Blog 1 - A different way to examine the Great War

Click ‘World war 1’ into Google News and 76,500 results came up. ‘First World War’ and 48,600. ‘The Great War’ and it’s 36,700. That was as of March 14, 2011, and the criteria was only for the last 24 hours. So in a single day the combined total of times that the war in Europe between 1914-18 is mentioned on the Internet in a single day is 161,200. The Second World War, which was more international and killed millions more people, was only mentioned 97,600 times.

The enduring presence which conversation about the Great War occupies in contemporary debates and discussions, whether in the public or private sphere, suggests it has risen above the mere relevance of being an historical event. It has become more and ingrained in our national psyche – but why and how? In my opening blog I want to explore the way I believe is still the most powerful way of examining the Great War: through family history and stories.

Family stories:

Perhaps the most powerful way an historical event can be relayed is through the involvement of family members. Depending on one’s relationship with one’s family of course, family stories can personalize history in ways nothing else can, and make an event seem much more real. For this blog I started asking about my own family history and the emotion with which my grandparents spoke of relations who had died or been affected by the war was incredibly powerful. It brought home the fact that though the 100^th Anniversary of the outbreak of war is fast approaching, members of their generation had fathers, uncles, perhaps brothers, who fought in the war and who relayed first-hand their experiences.

I discovered that on my mother’s side alone I had two great great uncles who died (which isn’t so distant a relation if one thinks about it) and then three members of my father’s family perished too, all of whom share my surname. In a bid to discover more I researched them on the Internet, and found photographs and obituaries of nearly all of them.  In fact I was so moved by these discoveries, especially the photographs for some reason, that I felt in some way obliged to put them in this blog, if only to indulge myself, and perhaps in the hope that it gives them a proper place in posterity, so that they cannot be forgotten. 

This is my grandfather's uncle: Lieutenant Norman Birtwistle who was awarded the Military Cross but killed in 1918:

 This is his obituary in the Blackburn Weekly:

 Lieutenant Norman Birtwistle, M.C., 19th Hussars, fifth son of Mr. Albert Birtwistle, J.P., and Mrs. Birtwistle, Springfield, Preston New Road, was killed in action in France on the 8th inst, during a cavalry charge on a German battery. Twenty-one years of age, Lieut. Birtwistle was educated at Cheltenham, and was entering upon a military career at Sandhurst when, over three years ago, he received a commission in the Hussars. About two years ago he was drafted to the Western front. In March last, during the great enemy offensive, he was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry, and shortly afterwards was wounded. He returned to England, and on recovery was sent again to France. This week he was reported missing, but a later notification contained the sad news of his death. Four brothers of the deceased officer are with His Majesty’s Forces. Two are with the R.F.A., one is serving at Salonica with the R.H.A., and the other is in the South Wales Borderers. Reported by: Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 19th October, 1918.

A second obituary describes him as a person, and makes for such sad reading:

KILLED IN ACTION
LIEUT. NORMAN BIRTWISTLE


Norman Birtwistle

Mr. and Mrs. Albert Birtwistle, of Springfield House, Blackburn, have received the news that their fifth son, Lieutenant Norman Birtwistle, M.C. (Hussars), who had previously been reported missing, was killed in action on the 6th inst. The sad news is conveyed in a letter of condolence from Lieutenant Birtwistle’s captain, who states that the gallant young officer met his death during an assault on an enemy battery which had been giving a good deal of trouble. Many friends in Blackburn will sympathise with the bereaved parents, who have other four sons in the service. Twenty-one years of age, Lieutenant Birtwistle was educated at Cheltenham College, and then went to Sandhurst Military College, passing thence into the Army where he was extremely well liked by fellow officers and the men of his squadron. He was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery in action last March when he was shot in his leg, and after being in hospital in France returned home on short convalescence leave. In peace days hunting was his favourite pastime and he was a known follower of the Pendle Forest Harriers and the Ribblesdale Buckhounds.

What I found particularly moving was a photograph I discovered of Norman and my great-grandfather (whom I never met) together at my great-grandfather’s wedding.

Norman Birtwistle (far left) at the wedding of my

 Norman is in his army uniform to the left, whereas my great-grandfather is not. I learnt from my grandfather that his father was declared unfit for service because his legs had been badly damaged while at school, so he ran his family's cotton mills in Lancashire which contributed to the war effort. Apparently one day he had received a white feather for cowardice whilst walking down a street in Blackburn. I can only imagine how upset which he must have felt, which I could see whilst discussing this with my grandfather who still felt incredibly upset and believed that this event was in some way a stain on our family history. 

My other great great uncle who was killed, my grandmother’s uncle, Lieutenant the Hon. Reginald Barnewall. I didn’t find as much information on the Internet as Norman Birtwistle, but on a Great War website I found some basics and a photo: 

Reginald Nicholas Francis Barnewall 1897 - 1918 

B: September 24, 1897        

Regiment/Rank: Captain 5th Bn., Leinster Regiment

Died: March 24, 1918 (Aged 20) Of wounds received in action, Somme, France     

Burial: Unknown Bronfay Farm Military Cemetery Bray-Sur-Somme, Somme, Franche

On my father’s side I found three men who died with the surname Pawle. They were all cousins, first and second I believe, of my great grandfather. 

This man is Captain Malcolm Gerald PAWLE who died 27th June 1917, aged 44. 

Malcolm Pawle

His obituary reads that “He had been a member of the Stock Exchange since 1900, and on the outbreak of war he enlisted in the University and Public Schools Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. He was much older than many of his fellow recruits but completed the training and was commissioned in a Norfolk Battalion. He was next sent with an Essex battalion to Mudros and Gallipoli and was afterwards stationed at Ismailia on the Suez Canal. 
'Never of very great physical strength', he suffered in the climate and was invalided home due to illness. On recovery he returned to duty in England, but soon volunteered for foreign service again and was sent to India as a Captain in a 2nd Garrison Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment. The excessive heat at Hydrabad, Scinde where he was stationed overpowered him and he died in hospital at Lahore of septic pneumonia on the 27th of June 1917.”

 

Then there was Captain Bertram Pawle of the 8^th Battalion, Rifle Brigade who died on Friday 30 July 1915. Age 23. He was killed in Action at Hooge and is buried at Ypres but I have found little information or any photograph of him. According to my father, Bertram won a Military Cross.

Finally I discovered a Captain Derek Wetherall Pawle of the 2nd Battalion The Border Regiment, who died age 28 on April 29th, 1915 during the Fight at Gurin, the Cameroon Campaign. A graduate of Sandhurst, I found a wonderful photograph of him in his finery:

Derek Pawle

There seems to be rather a lot about him so here is a small extract from the Harrow School Remembrance book: "He died when in command of a small force at Fort Gurin, N. Nigeria. He was buried in the Fort, which he gallantly defended against a greatly superior force of the enemy. 

The Political Officer of the District wrote to his father: —

" Your son Derek and I were attacked in the little fort at dawn. We had a British N.C.O. and some 40 native soldiers and police. The enemy came on, some 300 soldiers, 16 Europeans and 4 maxims. We had a good idea they were coming, and your son, who was O.C. Troops,

could have withdrawn his little force and retreated. No thought of the kind suggested itself to him. He opened fire on the enemy at once, and we had a heavy action from 5 a.m. till noon — the enemy using three of his guns and making repeated attempts to get his infantry up to the

assault. Soon after midday he stopped firing and drew off altogether at 4.30 p.m. Your son was shot through the head very soon after the start of the action. He dropped at once and did not suffer at all. When he was killed, he was in the act of getting the men to fire at the right range, going from loophole to loophole continually in the bravest possible manner." 

CONCLUSION

Whilst this blog is certainly not going to become some sort of family memorial, I found the process of not only talking about my family’s history during the First World War, but also then subsequently researching them on the Internet, incredibly enlightening. The millions of records, the endless chatrooms where people discuss their family stories, the sadness in my grandparents’ eyes when they talked about the permanent hole in their family in post-war Britain after the millions of dead; all these aspects show just how present the Great War is in our lives today, and that often the most moving and effective way to revisit it is through one’s own family experiences. Thus whilst understandably my family’s experiences during the First World War will certainly be of no great interest to anyone else, I have discovered that it is of great interest to me, and so when I read about the War or study it in class, I always have these stories at the back of my mind. It is often quite easy to read historical events as entities in themselves, and forget about the human reactions to them. Reading about soldiers in the trenches and the ghastly conditions sounds awful, but then reading about Derek Pawle who suffered through the African heat as well, makes it that much more painful. When my second cousin Sam Alexander recently returned from Afghanistan and received a Military Cross, the local newspaper dug up the story of our shared relative Norman Birtwistle who achieved the same medal.

There is only one village in the whole of England, which doesn’t have a war memorial. The ironically named Lower Slaughter is alone in the country in not having a physical reminder in the centre of village life of the human losses during the First World War. 52 villages and hamlets in England and Wales are known as the “Blessed Villages” because they were alone in having all their soldiers return home from the First World War.

People around the world are clearly still obsessed with the Great War, and we are reminded of its occurrence regularly. As I’ve said, often historical events can seem abstract or get rather fetishized, especially when the numbers of dead and wounded are so horrific. I have found that by examining one’s own family history, looking back and reading or hearing from family members about the individual stories that occurred, can give a very human insight into an otherwise quite distant or incomprehensible enormous historical event.

A plaque commemorating the Pawle cousins who died in the Great War
at St Mary Magdalen Church, Reigate

23/04/2011 Update: 

As if to prove my point about the power of using one's own family history to explore historical events, including the Great War, the historian Dan Snow has written a piece in the Daily Mail about his own journey of discovery through his great-grandfather's story: 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1379924/Dan-Snows-great-grandfather-General-Sir-Thomas-DOyly-war-victim.html

23/04/2011 Update: 

I have learnt that the man in uniform at my great-grandfather's wedding is in fact great-uncle Bazil, not great-uncle Norman

30/05/2011 Update:

My second cousin Sam Alexander was killed in Afghanistan this Friday 27th May. Serving with the Royal Marines, he received the Military Cross in 2009 - the same medal awarded to our joint great great-uncle Norman Birtwistle in 1917. RIP Sam

Telegraph: reports on Marine Sam Alexander MC