Loading more
War Memoirs by George C. Miller
George C. Miller
George Calvert Miller was born on the 16 May 1897, one of three sons to John and Jessie Frances Miller and educated at Blackburn Grammar School. Together with W. A. Abram he was Blackburn’s best known local historian writing books and pamphlets about Blackburn and district. Perhaps his most widely known book, and certainly his best work was “Blackburn The Evolution of a Cotton Town” (1951). Among other books he wrote were “Hoghton Tower" (1948);
“Bygone Blackburn” 1950; “The Theatre Royal, Blackburn” (1951); “Blackburn Worthies of Yesterday” 1959;
“Old Inns & Coaching Houses of Blackburn” (1970). For many years he also contributed historical articles and dialect stories to "The Blackburn Times" and other Lancashire Newspapers.
The Memoirs below were printed in "The Blackburn Times" between 18 December 1963 and 19 June 1964.
George Miller died on the 24 August 1981 aged 84.
In these Memoirs mention is made of the “Battery Diary”, this is “A Battery, 330th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery” diary a transcript of which can be found here. War diary of ‘A’ Battery, 330th, Brigade R.F.A 1917-18
WAR MEMOIRS
A Historian Remembers
by
George C. Miller
With the outbreak of hostilities, it was a case of goodbye to all that. The sense of security, of stability and steady progress, vanished under the stresses and strains of what Churchill described as “the red-hot harrows of war” and things were never the same again. They never will be.
Yet for many years before the catastrophe came, there were signs and portents of the inevitable. For more than a decade the youth of Great Britain had been taught to regard all Germans with a suspicious and jaundiced eye as potential enemies.
At that time this country still held the lead in world trade, with Germany pressing closely on our heels and America lying third.
Yet I think the basic reason for our distrust was not so much economic as political; we resented the Teuton challenge to our naval supremacy as a threat to our very existence (as indeed it was).
So as the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet expanded, the popular outcry was for still more dreadnoughts and battle-cruisers. Some dangerous demagogue invented the slogan: “We want eight and we won’t wait,” and at every political meeting the sinister chant rose like an incantation.
Then there were the everlasting spy scares centring upon itinerant bands of German musicians, ostensibly touring the country for cultural purposes. (The Bosche was very insistent on his “Kultur,”) but universally regarded as hotbeds of espionage and treated accordingly.
Yet when war did eventually come, it was quite out of the blue and found us unprepared. After all, who would have suspected that the murder of an Austrian Grand Duke in some obscure Serbian backwater known as Sarajevo (a town nobody had ever heard of), would have led to a world-wide conflagration. That the hurling of an assassin’s bomb meant the end to an era of prosperity that had begun with the accession of good Queen Victoria?
Smashed windows
I remember walking down King Street and Darwen Street and seeing with something of horror the smashed shop-windows of a few alien pork-butchers who only a few days before had been regarded as honest and substantial citizens.
Somehow, it seemed incredible that this could be the work of my own fellow-townsmen; it wasn’t quite ‘cricket’. Yet it proved to be only the first of many signs and portents of the new era of war-fever into which we had entered.
Soon there was an epidemic of recruiting posters, infesting the hoardings like a disease, with huge patriotic slogans aimed particularly at the rising generation.
Some of these I remember well. One depicted a wounded and weary member of the original expeditionary force in a shattered emplacement. (This was before the period of trench warfare), looking back vainly for reinforcements and asking desperately: “Will they never come?”
God knows we were willing enough. I myself enlisted at the age of 18 and I could name several youngsters who celebrated their 19th birthday in the firing line.
Probably the poster that influenced us most was that famous one of Lord Kitchener with its pointing finger and steely blue eye above the caption, “Your King and Country need you.”
Another was a vivid illustration of a field gun battery cantering into action with its six-horse teams at full stretch. “Be with the guns, boys, this is an artillery war,” ran the slogan beneath. In point of fact, it was that spirited drawing that really decided my army career by turning my thoughts towards the Royal Field Artillery.
But meanwhile parental consent had to be obtained, and this involved some discreet manoeuvring. At the age of 17 active service with a fighting regiment was out of the question. Ultimately, however, it was decided that I might join some non-combatant corps, such as the R.A.M.C. as an orderly or the R.N. Medical Service as a sick-berth attendant.
I remember walking down King Street and Darwen Street and seeing with something of horror the smashed shop-windows of a few alien pork-butchers who only a few days before had been regarded as honest and substantial citizens.
Somehow, it seemed incredible that this could be the work of my own fellow-townsmen; it wasn’t quite ‘cricket’. Yet it proved to be only the first of many signs and portents of the new era of war-fever into which we had entered.
Soon there was an epidemic of recruiting posters, infesting the hoardings like a disease, with huge patriotic slogans aimed particularly at the rising generation.
Some of these I remember well. One depicted a wounded and weary member of the original expeditionary force in a shattered emplacement. (This was before the period of trench warfare), looking back vainly for reinforcements and asking desperately: “Will they never come?”
God knows we were willing enough. I myself enlisted at the age of 18 and I could name several youngsters who celebrated their 19th birthday in the firing line.
Probably the poster that influenced us most was that famous one of Lord Kitchener with its pointing finger and steely blue eye above the caption, “Your King and Country need you.”
Another was a vivid illustration of a field gun battery cantering into action with its six-horse teams at full stretch. “Be with the guns, boys, this is an artillery war,” ran the slogan beneath. In point of fact, it was that spirited drawing that really decided my army career by turning my thoughts towards the Royal Field Artillery.
But meanwhile parental consent had to be obtained, and this involved some discreet manoeuvring. At the age of 17 active service with a fighting regiment was out of the question. Ultimately, however, it was decided that I might join some non-combatant corps, such as the R.A.M.C. as an orderly or the R.N. Medical Service as a sick-berth attendant.
One stipulation
But my parents made one stipulation. I must first obtain a proficiency certificate in first-aid from a series of practical lessons and demonstrations then in session in the old parish schoolroom, with qualified instructors under the auspices of St John’s Ambulance Brigade.
I realise now that this was, on their part, a pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable, but at the time it seemed merely a futile and irritating waste of time.
And so indeed it proved to be. Having duly taken my course and passed out as proficient, I took a medical examination, filled in my application forms for both land and sea services whichever choose to avail itself of my invaluable assistance first and then leaned back waiting for something to happen.
Apparently neither branch of His Majesty’s land and sea forces knew what they were missing, for although I waited and waited, no orders to join my unit were forthcoming.
So one day, just after my 18th birthday, acting on sudden impulse, I flung down my pen, marched down to the Territorial Artillery Barracks in King Street and enlisted as a gunner for the duration.
I still remember the army doctor’s quizzical, uplifted eye-brows when he asked me my age and I replied, “Nineteen, sir,”
Signed papers
“Well, well,” he replied, “Yesterday, or today?”
Nevertheless, he signed my papers without further comment and I duly took the oath of loyalty. It was a relief, after standing about stark-naked in a draughty anteroom for over half and hour, to be herded down into the storeroom with half a dozen fellow recruits.
Here the presiding genii were two typical ‘old sweats,’ real hard-boiled, yet in a sinister sense, amusing characters, who regarded all rookies as fair game. They were both veterans of pre-Boer War days: one, a bombardier gun-layer had lost an arm, and had his empty sleeve ostentatiously across his breast: his subordinate had been more fortunate… he had only lost an eye.
Ostensibly, their job was to provide us with our uniforms and equipment and this they did, but after their own fashion and with many a joke at our expense.
“Ay, son,” quoth the Bombardier, as he saw my eyes straying apprehensively in the direction of his empty sleeve, “The tak’ a good look at that. Afore tha’s finished, tha’ll think aw’m dommed lucky.” How right he was!
The final indignity these jokers perpetrated was to turn us out improperly dressed, wearing slack, spurs, and bandoliers, an unthinkable combination for field artillerymen. Fortunately, military police were unknown in Blackburn at that early stage of the war and we were allowed to proceed on our way unmolested.
We receive our marching orders
Although the territorial forces had been primarily intended for home service, immediately on the outbreak of war the 4th Blackburn Battery, like the remaining batteries of the Brigade, volunteered for active service almost to a man.
At that time the Brigade’s mobilisation strength comprised 24 officers and upwards of 600 N.C.O’s and men, with 500 horses.
It formed part of the 42nd Division, which by 9th September, 1914, had entrained for Southampton and was soon in Egypt defending the Suez Canal.
It had the honour of being the first Territorial Division to serve overseas, a distinction of which it was very proud.
A second-line division, the 66th, was formed in August, 1915, and after intensive training was retained as the spearhead of home defence in the event of a German invasion.
After that date, all the drafts intended for reinforcements came from the third-line units and it was to this third-line that I, along with the remaining recruits, was posted.
Chaotic
The first appeal of Lord Kitchener for 500,000 men had met with such a prompt response that all the available accommodation was overtaxed and the authorities found themselves unable to cope with the ever-increasing numbers.
Fortunately Blackburn was not classed as a garrison town but I recall that in Preston the position at one time became chaotic.
Men were actually reduced to sleeping under hedges and in front gardens, being free to enter and leave barracks and eat where they could. Schools, clubs and institutions opened their doors, while the Tramway Power Station houses no fewer than 500 recruits nightly.
However, all this was now over and while we remained in our native town we were allowed to billet in our own homes. Every morning we paraded at the barracks at 9 a.m. and, having neither guns nor horses at our disposal, were promptly sent out on a route march.
For the next week, this, interspersed with an occasional recruiting parade, was the regular routine. Then, one morning we received our marching orders: we were to join the third line at Southport.