Male Narrator – Christopher Fairbank
Female Narrator – Claire Walshe
Poetry Reading 1 – Alex Hall
Poetry Reading 2 – Guy Washington
Brass Band – Regent Brass
Choir – Colliers Wood Chorus
Script of Commemoration Event August 2,
2014 at Morden Park Bandstand.
Script Written by Daniel Sommerford.
Page 1 of 12
(CONT.)
CHRIS
We are here today to remember a War : a war so large as to dwarf all the
other wars before it. So encompassing, this war, that it brought an entire
globe into conflict. A War fought with old alliances, with old grudges.
On a Sunday morning in Sarajevo, at 10:45am, two shots rang out, a
single bullet of which, from a single gun, from a single individual: one
Gavrilo Princip, a Yugoslavian Nationalist, set in motion an
extraordinary chain of events that would ultimately bring the entire
world to its knees.
His victim was none other than the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne,
one Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his assassination on that fateful
Sunday morning precipitated a series of diplomatic manoeuvrings
between these two Empires, of Austria-Hungary and Serbia, which then
led to an ultimatum from the late Archduke’s Kingdom and ultimately a
declaration of war against the Serbians on the 28th July 1914.
This then, invoked international alliances which had been formed over
the previous decades. Within weeks, nation after nation, empire after
empire, declared war upon one another until the conflict had spread
around the world.
Knowing that the Serbian Empire were allies of Russia, and also
knowing that the Russians were mobilising along its own borders,
Germany declared war on the Russians in alliance with Austria-Hungary.
This led to the French, who were allies with Russia. Germany declared
war on France.
Germany then, fearing a war on two fronts decided the quicker victory
could be gained against the French in the west. Germany had a plan;
The Schlieffen Plan, which was not to invade France directly but to
instead invade neutral Belgium, to then pierce down into France and
head directly to Paris. Germany invaded Belgium then, and it was this
that brought one more nation into the War.
Ours. This Nation. This island. For years Great Britain had been enjoying
a time of isolation, of prosperity. This nation had built the strongest naval
fleet in the world. This nations Empire spread throughout the world in
common wealth.
Page 2 of 12
(CONT.)
With Germany’s invasion of Belgium, it invoked our treaty with Belgium.
To protect her if ever she were at war. We declared our War upon
Germany on August 4th 1914. We believed we would win and be home
by Christmas. Home by Christmas was the call, Home by Christmas.”
And as this nation gathered its sons to send them as a British
Expeditionary Force over to Belgium...
CLAIRE
…Then too did this isle begin to work in supporting them. Volunteers; the
number of which had rarely been seen before came forward for the war
effort. This very Borough can lay claim to being the first to step forward.
The very first. The Raynes Park district, raised a volunteer force within two
days numbering 250 individuals. The Raynes Park Veteran Volunteer
Force was formed.
Merton and Morden followed suit in answering the call. The Merton
Volunteers - 300 men under Major F.W.Thorpe, all gearing themselves
towards aiding here from home and enlisting to do battle in Belgium. In
total 1,300 Merton and Morden men passed through these Companies,
the majority of whom went to the frontline. Lord Derby’s scheme itself
raising well over 1,000 men.
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, Secretary of State for War, began his great
surging endeavour for an entire Volunteer army. The number of men
passing through the Merton Council offices near 700. In total his
endeavour was answered in the largest Volunteer Army the world had
ever witnessed.
Training Corps - right off the bat. The famed Volunteer Corps of
Wimbledon, 120 men within days of the declaration. 600 within two
months. One of the most successful Corps in the kingdom, formed by
sportsmen, 7 days a week, weekends up on the common executing drills
for those wishing to do their part.
The Red Cross and St. John’s Ambulance, those stalwarts of virtue.
Hospitals, both established and newly formed through volunteers.
Nelson and Wimbledon, Ravensbury and Mitcham Hall and Morden
Hall Military Hospital. Nurses, those tireless servants working endlessly
in preparation to heal those returning.
Page 3 of 12
(CONT.)
Societies; countless. Agricultural Committee, Home Produce Society,
Andrew Society, Choral Society, Ladies Committee, The Silver Thimbles,
Pig and Livestock Society, Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild, Boys Naval
Brigade, and the Church Army. All living to offer their support. All ready to
work in a mass movement to aid these soldiers.. let us not forget the
very land and the part of the allotments and their tenants, growing the
necessary sustenance for the effort ahead.”
CHRIS
To Belgium, then. On the 9th August, 5 days after Britain declared War,
our British Expeditionary Force began embarking for France. The
German and French armies numbered well over a million men each; the
BEF numbered 80,000 soldiers divided into two corps of entirely
professional soldiers.
Though we numbered far less than our counterparts we were the best
trained and most experienced of the European armies. Our training
emphasised rapid marksmanship.
But let us not forget the inclusion of those who before, during and after
1914 answered the call.
The Armies of India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and
Portugal.
All answered the call to arms.
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On the 22nd of August, the British faced the enemy for the very first
time at the Battle of Mons in southern Belgium.
CLAIRE
The BEF reached Mons on the 21st August, where first contact took
place. Private John Parr becoming the first British Soldier to be killed
in the war. 6:30am on the 22nd August marked the first substantial
action as the 4th Dragoon Guards laid an ambush for a patrol of
German Lancers outside the village of Casteau, to the north-east of
Mons. When the Germans spotted the trap and fell back, a troop of
the dragoons, led by Captain Hornby gave chase, followed by the rest
of his squadron, all with drawn sabres. The retreating Germans led
the British to a larger force of lancers, whom they promptly charged
and Captain Hornby
became the first British soldier to kill an enemy in the Great War,
fighting on horseback with sword against lance. After a further pursuit
of a few miles, the Germans turned and fired upon the British cavalry,
at which point the dragoons dismounted and opened fire. Drummer
Edward Thomas is reputed to have fired the first shot of the war for the
British Army, hitting a German trooper.
CHRIS
On the 22nd of August, The French Fifth Army was already heavily
engaged with the German 2nd and 3rd armies at the Battle of
Charleroi. We dug in along the canal..
80,000 men. The Cavalry Division and two Corps; each with two
infantry divisions.
Our weapons, along with our trusted Lee Enfield rifles, were: 24
Vickers machine guns; 54 18-pounder guns; 18 4.5-inch Howitzers
and a heavy artillery battery of 4 60-pounder guns.
The advancing Germans were commanded by Alexander von Kluck
and had the greatest offensive power of all the German armies. Battle
commenced…
Page 5 of 12
CLAIRE
Dawn of the 23rd August saw German bombardment on the British
lines. At 9:00am the first German infantry assault began, the British
defending their lines exacted heavy casualties. So heavy was our rifle
fire rate that the Germans believed themselves to be facing a battery
of machine-guns.
This initial German attack was repelled with heavy losses.
CHRIS
The second offensive came, this one proving to be more
successful.
By the afternoon however it had become increasingly clear that the
British position was untenable. At 3:00pm the British 3rd Division
received the order to retreat. A similar retreat was ordered to the
British 5th Division. Still the Germans came in force. News then
arrived that the French Fifth Army was retreating, leaving the British
forces dangerously exposed.
Vastly outnumbered, The British fought to inflict losses upon the
enemy at a ratio of 3:1. Losses on both sides numbered at 1,600 for
the British and some 3-5000 for the Germans.
The total losses numbered 516,000 for the Allies of France, Britain and
Belgium and more than 300,000 for the German Army. Belgium had
been lost. The War would go on.
CLAIRE
160,000 Belgian refugees arrived in Britain in the wake of the German
invasion. Some 800 of which found themselves right here, in the heart
of Merton. The local people rose to the occasion and began public
means to attend to their new arrivals. Fund-raising events were held
to aid them, one of which was attended by members of the Belgium
Royal Family no less.
Page 6 of 12
In October 1914, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Vendome,
Princess of Belgium and His Royal Highness the Duke of Vendome,
along with their Royal Highnesses the Princess Marie Louise and the
Princess Genevieve of Orleans, stepped out onto the grass of
Wimbledon Common for what would be known as The Salutation of
the Belgian Flag. An event to honour the resistance of the Belgians
and raise funds for the 800 refugees billeted within the Borough of
Merton.
Song would be the order of the day. 1,500 children along with a full
Salutation Choir under the direction of Dr. Coleman Young gave
choral ode and voice in honour of those who continued to fight for the
defence of home here and the recapture of homeland there.
Here now, we shall have ourselves song in remembrance of the
voices that sung on that October 1914 day by the Colliers Wood
Chorus who will sing “A Salute To The Belgian Flag” By Alfred
Percival Graves. An ode sung just as it was then on that day in 1914.
CHRIS
To France, then. The Great Retreat culminated in the allied forces
finally coming together to form a sound defensive line along the river
Marne on the very outskirts of Paris. A battle the allies could ill afford to
lose for to do so would surely sound the death knell for the capital city
gaining Germany victory over France and relieving Germany of a war
on two fronts.
On approaching Paris, the German First and Second Armies began
their swerve to the south east in an attempt to envelop the retreating
French Armies. Aware of this, the Allies made plans to halt their
continued withdrawal and attack the Germans along the German front
with the French Sixth Army, numbering 150,000 men, and the British
Expeditionary Force, numbering some 70,000.
CLAIRE
The German Army however detected this move and so wheeled
themselves around, opening a 48km gap within their ranks.
The Allies were quick to take hold of this scant advantage in the
German lines and duly poured through with the French 5th Army and
dispatched troops of the BEF. The 8th September saw the French
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launch another offensive, once more attacking the German 2nd,
widening the gap further between the German 1st and 2nd Armies.
By the 9th September the German First and Second Armies feared
they would be encircled and destroyed and there for the first time in
the War came the call for a mass German retreat, and that they did,
some 64km north to the Aisne River, where they dug in with trenches
that would ultimately last for four long years in what would become
the Western Front.
CHRIS
Victory, then. Victory at the Miracle of the Marne.
In repelling the German attempts at taking Paris, the Allies had
withstood a German victory that would have seen them able to pour
the majority of their forces into the conflicts against their Russian foe.
In defeat at the Marne they would now be drawn into a long costly
conflict on two fronts.
It was unequivocally to prove one of the single most important events
of the entire Great War. Though the cost was also great.
Casualties at the Marne totalled half-a-million men killed or wounded.
The French alone 250,000 men, 80,000 of which had lost their lives.
British casualties: 13,000 men, 1,700 of which also losing their lives.
Germany: 250,000 men killed or wounded. The cost of victory.”
CHRIS
Subsequent actions between the Allies and their retreating German
counterparts would result in the Battle of the Aisne, a stalemate
costing the British 13,541 killed or wounded and the birth of Trench
warfare.
CLAIRE
Then into the “Race to the Sea”, an act of both armies attempting to
flank and out-flank one another heading west and then sweeping north
manoeuvring and out-manoeuvring to envelop the northern flanks of
one another into the Battle of La Bassée in October 1914, which saw
the German 6th Army taking Lille and the German 4th Army attacking
Page 8 of 12
the British northern flank. German reinforcements arrived after the
British claimed Givenchy-en-Gohelle, the Germans reclaiming the
initiative until the arrival of the Indian 3rd Lahore Division which
repelled further German attacks. Other Battles north along the line,
Armentières and Messinines, proved equally unclear as to the victor,
both sides jostling for position until early November when both forces
began to pour their numbers into the larger battle taking place north, in
Belgium.
CHRIS
In Flanders.
CHRIS
The Ypres campaign marked the culmination of 1914 and the first year
of the Great War. It witnessed the destruction of the British Regular
Army who, due to its small number, could no longer bear the heavy
losses. The Old Contemptibles, so named and adopted as a badge of
honour, diminished into the ranks of the British 1st and 2nd Armies
along with Lord Kitchener’s Volunteers. It would be a battle of
atrocious casualties.
Defeats at the First Battle of the Aisne and the Miracle of the Marne
convinced the German General Staff to insist on a swift resolution.
Ypres was strategically vital. It was the last geographical object
protecting the Allied ports at Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer. The loss
of these ports would have denied the shortest logistical supply route
to Allied forces on the Western Front and would have had decisive
strategic consequences.
CLAIRE
For the German Army, Ypres was equally vital. The collapse of its front
would allow the Allied armies access to the relatively traversable
terrain of Flanders. Beyond Ypres, the Germans had no significant
defensive barrier to protect the huge rail network axis, vital to German
mobility in Belgium and the entire Northern flank of their front.
Here, then, in Flanders, after surging north, flanking and counterflanking one another, the war in the west would be decided.
Page 9 of 12
CHRIS
In October 1914, the Germans, as a prelude to General
Falkenhayn’s Flanders Offensive, captured Antwerp and forced
its Belgian defenders back to Nieuport, near Ypres.
Under the command of Field Marshall Sir John French, the British
Expeditionary Force retreated to Ypres after Antwerp fell.
The BEF held their line in the centre while the French Army manned
the flanks to the south of the city. At the outset of the battle, the BEF
and French Army both retained the hope of launching an offensive of
their own. They believed a coordinated attack would enable the Allies
to recapture the industrial city of Lille, followed swiftly by Brussels.
The Germans however, had other ideas.
CLAIRE
On the 20th October, Falkenhayn's German Flanders Offensive began
when he ordered an advance to break through the Allied line and
capture the ports of Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne.
He struck the Belgian defences on the Yser River between Dixmude
and Nieuport. The already weakened Belgian Army fought valiantly, but
the German actions forced Belgium's King Albert to open the sluices
that held back the sea.
A week later, the Belgians flooded the land between their positions
and the Germans along the twenty-mile strip between Dixmude and
Nieuport, creating a two-mile wide water barrier, forcing Falkenhayn
to halt.
CHRIS
To the city of Ypres, then.
Falkenhayn had at his disposal the newly assembled Fourth German
Army made up of units from the siege of Antwerp and eight new
divisions manned by underage recruits. Now the Germans could claim
an even greater numerical advantage over the British.
The BEF, however, could count on Indian troops already en route
Page 10 of 12
as reinforcements. Though low in number these Indian units
would soon prove to be the most outstanding fighters.
On the 31st October, German cavalry drove a smaller British cavalry
unit from its position on the Messines Ridge. The German forces
engaged General Douglas Haig’s First Corps further to the north, but
a ferocious British counterattack repelled the Germans.
CLAIRE
On the 11th November, two premier German divisions attempted to
break the British lines just north of the Menin Road in the Nuns'
Woods only four miles from Ypres. Initially successful in creating a
breakthrough, the Germans were slow to exploit their gains. German
indecisiveness enabled the British to assemble a collection of
soldiers: Engineers, Servants, Orderlies, Clerks and Cooks who
stemmed the enemy advance and drove the German force back to
their own lines.
CHRIS
On the 22nd November, Winter finally arrived; settling upon the fields
of battle, forcing a reprieve from the hostilities.
The battles fought had been unrelenting. To say one had been at
“First Ypres” was enough to convey the horrors endured. No further
words were necessary.
The deciding battle of 1914 had ended.
CLAIRE
The gunfire and bloodshed of 1914 had slowed to a cease within
winter’s grip. The realisation on both fronts that a swift war and victory
for either, no longer the reality.
The total number of losses during the 1914 War in the west may
never truly be known. Accounts total the number of dead to at least
half a million killed or died from wounds, in five months. Half a million
sons.
In this Borough, in this Borough of Merton alone we would know
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the loss of 9,000 over the course of the entire war.
CHRIS
The War would drag on, of course, for a further three years, and the
death toll would rise as soldier after soldier and civilian after civilian
gave their lives to a cause. Causes triggered by a single bullet, from
a single gun, from a single man.
So as 1914 ended so must we. We conclude now with words from
the Wimbledon born poet, Robert Graves.
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