Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) – British journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer.

 

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India on 30th December 1865.  He began writing poetry at an early age while he was at the United Services College and his first collection was published privately in 1881.   He joined his parents in India and worked as a journalist. In 1892, Kipling married Caroline Balestier, an American, and they lived in Vermont from 1892 until 1896 when they moved to Sussex, UK.  

Kipling turned down the offer of the role of Poet Laureate, however, in 1907, he became the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

In 1914, Rudyard Kipling was one of 53 leading British authors – a number that included H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy – who signed their names to the "Authors' Declaration." This manifesto declared that the German invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime, and that Britain "could not without dishonour have refused to take part in the present war."

Kipling wrote pamphlets and poems enthusiastically supporting the UK war aims of restoring Belgium, after it had been occupied by Germany, together with generalised statements that Britain was standing up for the cause of good. In September 1914, Kipling was asked by the government to write propaganda, an offer that he accepted. Kipling's pamphlets and stories were popular with the British people during the war, his major themes being to glorify the British military as the place for heroic men to be, while citing German atrocities against Belgian civilians and the stories of women brutalised by a horrific war unleashed by Germany, yet surviving and triumphing in spite of their suffering.

Kipling’s only son John Kipling (17 August 1897 – 27 September 1915), known as Jack, was killed

2nd Lt. Jack Kipling

fighting on the Western Front. He had only been in France for three weeks and because of his very poor eyesight had initially been rejected by the army. It was only because of the intervention of his influential and famous father that he was subsequently accepted and commissioned into the Irish  Guards Regiment.

Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936.

My Boy Jack” (1915)

"Have you news of my boy Jack? "

Not this tide.

"When d'you think that he'll come back?"

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Has any one else had word of him?"

Not this tide.

For what is sunk will hardly swim,

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"

None this tide,

Nor any tide,

Except he did not shame his kind---

Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,

This tide,

And every tide;

Because he was the son you bore,

And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Rudyard Kipling’s entry in Catherine W. Reilly’s “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” runs into three pages – from 188 to 191 and his poems were included in 24 WW1 anthologies.

“THE CHOICE”

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT SPEAKS:

To the Judge of Right and Wrong

  With Whom fulfillment lies

Our purpose and our power belong,

  Our faith and sacrifice.

Let Freedom's land rejoice!

  Our ancient bonds are riven;

Once more to us the eternal choice

  Of good or ill is given.

Not at a little cost,

  Hardly by prayer or tears,

Shall we recover the road we lost

  In the drugged and doubting years,

But after the fires and the wrath,

  But after searching and pain,

His Mercy opens us a path

  To live with ourselves again.

In the Gates of Death rejoice!

  We see and hold the good—

Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice

  For Freedom's brotherhood.

Then praise the Lord Most High

  Whose Strength hath saved us whole,

Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die

  And not the living Soul!

Rudyard Kipling

"FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE"

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and meet the war.

The Hun is at the gate!

Our world has passed away

In wantonness o'erthrown.

There is nothing left to-day

But steel and fire and stone.

    Though all we knew depart,

    The old commandments stand:

    "In courage keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand,"

Once more we hear the word

That sickened earth of old:

"No law except the sword

Unsheathed and uncontrolled,"

Once more it knits mankind.

Once more the nations go

To meet and break and bind

A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight—

The ages' slow-bought gain—

They shrivelled in a night,

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

    Though all we made depart,

    The old commandments stand:

    "In patience keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand."

No easy hopes or lies

Shall bring us to our goal,

But iron sacrifice

Of body, will, and soul

There is but one task for all—

For each one life to give.

Who stands if freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?

Rudyard Kipling

From: A TREASURY OF WAR POETRY: BRITISH AND AMERICAN POEMS OF THE WORLD WAR 1914-1917 Edited, With Introduction And Notes, By

GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE Professor of English in the University of Tennessee (The Riverside Literature Series, Houghton, Mifflin) 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8820

John Hunter Wickersham, Medal of Honor (1890 - 1918) – American soldier poet

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich* for reminding me that I had not written a post about John H. Wickersham

Born in Brooklyn, New York on 3rd February 1890, John Hunter Wickersham’s parents were Mary E. Damon and her husband, John Edgar Wickersham.   John Hunter moved to Denver, Colorado when he was little and was educated at Manual High School.  He then joined the Army.

In May 1917, a month after America entered the First tWorld War, John Hunter Wickersham graduated from the First Officers Training Camp at Camp Funston on Fort Riley, Kansas. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and assigned to Company H, 353rd Infantry, 89th Division.  By 11th September 1918, John was serving on the Western Front in France. In the first week of September 1918, American forces prepared to attack German positions in the St. Mihiel sector of northeastern France.

Before the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, John wrote his last letter home to his mother in Denver. The letter contained a poem entitled "The Raindrops on Your Old Tin Hat".  By the time his mother received his letter, her son was dead - John Hunter was mortally wounded near Limey, France on 12 September 1918.

The poem was published in an Oregon newspaper - the “St. Helen’s Mist” -  on 13th December 1918. The paper noted that the author had been killed in battle and gave it the title “Its Patter Touches the Heart” - Wickersham's aunt and uncle had shared the poem.

 “Raindrops on your old tin hat.”

The mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of hills,

There's a whispering of wind across the flat,

You'd be feeling kind of lonesome if it wasn't for one thing --

The patter of the raindrops on your old tin hat.

An' you just can't help a-figuring--sitting there alone --

About this war and hero stuff and that,

And you wonder if they haven't sort of got things twisted up,

While the rain keeps up its patter on your old tin hat.

When you step off with the outfit to do your little bit,

You're simply doing what you're s'posed to do --

And you don't take time to figure what you gain or what you lose,

It's the spirit of the game that brings you through.

But back at home she's waiting, writing cheerful little notes,

And every night she offers up a prayer

And just keeps on a-hoping that her soldier boy is safe --

The mother of the boy who's over there.

And, fellows, she's the hero of this great big ugly war,

And her prayer is on that wind across the flat,

And don't you reckon maybe it's her tears, and not the rain,

That's keeping up the patter on your old tin hat?

John Hunter Wickersham’s Medal of Honor:

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company H, 353rd Infantry, 89th Division. Place and date: At Limey, France; September 12, 1918. Entered service at: Denver Colorado. Birth: February 3, 1890; New York, New York. General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 16 

(January 22, 1919).

Citation:

Advancing with his platoon during the St. Mihiel offensive, Second Lieutenant Wickersham was severely wounded in four places by the bursting of a high-explosive shell. Before receiving any aid for himself he dressed the wounds of his orderly, who was wounded at the same time. He then ordered and accompanied the further advance of his platoon, although weakened by the loss of blood. His right hand and arm being disabled by wounds, he continued to fire his revolver with his left hand until, exhausted by loss of blood, he fell and died from his wounds before aid could be administered.  He was buried in the Saint Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial in France (Plot B, Row 19, Grave 12). 15 American women nurses who died while serving in WW1 are also buried in that cemetery.

John Hunter’s family placed a cenotaph for him in the Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

Sources: 

Find my past

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wickersham-297

https://stacyallbritton.com/2012/08/07/the-raindrops-on-your-old-tin-hat-by-john-hunter-wickersham/

https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/john-h-wickersham

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliograph” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 401.

*Dr Connie Ruzich’s wonderful website Behind their Lines:

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2017/01/rain-on-your-old-tin-hat.html

https://www.talesofhonorpodcast.com/stories/john-h-wickersham

Painting by Augustin Gabriel Maurice Toussaint (1882 - 1974) - French artist known as
Maurice Toussant 

Born in 1882 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, a town in the Hauts-de-Seine region of France, southwest of Paris, Maurice’s father was painter and engraver Henri Toussaint (1849-1911), known for his prints depicting the architecture of Paris and other French cities.

St. Mihiel

A soldier sitting on top of a hill, overlooking a valley and a bridge. The Germans had held St. Mihiel and surrounding areas since the first battle at the Marne in 1914. At last, in 1918, under the command of General Ferdinand Foche (1851-1929), the Allied forces broke through the German hold on St. Mihiel and it was safely under France's control once again.

https://www.loc.gov/item/99613528/

Paul Graham Clark (1897 - 1918) – British born New Zealand poet

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich* for finding this poet for us

Paul Graham Clark was born in Leicester, Leicestershire, England in 1897. His parents were Alfred Clark, a physician and surgeon, and his wife, Isabella E. F.Clark, nee Christy. Paul’s siblings were Phyllis K., born 1898 in Leicester and Victoria C., born 1901 in Sholing, Hampshire.

In March 1901 the family home was at Bath Lodge, Bath Road, Heathlands Terrace, Sholing, Hampshire. I found a reference to Paul travelling to Australasia in 1903, when he was six years old, so the family may have gone to live in New Zealand at around that time. 

Paul studied medicine at Auckland University College and also enrolled at St John’s in 1915.  He applied and was accepted for a Maria Blackett Scholarship the same year when he had to take leave of absence to enlist in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He was initially rejected as underage and wasn’t accepted into the force until 1918. He attained the rank of Second Lieutenant. 

Information taken from Paul’s Army records show that he gave his mother as his next of kin living at Victoria Avenue, Remera, Auckland, New Zealand. He was issued the serial number 46224 on enlistment. Paul embarked on 8th February 1918 as part of the 34th Reinforcements Auckland Infantry Regiment, “A” Company from Wellington, New Zealand aboard H.M.N.Z.T. 100 “Ulimaroa” bound for Liverpool, England. 

The archives at the John Kinder Theological Library hold correspondence from Clark to the St John’s College Trust Board asking for leave from the college and whether they can hold his scholarship for him until he returns from the war. He was killed while fighting in Bapaume, France, during the Second Battle of Bapaume on 26th August 1918 and was buried in the Achiet-Le-Grand Communal Cemetery Extension, France, Grave Reference: III. F. 28.

Paul is also remembered on the King’s College Honour Roll for the Great War 1914-1918.

A poem written by Paul Graham Clark:

“En Voyage”

They’ve swung her out into the harbour now

And she’s rounded the Heads at last,

While the waves of the briny break over her prow

And New Zealand’s a thing of the past.

We’ve said good-bye to the “missis,”

And kissed all the kiddies, too,

With a note to all that will miss us,

And a special one sent up to you.

We’re a speck in the boundless ocean now,

Just a thousand poor souls, all told;

And feel just like — well, just like how

We felt back in the days of old

When they fitted us out in Bill Massey’s boots,

Dished each one out a spoon and a fork,

Then lined us up like a lot of coots

And told us we couldn’t talk.

Oh, what of the squeamish first few days,

When we’d hardly cleared N.Z.!

The transport ship Ulimaroa leaving Wellington Port, NZ 

How the fellows in hundreds of different ways

Went over and hung the head.

They’d stay there forlorn for hours on end

While they gazed at the ship’s black side,

And swore they were counting the rivets up —

But somehow I think that they lied.

They shove us at night into our six by two’s

In a hole that should only hold ten;

But at somebody’s order — I wish I knew whose —

It’s branded “Two hundred men.”

The air’s none too good of a night time,

But when in the morning we wake,

You could take out your knife and slice it

Then scrape it away with a rake.

The tucker’s as good as it always was -

— I don’t think! ” did you say?

Well, what if it isn’t, we’ll eat it because —

Well, if we didn’t it wouldn’t pay.

We’ve not come out on a picnic, boys,

Nor yet on a pleasure trip,

So we’ll have to give up a few of our joys

When aboard the King’s troopship.

New Zealand troops after the capture of Bapaume

So we’re swinging away on our journey still

And we’ve nothing to trouble us yet,

Save our thoughts of the land that knows no ill

And the folks that we can’t forget.

For a life on the ocean waves all right,

And there’s a good time yet to come;

But as sure as the moon shines bright to-night

There’s no place now like home.

We’re steaming ahead for England and France

All willing to do our bit;

We’re willing to live or die, just as

Chance in her uncertain way thinks fit.

But back of the mind of each one of us

Is the land we are longing to see,

Where bush fire and beach are a part of us

Way back in our “ain countree.”

Paul Graham Clark

SOURCES;

*Initial Source: Dr Connie Ruzich's wonderful website Behind their Lines: https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/08/a-new-zealanders-war.html

Additional Sources

Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

https://www.kinderlibrary.ac.nz/remembering-anzacs-paul-graham-clark/

Leicestershire And Rutland, Soldiers Died 1914-1920

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/transcript?id=GBM%2FLEIC-RUT%2F3904&expand=true&tab=this

Frank Carbaugh (1896 – 1918) - American soldier ("Doughboy") poet

 With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich” for finding this poet for us

Franklin L. Carbaugh – known as Frank - was born in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, United States of America in 1896.  His parents were George H. Carbaugh and his wife, Alice, nee Deardorff. 

Frank joined the American Army as a non commissioned officer with the 7th Machine Gun Battalion. He was posted to the Western Front and was wounded during the Second Battle of the Marne in late July 1918, by which time his rank was Sergeant.   

While in hospital in France, Frank wrote a poem entitled “The Fields of the Marne” about "war and future peace".  Frank died in August, 1918.  Nearly three years later, in May 1921, his parents met the train that took their youngest son's body back to Pennsylvania for burial in the family plot at Cedar Hill Cemetery in Franklin County. 

("Doughboys” became the most enduring nickname for the troops of General John Pershing's American Expeditionary Forces, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean to join war weary Allied armies fighting on the Western Front during the First World War. )

“The Fields of the Marne”

The fields of the Marne are growing green,

   The river murmurs on and on;

No more the hail of mitrailleuse,

   The cannon from the hills are gone.

The herder leads the sheep afield,

   Where grasses grow o'er broken blade;

And toil-worn women till the soil

   O'er human mold, in sunny glade.

The splintered shell and bayonet

   Are lost in crumbling village wall;

No sniper scans the rim of hills,

   No sentry hears the night bird call.

From blood-wet soil and sunken trench,

   The flowers bloom in summer light;

And farther down the vale beyond,

   The peasant smiles are sad, yet bright.

The wounded Marne is growing green,

   The gash of Hun no longer smarts;

Democracy is born again,

   But what about the troubled hearts?

            —Sgt. Frank Carbaugh

The poem was first published in the American Army’s newspaper “Stars and Stripes,” and in 1919 it was included, along with  83 other poems written by American Doughboys, in a WW1 anthology entitled “Yanks; A.E.F. Verse” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1919), which can be viewed as a free download via Archive: https://archive.org/details/yanksaefverse00newy/page/n7/mode/2up

Sources:

Original Source:*Dr Connie Ruzich's wonderful website Behind Their Lines :

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/fields-of-marne.html

Additional sources:  Find my Past, 

https://eu.publicopiniononline.com/story/news/2018/11/09/world-war-stories-battlefields/1928931002/

https://eu.echo-pilot.com/story/news/2021/06/01/memorial-day-ceremony-held-cedar-hill-cemetery-greencastle/7491417002/

P.S. When the Peace Treaty was signed in Versailles in 1919, Australian artist, writer and poet Will Dyson (1880 – 1938) drew this cartoon entitled “Peace and Future Cannon Fodder”  

Source:

https://archive.cartoons.ac.uk/record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=P0497

   

Edward L. Davison (1898 - 1970) – Scottish-born poet who later moved to the United States of America

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich* for discovering this poet for us

Edward Lewis Davison was born in Fife, Soctland in 1898 and grew up in Newcastle. He left school when he was 12 to support his mother by working as an assistant in a music hall.  In 1914, Edward joined the Royal Navy with the rank of Sub Lieutenant, serving as a Paymaster.   

After the war, Edward went to study Modern Languages at St John's College, Cambridge University on a scholarship.  When at Cambridge Edward edited an anthology of student poetry and met and became friends with the writer J. B. Priestley, with whom he shared accommodation when he moved to live in London. 

While living in London, Edward contributed to The London Mercury and other magazines. He met an American girl, Nat alie Weiner, and followed her to the United States in 1925. Natalie and Edward were married in New York in 1926. Their son Peter Davison was born in June 1928.   Peter also became a poet. 

Edward taught at Vassar College, the University of Miami, and the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was involved in the Colorado Writers 1937 Conference. He was a friend of American poet Robert Frost 

In 1943, during the Second World War, shortly after becoming a Naturalized Citizen of the United States, Edward joined the US Army.  He attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Due to his knowledge of the German language, he was named Director of the Special Projects Division, which was responsible for overseeing the re-education of German prisoners of war.

Edward died on 8th February 1970.

According to Catherine Reilly, Edward’s poetry collections were 

“Poems” (Bell,1920)

“Harvest of Youth: poems” (Harper, New York, 1926)

“The Heart’s Unreason” (Gollancz, 1931.

And he also had a poem published in “Soldiers’ verse” Edited by Patric Dickinson (Muller, 1945)

Sources:   Find my Past, Wilipedia,

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978). Pp. 106 and 7.

https://www.nytimes.com/1970/02/09/archives/edward-davison-poet-and-teacher-exdean-at-hunter-prolific-writer-is.html

* You can read Edward's WW1 poem for Conscientious Objectors on Dr Connie Ruzich's wonderful Website Behind their Lines here:: https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/singing-in-shattered-street.html

James Griffyth Fairfax (1886 -1976) - Australian-born British poet, translator and politician

With grateful thanks to Dr. Connie Ruzich* for reminding

me that I had not yet written a post for this poet

James was born in Sydney, Australia, on 15th July 1886. His parents were Charles Burton Fairfax (1863-1941) and his wife, Florence Marie Fairfax, née Frazer. His great-grandfather, John Fairfax (1804-1877), was a printer, bookseller,and newspaper publisher who emigrated to Australia from Warwickshire, UK in 1838.

Educated in Britain, James attended Winchester College in Hampshire as a boarder, before going on to study at New College, Oxford University. He had poems published in "Isis", "The Idler", and "Pall Mall Magazine"

At the outbreak of the First World War, James joined the army, serving as a Captain in the British Royal Army Service Corps, attached to the 15th Indian Division from 1914-1919. He published two volumes of war poems – “The Temple of Janus” in 1917 and “Mesopotamia” in 1919.

An extract from “The Forest of the Dead 1919” by James Griffyth Fairfax

There are strange trees in that pale field

Of barren soil and bitter yield:

They stand without the city walls;

Their nakedness is unconcealed.

Cross after cross, mound after mound,

And no flowers blossom but are bound

The dying and the dead, in the wreaths

Sad crowns for kings of Underground.

You can read the rest of the poem on the All Poetry website

https://allpoetry.com/James-Griffyth-Fairfax

* Read two more poems by James on Dr. Connie Ruzich’s wonderful website Behind their Lines :

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2018/07/memories-of-mesopotamia.html

More information here on Discover War Poets Website:

https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/james-griffyth-fairfax/

And this is an extremely interesting article with a great deal of information:

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/366746/pdf

Additional sources: Find  my Past and 

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/366746/pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairfax_family

https://allpoetry.com/James-Griffyth-Fairfax

https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/james-griffyth-fairfax/

Photograph of James by Mary Laffan and copyright National Library of Australia. 

André Breton (1896 – 1966) - French writer and poet

André Robert Breton was born on 19th February 1896 in Tinchebray, France.   He was the only son born to Louis-Justin Breton, a policeman, and his wife, Marguerite-Marie-Eugénie, nee Le Gouguès, who was a former seamstress.

André studied medicine and was particularly interest in mental illness. His studies were interrupted when he was conscripted into the French Army in the First World War.  André worked in a neurological ward in a hospital in Nantes, France, where he met the Alfred Jarry devotee Jacques Vaché, whose anti-social attitude and disdain for established artistic tradition influenced André considerably. Vaché committed suicide when he was 23, and his war-time letters to Breton and others were published in a volume entitled ‘Lettres de guerre’ (Tr. Letters of War) (1919), for which André Breton wrote four introductory essays.

André's first collection of poems - written before and during the First World War – was published in 1919 with the title “Monte de Piété” (Tr. 'Pawnbroker').  Here is a poem from that collection:

During the post-war years André expanded on his work as a writer and was a pioneer of Dadaism and surrealism, both of which flourished in the disillusioned post-war years.

André died in Paris on 28 September 1966.

You can find out more about André Breton's poems by borrowing this book on line free from Archive

https://archive.org/details/poemsofandrbre00bretrich/page/n7/mode/2up

Benjamin Péret (1899 – 1959) - French poet

 

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruxich for reminding me I had not yet posted about Benjamin Péret on my weblog 

Benjamin Péret was born in Rezé, France on 4thJuly 1899.  He didn’t like going to school and instead attended the Local Art School in 1912. In 1913, he resigned due to his lack of study.  Benjamin then spent a short period of time in a School of Industrial Design.

When the First World War began, Benjamin enlisted in the French army's Cuirassiers, to avoid being sent to prison for defacing a local statue with paint. He saw action in the Balkans, before being deployed to Salonica, Greece.

During a routine movement of his unit by train, Benjamin discovered a copy of Pierre Albert-Birot's avant-garde magazine “SIC: Sons Idées Couleurs, Formes”, which was founded in January 1916, lying on a bench on the station platform. It contained poetry by Apollinaire and sparked Péret's love for experimental poetry. SIC was the second Parisian magazine, after “Nord-Sud”, to distribute the texts of the Zurich Dadaists, namely those of Tristan Tzara.   By the end of its publication in December 1919, SIC had published 53 issues.

Towards the end of the war, while still in Greece, Benjamin suffered from an attack of dysentery, which led to his repatriation and deployment in Lorraine in FRance for the remainder of the war. 

After the war, Benjamin joined the Dada movement and in 1921 he published “Le Passager du transtlantique” – his first book of poetry before he abandoned the Dada movement to follow André Breton and the emerging Surrealist movement, working alongside and influencing the Mexican writer Octavio Paz.

Read Benjamin Péret’s poem “Petit Chanson des Mutilés” (Tr. Little Song of the Maimed) on Dr Connie Ruzich’s wonderful website Behind their Lines : :https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2016/02/song-of-verdun.html

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, known as C. J. Dennis, (1876 – 1938) - Australian poet and writer

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, known as C. J. Dennis, was born in Auburn, South Australia on 7th September 1876.. His father owned hotels in Auburn, and later in Gladstone and Laura. His mother suffered ill health, so Clarrie (as he was known) was raised initially by his great-aunts, before attending the Christian Brothers College, Adelaide as boarder when he was a teenager.

At the age of 19 Clarence was employed as a solicitor's clerk. It was while he was working in that job, like banker's clerk Banjo Paterson before him, his first poem was published under the pen name "The Best of the Six". He went on to publish in “The Worker”, under his own name and as "Den", and in “The Bulletin”. 

He joined the literary staff of “The Critic” in 1897 and, after a spell doing odd jobs around Broken Hill, returned to The Critic, serving for a time c. 1904 as Editor, to be succeeded by Conrad Eitel. In 1906 Clarence founded “The Gadfly” as a literary magazine; it ceased publication in 1909. From 1922 he served as staff poet on the “Melbourne Herald”. Clarence’s first book of verse, “Backblock ballads and other verses”, was published in 1913.

C.J. Dennis was most lauded during the First World War, when his works were read in the trenches as keenly as they were at home.  You can read one of his WW1 poems here: https://allpoetry.com/poem/8486843-War-by-C-J-Dennis

C.J. Dennis married Margaret Herron in 1917. Margaret published two novels and a biography of her husband entitled “Down the Years”.

C.J. Dennis died on 22nd June 1938 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.  He was buried in Box Hill Cemetery, Melbourne. The Box Hill Historical Society attached a commemorative plaque to the gravestone. C.J. Dennis is also commemorated with a plaque on Circular Quay in Sydney which forms part of the NSW Ministry for the Arts – Writers Walk series, and by a bust outside the town hall of the town of Laura.

“ ‘Vale’John Monash” by C.J. Dennis 

So ends a life, lived to the full alway,

  Thro' peace, thro' war, thro' honored peace again,

From youth unto the closing of his day

  Lived simply.  Yet a giant among men

Today steals quietly to seek his rest

  As quietly he lived, yet none his peer.

In service of his land he gave his best

  And, in simplicity, found greatness here.

Seeking no honour but his country's thanks,

  No man among us won a place more high.

Comrade and leader where the myriad ranks

  Stand now with bended heads as John goes by.

Ever a man, a soldier and a friend

  In every heart some echo of the knell

That marks his passing throbs for this great end,

  Saying in requiem, "Pass, John, all is well."

Written by C.J. Dennis in honour of General Sir John Monash GCMG, KCB, VD (27 June 1865 – 8 October 1931), who was also a poet (and an artist).

C.J. Dennis is mentioned in Catherine W. Reilly’s “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) on page 395 – as an Australian poet 

Ford Madox Ford (1873 – 1939) – British WW1 soldier, poet, novelist, critic and editor

 With thanks to Connie Ruzich* for reminding me that I had not yet posted about Ford Madox Ford. 

Born Joseph Leopold Ford Hermann Madox Hueffer in Merton, Surrey, UK, Ford’s parents were Catherine Heuffer, nee Madox Brown and Francis Hueffer, Hueffer (born Franz Carl Christoph Johann Hüffer; 22nd May 1845 – 19th January 1889), a German-English writer on music, music critic, and librettist, who became music critic for “The Times” newspaper,

Ford, who was named after his maternal grandfather, the Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown, was the eldest of three children - his brother was Oliver Madox Hueffer and his sister was Juliet Catherine Emma Hueffer, the wife of David Soskice and mother of Frank Soskice. 

In 1889, after the death of their father, Ford and Oliver went to live with their grandfather in London. Ford was educated at University College School in London. In November 1892 he became a Catholic, 

In 1894, Ford eloped with his school girlfriend Elsie Martindale. The couple were married in Gloucester and moved to Bonnington. In 1901, they moved to Winchelsea. They had two daughters - Christina (born 1897) and Katharine (born 1900). Ford's neighbours in Winchelsea included the authors Joseph Conrad, Stephen Crane, W.H. Hudson, Henry James in nearby Rye, and H.G. Wells.

In 1904, Ford suffered a breakdown due to financial and marital problems. He went to Germany to spend time with family and undergo treatments.

In 1909, Ford left his wife and set up home with English writer Isobel Violet Hunt, with whom he published the literary magazine “The English Review” Ford's wife refused to divorce him and he attempted to become a German citizen to obtain a divorce in Germany. That was unsuccessful. 

During the First World War, Ford initially helped out with the Propaganda Bureau.  He joined the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in 1915 and was gazetted as a Second Lieutenant on 13th August.  He was posted to the Somme in July 1916 and was blown into the air, losing his memory for a few weeks and was sent to No 21 Casualty Clearing Station in Neuville, a district of Corbie in the Somme, France.     

After recovering, Ford was sent to the Ypres Salient.  He was hospitalised with lung problems, possibly due to gas inhalation, and was invalided home in March 1917.  The Medical Board refused to pass him fit for service on the front line and he was put in charge of a Company of the King’s Liverpool 23rd Regiment based in Yorkshire.  He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant on 1st July 1917 and to the rank of Captain on 7th January 1918.   From mid-March to August 1918 Fordh eld the temporary rank of Brevet Major.  He left the Army on 7th January 1919.

Ford changed his name to Ford Madox Ford in 1919, partly to fulfil the terms of a small legacy, partly "because a Teutonic name is in these days disagreeable".

The Journals created by Ford - “The English Review” and “The Transatlantic Review” - were instrumental in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.

Ford spent the last years of his life teaching at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan. He was taken ill in Honfleur, France in June 1939 and died in Deauville on 26th June 1939.

Ford is  remembered now for his novels “The Good Soldier” (1915), ““he Parade's End” tetralogy (1924–1928) and “The Fifth Queen” trilogy (1906–1908).

According to Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p.129, Ford Madox Ford published the following collections of verse related to WW1:

“The good soldier; Selected memories; Poems (The Bodley Head, 1962)

“On heaven, and poems written on active service” (The Bodley Head, 1916)

and Ford had poems published in 6 WW1 Anthologies. 

*You can read Connie’s interpretation of Ford’s poem “Albade” on her wonderful website Behind their Lines here: https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2016/09/an-early-morning-love-song.html

Here is Ford’s poem about the fall of Antwerp, which T.S. Elliott commented “The only good poem I have met with on the subject  of war.”

In October 1914 [Antwerp] BY FORD MADOX FORD

I 

GLOOM! 

An October like November; 

August a hundred thousand hours, 

And all September, 

A hundred thousand, dragging sunlit days, 

And half October like a thousand years . . . 

And doom! 

That then was Antwerp. . . 

                              In the name of God, 

How could they do it? 

Those souls that usually dived 

Into the dirty caverns of mines; 

Who usually hived 

In whitened hovels; under ragged poplars; 

Who dragged muddy shovels, over the grassy mud, 

Lumbering to work over the greasy sods. . . 

Those men there, with the appearance of clods 

Were the bravest men that a usually listless priest of God 

Ever shrived. . . 

And it is not for us to make them an anthem. 

If we found words there would come no wind that would fan them 

To a tune that the trumpets might blow it, 

Shrill through the heaven that's ours or yet Allah's, 

Or the wide halls of any Valhallas. 

We can make no such anthem. So that all that is ours 

For inditing in sonnets, pantoums, elegiacs, or lays 

Is this: 

“In the name of God, how could they do it?” 

II 

For there is no new thing under the sun, 

Only this uncomely man with a smoking gun 

In the gloom. . . 

What the devil will he gain by it? 

Digging a hole in the mud and standing all day in the rain by it 

Waiting his doom; 

The sharp blow, the swift outpouring of the blood, 

Till the trench of gray mud 

Is turned to a brown purple drain by it. 

Well, there have been scars 

Won in many wars . . .

Punic, 

Lacedæmonian, wars of Napoleon, wars for faith, wars for honour, for love, for possession, 

But this Belgian man in his ugly tunic, 

His ugly round cap, shooting on, in a sort of obsession, 

Overspreading his miserable land, 

Standing with his wet gun in his hand . . . 

Doom! 

He finds that in a sudden scrimmage, 

And lies, an unsightly lump on the sodden grass . . . 

An image that shall take long to pass! 

III 

For the white-limbed heroes of Hellas ride by upon their horses 

Forever through our brains. 

The heroes of Cressy ride by upon their stallions; 

And battalions and battalions and battalions— 

The Old Guard, the Young Guard, the men of Minden and of Waterloo, 

Pass, for ever staunch, 

Stand, for ever true; 

And the small man with the large paunch, 

And the gray coat, and the large hat, and the hands behind the back, 

Watches them pass 

In our minds for ever . . . 

But that clutter of sodden corses 

On the sodden Belgian grass — 

That is a strange new beauty. 

IV 

With no especial legends of marchings or triumphs or duty, 

Assuredly that is the way of it, 

The way of beauty . . . 

And that is the highest word you can find to say of it. 

For you cannot praise it with words 

Compounded of lyres and swords, 

But the thought of the gloom and the rain 

And the ugly coated figure, standing beside a drain, 

Shall eat itself into your brain: 

And you will say of all heroes, “They fought like the Belgians!” 

And you will say: “He wrought like a Belgian his fate out of gloom.” 

And you will say: “He bought like a Belgian his doom.” 

And that shall be an honourable name; 

“Belgian” shall be an honourable word; 

As honourable as the fame of the sword, 

As honourable as the mention of the many-chorded lyre, 

And his old coat shall seem as beautiful as the fabrics woven in Tyre. 

V 

And what in the world did they bear it for? 

I don't know. 

And what in the world did they dare it for? 

Perhaps that is not for the likes of me to understand. 

They could very well have watched a hundred legions go 

Over their fields and between their cities 

Down into more southerly regions. 

They could very well have let the legions pass through their woods, 

And have kept their lives and their wives and their children and cattle and goods. 

I don't understand. 

Was it just love of their land? 

Oh, poor dears! 

Can any man so love his land? 

Give them a thousand thousand pities 

And rivers and rivers of tears 

To wash off the blood from the cities of Flanders. 

VI 

This is Charing Cross; 

It is midnight; 

There is a great crowd 

And no light. 

A great crowd, all black that hardly whispers aloud. 

Surely, that is a dead woman—a dead mother! 

She has a dead face; 

She is dressed all in black; 

She wanders to the bookstall and back, 

At the back of the crowd; 

And back again and again back, 

She sways and wanders. 

This is Charing Cross; 

It is one o'clock. 

There is still a great cloud, and very little light; 

Immense shafts of shadows over the black crowd 

That hardly whispers aloud. . . 

And now! .  . That is another dead mother, 

And there is another and another and another. . . 

And little children, all in black, 

All with dead faces, waiting in all the waiting-places, 

Wandering from the doors of the waiting-room 

In the dim gloom. 

These are the women of Flanders.

They await the lost. 

They await the lost that shall never leave the dock; 

They await the lost that shall never again come by the train 

To the embraces of all these women with dead faces; 

They await the lost who lie dead in trench and barrier and foss, 

In the dark of the night. 

This is Charing Cross; it is past one of the clock; 

There is very little light. 

There is so much pain. 

L’Envoi 

And it was for this that they endured this gloom; 

This October like November, 

That August like a hundred thousand hours, 

And that September, 

A hundred thousand dragging sunlit days, 

And half October like a thousand years. . . 

Oh, poor dears!

Sources:  Wikipedia, 

Reilly, Catherine W. “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliograph” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978),

Source for featured poem https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57289/in-october-1914-antwerp

And:  https://warpoets.org.uk/worldwar1/poets-and-poetry/ford-madox-ford/

https://fantastic-writers-and-the-great-war.com/war-experiences/ford-madox-ford/

Geoffrey Harold Woolley, VC, OBE, MC (1892 –1968) - British poet, writer, WW1 Army infantry officer, Church of England priest & WW2 Military Chaplain - the first British Territorial Army officer to be awarded the Victoria Cross

Geoffrey Harold Woolley was born on 14th May 1892 in Bethnal Green, London, UK.  His parents were The Rev. George Herbert Woolley, Curate of St Matthew’s Church, Upper Clapton in London, and his wife Sarah L. Woolley, nee Cathcart. Geoffrey had seven sisters and three brothers, including the famous archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley and George Cathcart Woolley, a colonial administrator and ethnographer. 

Geoffrey was educated at Parmiter's School, Bethnal Green, St John's School, Leatherhead, Surrey and Queen's College, Oxford University. While at University Geoffrey joined the Officers' Training Corps (OTC). He studied for Holy Orders and was going to be ordained as an Anglican priest like his father when, at the age of twenty-three, he decided to fight for his country.  Geoffrey obtained a commission in the Queen Victoria's Rifles, the 9th (County of London) Battalion of the London Regiment of the British Army.

The Queen Victoria's Rifles Regiment was posted to the Ypres Salient on the Western Front. On 17th April 1915 the British Army captured Hill 60, a low rise to the south-east of Ypres. In the midst of fierce German efforts to retake the hill, Second Lieutenant Woolley's company were sent up the line on the afternoon of 20th April to take ammunition supplies to the defenders. The situation quickly deteriorated, with many men and all the other officers on the hill being killed. Geoffrey refused verbal and written orders to withdraw, saying he and his company would remain until properly relieved. They repelled numerous attacks through the night. When they were relieved the next morning, he returned with 14 men remaining from the 150-strong company. 

The citation for the Victoria Cross he was awarded for this action reads:

“For most conspicuous bravery on "Hill 60" during the night of 20th–21st April  1915. Although the only Officer on the hill at the time, and with very few men, he successfully resisted all attacks on his trench, and continued throwing bombs and encouraging his men till relieved. His trench during all this time was being heavily shelled and bombed and was subjected to heavy machine gun fire by the enemy.”

Two days later Geoffrey was promoted directly to the rank of Captain. He saw further action in the early stages of the Second Battle of Ypres until he was invalided back to England suffering from poison gas and psychological effects. When he had recovered, he was appointed as an instructor at the Officers Infantry School. Geoffrey returned to the Western Front in summer 1916 as a General Staff Officer Grade II on the Third Army Staff.

In September 1919, Geoffrey married Janet Beatrix Culme-Seymour. Geoffrey and Janet’s son - Harold Lindsay Cathcart Woolley - was born on 7th October 1919

Geoffrey was demobilised on 1st February 1919 and was awarded the Military Cross on 3rd June 1919 for his actions in France and Flanders. He returned to Queen’s College Oxford from 1919-1920, earning a Diploma in Theology and an MA in 1924. He was part of the VC Guard at the interment of the Unknown Warrior on 11th November 1920. Geoffrey was ordained in Coventry Cathedral on 19th December 1920 with a licence as a curate at Rugby parish church and he was employed as an Assistant Master at Rugby School 1920-1923.

Joining the hastily formed Defence Force against strikes, Geoffrey was granted a temporary commission as Captain in 7th (Defence Force) Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 12th April 1921. He commanded a company in Coventry, and following this appointment, he resigned his commission on 5th July 1921.

Geoffrey became Vicar of Monk Sherborne, Hampshire, before moving on to take up the post of Chaplain of Harrow School.

In January 1940 Geoffrey resigned from the school and was commissioned into the Royal Army Chaplains' Department. He was appointed Senior Chaplain of the Algiers area in November 1942, reaching the rank of Chaplain to the Forces 3rd Class, with the rank of Major. Along with several other officers he was appointed OBE in 1943 "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in North Africa." 

Geoffrey and Janet’s son Harold joined the Royal Air Force, became a Flying Officer and a Spitfire pilot with 152 Squadron.  Harold was posted to North Africa and was shot down and killed by a Bf109 near Souk el Arba on 2nd December 1942 in a battle over Tunis.

Geoffrey took on the parish of St Mary's, Harrow on the Hill, in 1944. In 1952, finding it difficult to climb the hill, he moved to be Rector of West Grinstead, Sussex, where he stayed until he retired in 1958.

Geoffrey died on 10th December 1968 and was buried in the Churchyard of St. Mary’s Church, West Chiltington, Sussex, UK.   

In 2013 a block of flats was built by Tower Hamlets Community Housing and named in memory of Geoffrey Woolley VC, OBE, MC, (1892-1968) who was born in Bethnal Green.

A collection of verse written by Geoffrey H. Wooley, VC was published under the title “The Epic of the Mountains (verse)” by Blackwell, Oxford in 1929.

I believe Geoffrey also had a poem published in “The Times” newspaper.

Sources:  Wikipedia, Find my Past, FreeBMD, 

https://riflesmuseum.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Rifles_Chronology_1685-2012_Edn2.pdf

https://victoriacrossonline.co.uk/geoffrey-harold-woolley-vc-obe-mc/

Geo Milev (1895 – 1925) Bulgarian soldier, poet, writer and artist who lost his right eye in WW1

 With thanks to John Daniel for finding this poet for us 

Georgi Milev Kasabov was born on 15th January 1895 in Radnevo, Bulgaria - his parents were teachers and owners of a book store.

In 1912, Geo studied philosophy at Sofia University, before continuing his education at Leipzig University in Germany, where he took up poetry inspired by German expressionism. His first selection of poems were published in a Bulgarian magazine in December 1913.

When the First World War began in July 1914, Bulgaria stayed neutral and Geo moved to London, UK to develop his poetry and improve his English. Geo returned to Leipzig on 18th October 1914, but was detained in Hamburg on suspicion of being a British spy. He was released after 11 days due to lack of evidence.

In August 1915, Geo returned to Bulgaria, who entered the First World War with the Central Powers on 14th October 1915.  Geo's father was soon mobilized, forcing Geo to take over the family's book store, where he continued to publish his own poetry.

In March 1916 Geo was mobilized into the Bulgarian 34th Trojan Regiment. Following training at an officer school, he was sent to the frontlines of the Macedonian Front at Lake Doiran, opposing British forces. Due to his extensive language skills, he was used as an interpreter, translator and counter-intelligence officer, translating intercepted British and French radio messages.

On 29th April 1917, during the Second Battle of Doiran, Geo's position was subjected to heavy British artillery fire. He was severely wounded in the head, losing his right eye.

In February 1918, Geo went to Berlin to have his eye socket operated on, where he underwent 15 operations and received an artificial glass eye. Geo immersed himself in the cultural and literary life of Berlin, joining a circle of expressionist poets. Geo was in Berlin when the war ended in November 1918.

Geo Milev Self Portrait 1918

Geo returned to Bulgaria in 1919. In Sofia, he founded a magazine, Vezni, (Tr Scales), in which he published symbolist and expressionist Bulgarian poets and translations of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Edgar Allan Poe and Oscar Wilde. Vezni was not to last. It ceased publication in 1922, but soon afterwards Geo began working on a new project - the literary magazine Plamak, or Flame.

Bulgaria was in the midst of a national catastrophe. A defeated nation in the Great War, it had lost some of its population and territory. The economy struggled and there were hundreds of thousands of destitute refugees. The government of the populist Agrarian Party put considerable effort into reconstruction, but its methods were often brutal, dictatorial, and anti-intellectual. Nationalism was riding high, and so were Communism and mysticism.

In June 1923, a bloody military coup overthrew the Agrarian Party. In September of that year, Agrarians and Communists staged a mutiny, which was later called the September 1923 Uprising and was instigated by the USSR, its first attempt to export revolution to Europe. The Bulgarian government repressed the mutiny with a brutality that spawned a clandestine and violent Communist opposition. In the years that followed, Bulgaria was on the verge of a civil war. Political assassinations followed one after another, inciting bloody repercussions from the government. Tensions peaked in 1925. On 16th April, Communist terrorists blew up the St Nedelya Church in Sofia while it was packed with people. 134 people lost their lives in the blast, and hundreds were wounded. The police reciprocated with mass arrests of leftists.  Geo was one of those.

A year previously, he had published his best known poem, Septemvri, or September. Inspired by the revolt of 1923, it masterfully uses rhythm and expressive imagery to recreate the hopes of the rebels and the tragedy of their failure.

The government was not sympathetic. After the poem was published in Plamak, the whole print run of the magazine was confiscated. In early 1925, Geo Milev was charged with violating the Law for the Defence of the State. He was arrested, but then released on bail.

In the wake of the St Nedelya terror attack things deteriorated. On 14 May, Geo Milev appeared in court and defended himself on the basis of freedom of artistic expression. He was found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison and a heavy fine. He appealed.

In the early morning of 15th May 1925, a police agent appeared at Milev's home. The poet was needed in the police station for a "talk," he said. Geo Milev complied. He was never seen again.

On 24th January 1954, a mass grave was discovered on the outskirts of Sofia. One of the skulls still had a glass eye in its right socket. Apparently, these were the remains of Geo Milev. An examination of the bones showed that the poet was strangled, probably with a wire.

By that time, Geo Milev was already one of Communism's stars. The regime might not have been much into avantgarde poetry but Milev's leftwing ideas and the manner of his death clearly made him fit for the position of a martyr in the Communist pantheon.

You can find some of Geo Milev's poems on the following websites:

https://thehighwindowpress.com/2021/03/28/geo-milev-the-icons-are-sleeping-translated-by-tom-phillips/

https://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2023/04/milev-prose-poems/

https://allpoetry.com/Geo-Milev

https://www.poemhunter.com/geo-milev/

https://www.vagabond.bg/travel/high-beam/item/4443-who-was-geo-milev

Leonard Flemming (1889 - 1946) - Australian-born poet and WW1 soldier

 With thanks to John Daniel whose discovery of a poem written by Leonard Flemming led to my further research.  If anyone has any definite information please get in touch. 

Leonard Denman Flemming was born in Adelaide, South Australia on 29th April 1880.   According to one website I consulted, Leonard went to live in South Africa in around 1895.   It seems as though he may have fought with the Queenstown Mounted Infantry during the Boer War.

 The Queenstown Mounted Infantry was formed on the 6th March 1901 and was disbanded on 31st June 1902.  The Regiment was first commanded by Captain J Hoskins, then by Captain W J Elson.   It had no connection with the Queenstown Rifle Volunteers.

It seems that Leonard served during the Frist World War in the British Army:

“Leonard Denman Flemming was gazetted a 2nd Lieutenant in the Regiment on 7th August 1914.   He was initiated into the Lodge on 31st March 1915, by which date he had been promoted Lieutenant."

Leonard is in the group photograph shown above on the day of his initiation with his fellow Lodge members Lt Col Bradney, Captains Sampson, Scott and Hunter, Lt Flemming and 2nd Lt Keeson. Leonard is 3rd from the right on the front/middle row and is listed in the caption as Lieut LD Flemming (Transport Officer).

The 9th (County of London) Battalion, London Regiment (Queen Victoria's Rifles) was a Territorial Army infantry battalion of the British Army. The London Regiment was formed in 1908 in order to regiment the various Volunteer Force battalions in the newly formed County of London, and the Queen Victoria's Rifles were one of twenty six units brought together in that manner.

The British 1921 Census records Leonard living at 11, Canfield Gardens, Hampstead, London, UK.  He is listed as the stepson of one George A. Autsam, a journalist and composer born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, whose wife was Minna Autsam.   Leonard is recorded as being a farmer.    

Another website mentions that Leonard owned a farm in the Orange Free State, South Africa.

“Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express”,  09 November 1929

In London in 1929 Leonard apparently married Wilma L K Berkeley, an Australian soprano.  

Leonard died in South Africa in 1946.

"The Silent Volunteers" a poem written by Lieutenant Leonard Flemming:

NO less, real heroes than the men who died,

Are you who helped the frenzied ranks to win;

Galloping heroes - silently - side by side,

Models of discipline.

You, too, had pals from whom you had to part,

Pals rather young to fight, or else too old -

And though the parting hurt your honest heart,

You kept your grief untold.

Thus in the parting have you proved your worth,

As you have proved it time and time again;

You, the most human animal on earth -

Nobler perhaps than men.

Nobler, perhaps, because in all you did,

In all you suffered, you could not know why;

Only, you guessed - and did as you were bid -

Just galloped on - to die.

Unflinchingly, you faced the screaming shell,

And charged and charged, until the ground was gained,

Then falling, mangled, and suffered simple hell,

And never once complained.

There, where your life blood spilled around you fast,

Lying unheeded by the surging van,

You closed your great big patient eyes at last.

And died - a gentleman.

Sources:  Information supplied by John Daniel, Find my past and

Catherine Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press,New York, 1978) p. 395

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/143667959

https://anglo437.rssing.com/chan-59775919/all_p140.html

https://www.angloboerwar.com/unit-information/south-african-units/3313-queenstown-mounted-infantry

https://www.bowlerhat.com.au/saforce/

http://victoriarifles.com/about-victoria-rifles/distinguished-brethren/distinguished-brethren-f-h/leonard-denman-fleming

https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A111711

https://www.chapter1.co.za/products/author/Flemming,Leonard/~/product_price_desc

https://lesserknownartists.blogspot.com/2023/05/fortunino-matania-1881-1963-italian.html

“Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express”,  09 November 1929

Photos:  Officers of the 3/9th Battalion Queen Victoria Rifles 1915 and Leonard and Wilma on their wedding day in 1929. 

George S. Patton, DSC (1885 - 1945) – American Soldier

George Smith Patton Junior was born on 11th November 1885.  He was educated at the Virginia Military Institute and the United States Military Academy at West Point. George studied fencing and designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber, more commonly known as the "Patton Saber". He competed in the modern pentathlon in the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden. 

George joined the Army and took par in the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916, the United States' first military action using motor vehicles. 

NOTE:

The Pancho Villa Expedition—now known officially in the United States as the Mexican Expedition, but originally referred to as the "Punitive Expedition, U.S. Army" — was a military operation conducted by the United States Army against the paramilitary forces of Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa from 14th March 1916 to 7th February 1917, during the Mexican Revolution of 1910–1920.

The expedition was launched in retaliation for Villa's attack on the town of Columbus, New Mexico, and was the most remembered event of the Mexican Border War. The declared objective of the expedition by the Wilson administration was the capture of Villa.  Despite locating and defeating the main body of Villa's command who were responsible for the Columbus raid, U.S. forces were unable to achieve Wilson's stated main objective of preventing Villa's escape.

Patton at Bourg in France in 1918
with a Renault FT light tank

First World War 

After the Villa Expedition, George was posted to Front Royal, Virginia, to oversee horse procurement for the army, but Pershing intervened on his behalf and when the United States entered the First World war in April 1917, and Pershing was named commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Western Front, George requested to join his staff. 

George was promoted to the rank of Captain on 15th May 1917 and left for Europe, among the 180 men of Pershing's advance party which departed on 28th May and arrived in Liverpool, UK, on 8th June. As Pershing's personal aide, George oversaw the training of American troops in Paris until September, then moved to Chaumont and was assigned as a post adjutant, commanding the headquarters company overseeing the base. 

While in hospital recovering from jaundice, George met Colonel Fox Conner, who encouraged him to work with tanks instead of infantry.

George fought in WW1 as part of the new United States Tank Corps of the American Expeditionary Forces. He commanded the U.S. tank school in France, then led tanks into combat and was wounded towards the end of the war.

George was wounded by machine-gun fire in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.

He was also a poet.  Here is one of his poems:

"Through a Glass, Darkly"

Through the travail of the ages,

Midst the pomp and toil of war,

I have fought and strove and perished

Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people

In all panoplies of time

Have I seen the luring vision

Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,

I have warred for pastures new,

I have listened to the whispers

When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle

In each changeless changing shape

From the high souled voice of conscience

To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,

Played the hero and the knave;

Fought for belly, shame, or country,

And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles

For the visions are not clear,

Yet, I see the twisted faces

And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior

In His sacred helpless side.

Yet, I’ve called His name in blessing

When in after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows

Where we hairy heathens warred,

I can taste in thought the lifeblood;

We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision

I can sense the coppery sweat,

Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery

When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness

Where the Persian darts bounced clear,

See their chariots wheel in panic

From the Hoplite’s leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,

Reaching for the walls of Tyre.

Hear the crash of tons of granite,

Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,

Can I see the Legion close,

As our third rank moved in forward

And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish

Of that blistering treeless plain

When the Parthian showered death bolts,

And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering

Of those arrows in my neck.

Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage

As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks

When my Flemish plate gave way

And the lance ripped through my entrails

As on Crecy’s field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness

Of the glittering tropic sea

I can see the bubbles rising

Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest

I have heard the bulwarks go

When the crashing, point blank round shot

Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass

On the red and slippery deck

With all Hell aflame within me

And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General

Have I galloped with Murat

When we laughed at death and numbers

Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

Till at last our star faded,

And we shouted to our doom

Where the sunken road of Ohein

Closed us in its quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a’clatter

Have I waddled on the foe

Belching death at twenty paces,

By the star shell’s ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly

The age long strife I see

Where I fought in many guises,

Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness

What the objects were I wrought,

But as God rules o’er our bickerings

It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,

Shall I battle as of yore,

Dying to be born a fighter,

But to die again, once more.

Prioli, Carmine A. (1991). “The Poems of General George S. Patton, Jr.”: Lines of Fire. New York: Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0889461628.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/11/11/legendary-general-patton-hated-peace-so-much-he-wrote-poem-about-it.html

George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) became a General in the United States Army and commanded the Seventh Army in the Mediterranean Theatre of  The Second World War and commanded the Third Army in France and Germany after the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.