in Liverpool and Glasgow,apart from Northern Ireland. He told me there had been branches/lodgeseverywhere until the Somme in 1916. The date had coincided with 12th July onthe Old Calendar. Many of the English lads therefore went over the topwearing the family sash, which was really a family heirloom. The losses were

too much to bear for Orange Order lodges throughout the country and theywithered away.

Two other snippets from long ago now also come back. Professor C NorthcoteParkinson of Parkinsons Law made the point that the British budget pre-World War One had secured for Britain a marginal superiority at sea at theexpense of an immense inferiority on land. Thinking of that now, I think itshows the importance at the time of what was proper Britain ought to have

the best navy. The second snippet is a memory of Professor John Kenneth

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Galbraith. It suggests to me something that permeated UK society at that time.Galbraith commented that US soldiers of the Great War were paid a properwage for their efforts and risk, in contrast to the British who got very little.Again, While youve a lucifer to light your fag. The British thought it

somehow improper that a decent wage should be paid. The war had started withenthusiastic volunteers. It then moved to conscription. Neither called for a

proper rate for the job.

After the war, Kipling remained angry with the Germans and blamed Germanpropaganda for anti-French sentiment in both Britain and America. He wasangry with the Americans because the Germans had not been beaten thoroughly

enough and there would be another war. In the ensuing years, he came to seeBolsheviks and Jews as inimical to the British Empire and added them to his listof evils.

I find I clash with Kiplings vehemence and I differ over America and the GreatWar. My own pet theory has for years been that it was a mistake for them tohave joined in. President Wilsons points for peace were so reasonable that theGerman army just left its guns out in the weather and went home. This left

Germany defenceless and at the mercy of the Versailles peace-makers whoreneged on the points Wilson had made. The USA did not ratify the VersaillesTreaty. I have to acknowledge that the strength of feeling against Germany musthave been pervasive, and not just after the war when there were lost lives to beangry about.

It seems to me that if America had stayed out, the Great War would have been a

draw, with all parties exhausted. Having intervened, the USA committed itselfto further interventions in the future. It also seems to me that America has notjust taken up The White Mans Burden: she has taken up Germanys burden.In Britain today and in Western Europe, the media is knee-jerk anti-American.Stand-up comedians are the same. The presumption must be that the public theyare catering for is anti-American. America is technologically and culturallydominant in the west and over much of the rest of the world, but the British

public wants the President of the USA to be seen as ignorant and stupid andgreedy - just like Kaiser Bill. Still, the US always gives us a next time.

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The Western Front now has battlefield scenes, museums and of coursecemeteries to offer to the visitor. The influence of Kipling and Lutyens on theBritish graves is distinctive. The contrast with the French cemeteries brings outthe difference. British cemeteries have boundary walls and monumental

masonry as well as headstones all in white. The gravestones are slabs, plantedaround with flowers and immaculately kept. There is a unity of style, and youhave to look at individual graves to learn anything about who is buried there.French cemeteries are Spartan by comparison. At La Targette, the British andFrench cemeteries are side by side. The French is an open field with nothing butmown and strimmed grass around the graves. There is another difference: aBritish rule is that there should be no distinction made on account of military orcivil rank, race or creed. The French by contrast, do make a distinction by race

and creed. The great majority of the French headstones are white Christiancrosses. A few relatively - without crosses, are intermingled amongst them.These are the graves of Jews and atheists. There are also Muslims, but they arenot mixed in with the Christians, Jews and atheists they have their own cornerof the cemetery. I do not know why. Perhaps it is because they were Moroccansrather than French citizens.

The Great War had its effect on civilian burials. The York City Cemetery just

outside the walls of York, England, opened in 1837. I went on a guided toursome years ago. There are some war graves there. The headstones are similar tothose in France but smaller. They may be seen in churchyards all over thecountry. I expect they were of men who died of wounds after reaching home Iforget what the guide said. I do remember that many of the civilian headstonesfor the Great War period are bigger and much more ornate than before or after

big angels and such. The explanation was that people had become much moresentimental as death threatened almost all families. Candles reappeared in

Protestant churches, as the scale of grief caused by the war suppressed the oldpuritanical attitude towards such ostentatious piety.

Coming back to my original theme of the motivation of the Kitchenervolunteers and men such as Kipling, what Kipling was able to sell and what theworld wanted to buy was all about sentiment, loyalty, duty and commitment.Pursuit of these qualities required carelessness for life which we no longer havetoday. Loyalties could clash of course. Irish veterans of the Great War could not

be sure of a welcome at home, because they had been fighting for the country

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whose rule their compatriots back home resented and had in the meantimethrown off.

Kipling was far too complex a character for anyone to put a label on him. Thesociety of which he was part was too complex to be labelled as well. He startedout as a journalist, editor, newspaper seller. Perhaps that is what he remained. Itis as if he were in charge of a stable of virtual newspapers from the quality

journal to the sensationalist daily to the local weekly. Serious columnist;lobbyist for political causes, fundraiser for the families of Boer War veterans,advocate for fairer pensions for old soldiers, carer for the habitat for bees,assessor of breaking strain for bridges; obituary writer, weatherman, roving Asia

reporter; applauder of all kinds of things including French road numbers; andnot least, storyteller, he could have written every column inch in every paper and made it rhyme. He could have been Rudyard, Lord Kipling had he wantedto be. The Establishment was desperate to please him. It seems clear to me thatKipling himself had much at stake at Loos. An early end to the war would haveenhanced his own career still further, irrespective of the fate of his son. Asthings are, he gets only grudging admiration today.

From his early days of writing in India, he had always poked fun at peoplesmachinations to get political or hierarchical advancement. After Loos he wascritical of both political and military leadership but it seems the fun had goneout of it. He let Elgar down, another patriot.

Perhaps Kipling was right about Germany all along, though as his popularitypeaked in Britain between the Boer War and the Great War, he became

immensely popular in Germany and he was even more of a success in France. Itis a thought that he could have used his international celebrity status to urge allparties that the arms race be set aside. But if he had been such an advocate, hewould never have become popular in the first place. Genius as he was, he was aman of his time and they all thought they should win. He lived until 18 January1936, long enough to see the rise of the Nazi party his nightmare taking shapeagain. It seems to me now that Winston Churchill emerged to pick up his baton.This time there was a personal adjustment to be made for German assertiveness.Up to this time, Kiplings emblem on covers of his books had reflected his pastin India. There was a circle containing a swastika a Hindu good luck symbol

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and a side view of the head of an elephant, holding a lotus flower in its trunk.Kipling removed the swastika when Hitler adopted it

At the level he operated at, I think Kipling knew what was going on at Loos. Heknew Joffres plan. He certainly knew that officers were particularly at risk. Heknew the 15th (Highland) Division were going to suffer, but not to the degreethat they were. He expected his sons battalion to be marching through the

breach the Scots had made on the 25th, where they would find the Germansbroken. As it was, the 2nd Irish Guards lost 32 men on the 27 September - only ascratch compared to the losses of the 7th Cameron Highlanders, the 9th BlackWatch, the 7th Kings Own Scottish Borderers and the other five battalions of the

15th

Division on the 25 September. After Johns death, Kipling was trapped inhis own framework. He could not grieve. He had to go on with his campaigning.However, he became furious with military incompetence. He did not say toomuch about Loos, but in 1917 he wrote the verse:

They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain

In sight of help denied from day to day:

But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,Are they too strong and wise to put away?(16)

In all of this, I was looking for a last message that Kipling may have made to hislost son. The poem, My Boy Jack is often taken to be a tribute to John, thoughit is about a sailor and though Kiplings affectionate term for his son incorrespondence was Old Boy rather than Jack. There is also the couplet

beginning, My son died laughing at some jest. John obviously did not dielaughing so I wonder whether this might be an example of the post bereavementmadness Ricketts talks about, or whether Kipling wrote for those who wanted tothink of their lost lads that way. Ricketts says a collection Debits and Creditsconcludes with the debits and credits of Johns life and becomes a privatememorial to him.

Kipling wrote many epitaphs. The first one in the book of poems, Epitaphs of

the War 1914 1918, Equality of Sacrifice might have been written for Johnand Patrick:

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A. I was a Have.B. I was a have-not.

(Together.) What hast thou given which I gave not?

Kiplings war graves work famously associated him with the Menin Gatememorial at Ypres the monument to 55,000 men whose bodies, like Johns,were not found. He composed the words on that memorial and provided anendowment for the Last Post to be sounded there every night. But I still had notfound an epitaph specifically to John from his parents. Kipling had beenovercome at the official dedication after the War of the Memorial Cemetery atLoos. He thought his son would be buried there, if his body had been recoveredat all, but he did not know in which grave. Johns name is on the wall at Dud

Corner along with Patrick Neafsys and the rest of the fallen Irish Guards whosegraves are unknown.

Kipling had detailed knowledge of all the cemeteries and memorials. Visitorsfound him helpful and sympathetic. He would have known St Marys, wherethere was a grave marked AN UNKNOWN LIEUTENANT OF THE IRISH GUARDS.He must have paused there and wondered, but he would have been told that thecoordinates indicating where the body had been found meant it could not be

John. It was only in 1992 when there was only one Irish Guards lieutenant to beaccounted for that it was noticed that if just one of the six characters of thecoordinates were different, this unknown man would be John. It was thenaccepted that there must have been a clerical error and the headstone wasreplaced by that we see today.

Johns name appears again of course on the war memorial in his home village of

Burwash in Sussex. Unusually, the Burwash memorial has an electric light onthe top of it in the form of a beacon flame. It is lit on anniversary dates of themen named below. (It wrongly gives Johns date of death as 29 September1915).

It was a chance visit to Burwash church that brought me to a fourth memorial toJohn Kipling. There is a memorial plaque on the wall. Of course there would be.And of course it has details you do not find on public monuments. I wassurprised Ricketts, Kiplings latest biographer, had not referred to it, with all his

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QUI ANTE DIEM PERIIT

QUI ANTE DIEM PERIIT who died before his time. I looked this up so easyon the internet. In full, the Latin begins, Qui procul hinc - Who far from here -and goes on: sed miles sed pro patria. but a soldier, but for his country. It isfrom a poem by Henry Newbolt called Clifton Chapel. Newbolt was almost anexact contemporary of Kipling. Kipling had used the full Latin sentence in anintroduction to one of his own school stories, Stalky and Co, which featuredan old boy killed in the second British-Afghan War. Who died before histime was equally true for Patrick at the time, but not for his country for

much longer. Ireland was to be on its own way before many of the warmemorials were dedicated. There was republican talk throughout the BritishDominions after the war, but, like the unrest in 1916, it only succeeded inIreland.

The poem sets out what all parents and families who lost sons must have beenthinking, in their own ways, and often in the church where their sons had

prayed. When I saw the first two lines I knew it had to be reproduced in full. Itis an irony that Kiplings last message to his son is the work of another poet,and that the only poem I quote in full in a work on Kipling should be one he hadchosen, rather than one he had written, but there it is. It is apt, because likeeverybody else in grief, Kipling had to fall back on anothers words:

THIS is the Chapel: here, my son,

Your father thought the thoughts of youth,

And heard the words that one by one

The touch of Life has turn'd to truth.

Here in a day that is not far,

You too may speak with noble ghosts

Of manhood and the vows of war

You made before the Lord of Hosts.

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To set the cause above renown,

To love the game beyond the prize,

To honour, while you strike him down,

The foe that comes with fearless eyes;To count the life of battle good,

And dear the land that gave you birth,

And dearer yet the brotherhood

That binds the brave of all the earth.

My son, the oath is yours: the end

Is His, Who built the world of strife,

Who gave His children Pain for friend,

And Death for surest hope of life.

To-day and here the fight's begun,

Of the great fellowship you're free;

Henceforth the School and you are one,

And what You are, the race shall be.

God send you fortune: yet be sure,

Among the lights that gleam and pass,

You'll live to follow none more pure

Than that which glows on yonder brass:

'Qui procul hinc,'the legend's writ,--The frontier-grave is far away--

'Qui ante diem periit:

Sed miles, sed pro patria.'

In his autobiography, Kipling amusingly refers to discussions with his wife asThe Committee of Ways and Means. Carrie was a powerful filter on the

interflow between Batemans and the outside world. We may be sure that the

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use of Newbolts words on Johns memorial in Burwash church was approvedby the Committee of Ways and Means. It could even have been Carrie whoproposed it. Newbolt himself must have known about it of course. Given thatthe majority of guests weekending at Batemans would be Church of England; I

think many would have gone to Burwash church. Rud and Carrie had married inAll Souls Church, Langham Place, London, a Church of England church. Johnhad wanted C of E on his dog-tag. Kipling had used the Latin in Stalky & Co.One way or another I think the Kiplings guests would have known the contextof Qui ante diem periit which we need our search engines to find today.

The badge itself has the words: QUIS SEPARABIT who shall separate. I had thought this to be an Un pourtous, tous pour un sentiment, which it might well be, butnow I am wondering. It turns out that the Irish Guardswere created in 1901 by Lord Roberts, Kiplings friend.Kipling must have known all about this badge from the

beginning. The date on the badge, MDCCLXXXIII,stands for 1783, the date of the foundation of the Order

of St. Patrick, from where the words come and whose full motto is: quis nos

separabit a caritate Christi. I would say this means: Who shall separate usfrom Christs loving care. What better words for a band of comrades, a lostcomrade, or a lost son?

When we went to Loos hardly any of what I have written above was known tome, but I had already looked for something in Kiplings poems that would servefor what had happened to Patrick and John. I had quite early on come across averse which caught my eye, though it was not just for the two of them. Givenwhat I did with it, it was something of a setback to discover later Kiplings

attitude though he was not alone - to the Germans. I was therefore pleased tofind that, doubtless on reflection, and in the privacy of a family memorial, hehad quoted from a poem which likewise seeks to honour the foe. I had not

planned to use the verse, but at Tyne Cot, the cemetery near Passchendaele, Ifound there are German graves as well as ours. It came back to me there. It waseasy to remember, like a variant of Hail Mary. There are registers at all thecemeteries where visitors may sign and write comments. I wrote it out in the

book:

Ah, Mary, pierced with sorrow,

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Remember, reach and save

The soul that comes tomorrow

Before the God that gave.

Since each was born of woman,For each at utter need -

True comrade and true foeman

Madonna, intercede! (17)

Edward Neafcy(21)

END

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Kipling Poems quoted:

1. The Islanders 9. Gunga Din2. The Winners 10. The Young British Soldier3. The Female of the Species 11. That Day

4. Poor Honest Man 12. For All We Have and Are5. The Betrothed 13. France6. The Lesson 14. The White Mans Burden7. Piet 15. Common Form8. Fuzzy Wuzzy 16. Mesopotamia

17. Hymn before Battle

Greenwich Mean Time

18. The time quoted was GMT. Daylight Saving Time, as it was then called, wasintroduced on May 21st 1916, a few weeks after it was introduced in Germany. It was becauseof the war, though it had been mooted earlier. It later became British Summer Time.

Battalion Strength

19. The Loos paper refers to a battalion as 750 men. Other sources say 1007 including 30officers. It comprised a battalion HQ and four companies. A company comprised 227 mencommanded by a major or captain. There were four platoons to a company, each commanded

by a subaltern (lieutenant or 2nd lieutenant). Each platoon had four sections under a non-commissioned-officer.

Hill 70 Survivor

20. (From Warner, Philip. The Battle of Loos. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth EditionsLimited, 1976: 1-2).

Surname Spellings

21 The families my grandfather and Patrick Neafsy left behind in Achadh Mr came toadopt the spelling Kneafsey, which is by far the most widely used spelling of our raresurname in Ireland today. The Irish is Cnimhsighe. The spelling in English was mostinconsistent a hundred years ago, as my brother David shows. The name on our grandfathers

gravestone in England is Neafcy, which is the spelling he passed on to his children. He isNeafsey in the Knock baptismal book, and so I took that spelling for my book Surnames ofIreland. In later life, I checked his birth certificate from Co. Mayo, and his marriage anddeath certificates from England. Each has a different spelling. The death certificate was

Neafsy and was entered by his brother-in-law. I have also used Kneafsey as the besttransliteration of Cnimhsighe.

This is the Chapel, Here My Son

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