A Cimetière Chinoise

Were Chinese people involved in the Great War of 1914 – 18? The answer is yes, they were. After the battle of the Somme in 1916, Britain was so short of manpower that it effectively bribed Chinese people to come and do labouring jobs behind the lines. They were offered far more money than they could earn back home and they came in droves.

Although the Chinese people were never front line soldiers, quite a lot were killed or died of sickness. There are Chinese cemeteries in various places in Northern France.

This one, between Calais and St Omer and is called Ruminghem. It contains the bodies of some 75 Chinese men.

Now I may be more international in attitudes than some people. I like to remember that, in war, there are many losers. One loser is the side that gets defeated, of course, and they tend to be forgotten, but in The Great War both sides believed they had God on their side.

The Chinese worked for what proved to be the winning side in that war, but really there were only losers back then.

It was the year 2000 when we came across this graveyard, quite by chance. Like most people, I had no idea that the Chinese had been involved. I found it singularly moving to find graves of people so far from home brought down by a war which was nothing to do with them.

At least the graves are well kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Number 20546 was, of course, somebody’s son and may have been a husband and father as well. A waste of a life, I say. This is not the only Chinese cemetery. 20456 is one of 2000 of his countrymen who perished.

Another grave issue

Finding out about your family in past times is bound to make you interested in graves. It can be very pleasant to roam through a country church yard, on a cheery, summer day and search out relevant graves. The sheer scale of some municipal burial grounds can beggar belief. Hopefully there is a handy warden who can point you in the right direction. War graves have a special poignancy. Somehow the vast size of them really brings home the futility of war. It may be a bit of an old cliché but really there are no winners in wars.

Last summer we were in France in a part much fought over in World War One, but not much occupied by the British army. This area, near Compiègne was fought over by French and German forces. As we are now in the year that marks the 100^th anniversary of this war, let’s remind ourselves, here in Britain, that other countries were involved and lost thousands of their own young men for no particular purpose.

It happened that we came across a German First World War cemetery at Nampcel.

A staggering eleven thousand five hundred and twenty four Germans are buried here.

11524 – that is a huge number and they were killed in one little area of France, This is not the Somme, nor Flanders. That number really hit home.

The cemetery, as you might expect, is enormous but seems spaciously laid out.

This is just a small corner. Of a site which occupies some six and a half acres.

Each cross carries the names of four Germans.

Yes, there are two more on the other side.

I lost relatives in World War One – probably virtually all of us did – but that other old cliché about them having died for their country has always seemed hollow to me. How much more hollow it must have seen to the mums, wives and girlfriends of these German men who died so that, in the end their country could be defeated.

A cliché of the time was that this was ‘the war to end all wars’. Well of course it wasn’t. Just 21 years after this war ended we were all at it again but for the Germans there was a difference.

Did you notice in the photo of the graves I put in, one distant grave doesn’t follow the pattern of all the others? Actually, there are quite a few like it in the graveyard. The German buried there did not follow the Christian religion so the cross was not appropriate for him. He was a Jew.

His memorial carries the Star of David as an emblem.

This chap was serving his country as he thought, no doubt, correctly. He died ‘for his country’ and then twenty years later his country turned on his fellows, condemning them to the horrors of the gas chambers. If he had close family survivors one can only wonder how they view the value of his ‘sacrifice’.

OK, I may have alienated half my readers by clearly being anti-war. But of course, most of the people actually fighting were pretty anti-war as well. That famous football match, on Christmas day 1914, shows that the front line men had no grudge against each other. They just had to do what their political masters told them to do and on that one day they dared to be themselves.

I’ll finish with a quote from a favourite song. It’s called Red and Gold and was written by Ralph McTell. I know it as performed by the folk rock band, Fairport Convention. It’s actually about the battle for Cropredy Bridge in the English Civil War in 1644. I think the quote speaks for itself.

Through the hedgerow’s fragile cover I saw brother killing brother And all of this was done in Jesus’ name.

Harry Stevens (2)

Harry joined up in the army as a Private soldier when the war started.

He looks proud of his military role.

And here he is, on the right of a group of soldiers, probably in France.

That school had ‘taught Harry his letters’. The envelope below was presumably written by him and sent to his big sister back in Firle.

Harry was killed in action in the First World War. The war office sent a letter saying he died of injuries.

The chaplain, however, wrote to say he was gassed.

Press releases like the one below must have been very common in 1916

The newspaper account has both stories.

Harry was awarded, posthumously, the routine medals that all soldiers who served, like he did, were given.

This is inscribed, ‘The Great War for Civilisation 1914 – 1919’

The war was not very civilised for Harry and the victory medal must have felt very hollow for the next of kin.

But then in 1925 came, what seems to me, something of a wrong.

It would seem that Great Aunt Nellie had to pay for an extra message on Harry’s grave. The money was to have Thy will be done added on the stone.

Ringmer History Study Group have put the following information on their web site.

Henry Stevens

Died : 18 June 1916

Born in Ridgewood in 1885, Henry James Stevens became known to all his friends as ‘Harry’. His parents were George and Sarah Ann Stevens who had moved to Ringmer and at one time lived in Pest House Cottage. They then moved to Brick Yard Cottage, Middle Broyle, Ringmer and were still there at the time of their son’s death in 1916

Harry was working on the railway at Haywards Heath pre-war and it was from that town he enlisted into the 9th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. His home was by then no longer in Ringmer as he had moved to Firle where two of his sisters lived. Harry trained with his Battalion until 31st August 1915 when it was sent to France. The training had been prolonged due to a chronic shortage of qualified instructors, uniforms and equipment. Initially formed on 13th September 1914, it took, for example, until July 1915 before the Division received its full allocation of rifles. Private Stevens, number G/3321 landed on 1st September at Boulogne with ‘C’ Company of the 9th Royal Sussex, one of the twelve Battalions of the 24th Division.

They were plunged straight into the war at the Battle of Loos on 25th September and suffered very severely with 379 of their number being casualties. Exhausted from continual marching and lack of sleep owing to the din of the artillery bombardment, the Division fared badly in the Battle and received much unfair criticism.

By March 1916 the Division was in Flanders in the Neuve Eglise area about nine miles south west of Ypres. They took their turn in front line trench duties in what was at that time a quiet sector. In mid-May Harry was granted a short home leave and returned to Sussex to see his family. On 17th June the Germans launched a gas attack, which was not however followed up by an infantry assault. The gas lasted about 40 minutes in three continuous waves. The men wore their gas helmets for one hour and twenty minutes. In addition to the gas, the Germans bombarded our trenches with artillery and machine gun fire. A large number of men suffered the effects of gas, as the protection offered by the masks of the day was limited. They also severely restricted the vision of the soldier and were therefore unpopular in close combat.

Harry was one of the many to succumb to the effects of the gas released in the early hours of 17th June. He was taken to a Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul but did not recover and died there the following day. He was 31 when he died and is buried in the Bailleul Communal Cemetery Extension, his medals being sent to his parents in due course.

Adapted from Valiant Hearts of Ringmer by Geoff Bridger: Ammonite Press, 1993