Alick Ellis, photo courtesy of Ellis family archive |
One-hundred years after the Great War began, the lost continue to be found. In the midst of centenary commemorations, unidentified soldiers’ remains have been identified and reinterred, and soldiers’ medals, pocket-watches, and other personal effects have been located and returned to their families.
One of the most remarkable stories is that of Private Alick
Ellis -- his war-time notebook was found in the attic of a home in Hertfordshire
in 2017. Ellis tended the wounded on the
Western Front, and he titled his poetry journal Field Dressings by
Stretcher Bearer. After having
been forgotten for nearly one-hundred years, Ellis’s notebook was anonymously
donated to those curating the Herts at War exhibition, and historian Dan Hill
was able to research and identify Alick Ellis’s descendants, returning the journal
to them. Just days before the centenary of the Armistice, the family published Ellis’s
poems with a brief biographical introduction. Here is his poem “Revenge,” a
humorous comment on one of the most hated realities of daily life at the
front.
Revenge
When this bloomin’ war is over & I reach my native land,
I shall play the role of villain with a great revenge in
hand,
I may get hung for murder but just take my word I’ll risk
it,
For I’m going to find the blinkin’ man who made the Army
biscuit.
—Alick
Ellis
It has long been known that “An army marches on its stomach.”*
One of the most common foods issued to
the British troops was the Huntley &
Palmers Army No 4, a thick, four-inch-square slab of baked wheat flour,
salt, and water. As the Imperial War
Museum notes, the biscuit was so dense and hard that it
Army Biscuit © IWM (EPH 2012) |
challenged the dental health of
British Army personnel…. A typical way of rendering the product more edible was
to grind or crumble the biscuit and add water to make a paste or 'duff' which
could be added to mixed vegetables or stew. The sustaining qualities of the
First World War period British Army biscuit were notably endorsed by the
soldier-poet Ivor Gurney, while training with the 2/5th Gloucesters in early
1915; in a letter to his friend Will Harvey he noted: ‘The Army biscuits suit
me. Of course they are too hard for my poor teeth, but hot tea and patience
helps one past all.’ ('Ivor Gurney: War Letters', edited by R K R Thornton,
Carcanet New Press, 1983, p.26).**
A member of the Fifth Canadian Battalion, whose mascot was a
goat, memorialized the biscuit in another poem, “Our Mascot’s Lament”:
Sketch for Mascot's Lament |
I’ve chewed a deck of cards, I’ve dined off nails,
If this was a sardine tin I might risk it;
But this is where my goatish courage fails,
I
simply can’t digest this H.T. Biscuit.***
And a satirical advertisement in the Fifth Canadian
Battalion’s Christmas 1916 issue promised,
All They Want Is Soaking
Soak Them & the Pleasure’s Thine.
With every dozen biscuits we give away a coupon—
With every 100 coupons
We Give A Set Of Teeth.
As Dr. Rachel Duffett, author of Stomach for Fighting explains,
The British working classes had
grown up on a diet dominated by bread, so while a hard-baked carbohydrate
substitute may have scored highly in logistical terms it was regarded by most
men as an abomination…. Scores of cartoonists and writers have made jokes about
biscuit’s similarity to kindling, but it was no laughing matter. Many of the
working and lower-middle-class soldiers had very poor teeth – the result of too
much sugar and too little dentistry.****
Biscuit frame photo of George Mansfield Huntley & Palmer Archive, Reading Museum |
Soldiers who did not wish to eat the Army-issued biscuits
found new and creative uses for the rations. In 2015, a British museum
exhibition “The First World War in Biscuits” displayed a “unique collection of
100 year-old ration biscuits, personally modified by soldiersӠ who had repurposed the
hard tack as stationery, picture frames, and small art canvases.
And in
2014, two WWI biscuits from the Gallipoli campaign, labeled “Biscuits used by
troops in Suvla Bay,” were sold at auction in 2014. Duffett comments, “The reason they [the biscuits] last
so long is they’re pretty much inedible…. They’re rock hard…. They are just
dreadful. They’re like the worst
children’s rusk [teething biscuit] ever.”††
Private Ellis maintained his sense of humor during the war;
we can hope that the dedicated stretcher bearer also returned from France with his teeth intact.
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* The quotation has been attributed to both Napoleon
Bonaparte and Frederick the Great of Prussia.
** “Army Biscuit, British,” Imperial War Museum, https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30081986
*** “A Mascot’s Lament,” Another
Garland from the Front, Mark IV, Christmas 1918/New Year 1919.
**** Rachel Duffett, “Biscuit for breakfast—trench warfare was hard on soldiers’ teeth,” The Conversation, posted 18 Nov. 2016.
**** Rachel Duffett, “Biscuit for breakfast—trench warfare was hard on soldiers’ teeth,” The Conversation, posted 18 Nov. 2016.
Connie, Thank you for this wonderful series of poetry from WWI. Your work for the past four years has been a tribute to the millions affected by the tragedy of war. My recent visit to the Western Front was deeply enriched by many of the sentiments you shared with us. Gratefully yours, David T.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading and for your kind support, David.
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