Dardanelles Campaign fails – humiliation for Allies

Dardanelles Campaign fails – humiliation for Allies

The campaign which ended temporarily the ministerial career of Winston Churchill, in autumn 1915 was a particularly poignant event for many local families. The harsh and unforgiving climate and terrain of the Gallipoli Peninsular frustrated the Allies (Britain and France), much as the hostile terrain of Afghanistan today allows a small and irregular group of dissidents to cause significant difficulties at a heavy cost for a much larger and sophisticated foreign alliance.

Much more so in Gallipoli, where the opponent was a well-trained and reasonably well-equipped adversary, assisted by German advisors who had been active in training the Turkish Army for many years before the war began. Heavy losses at the southern tip of the peninsular were incurred in April and June, 1915 with further losses in August as the Allies tried to get around the Turkish defenders ensconced on the high ground that ran down the centre of the narrow isthmus guarding the access to the sea of Marmora and the prize of Constantinople. Capturing this capital city of the decaying Ottoman Empire was seen as the way to knock Turkey out of the war and gain access to Russia for supply and reinforcement of the beleaguered Tsarist Armies. By September the position was hopeless but it was another four months before the allied governments admitted defeat and organised an ignominious, if brilliantly executed withdrawal at virtually no cost in terms of soldiers’ lives but enormous damage to the reputations of the two greatest imperial nations of the day.

A failed naval assault in March, 1915 was followed by what is often called a ‘reinforcement of failure’ – the forced landings onto the peninsular. The local population in Tynemouth saw many men killed and wounded in the fearful conditions of heat and a bare landscape offering little protection against enemy fire. The campaign also saw the near destruction of the Collingwood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division (RND) on the Fourth of June, 1915. Only reformed after most of its men were interned in Holland in October, 1914 at Antwerp, the battalion was put into action for the first time on 4^th June, 1915 and suffered 75% casualties, with over 300 men killed including 18 of its officers, of whom, only two survived and both wounded and put out of action. Major General Paris, commander of the division felt he had no option in the field but to disband the Collingwood and reallocate its survivors to other battalions in the second brigade of the RND.

The next in our series of talks will be at the Low Lights Tavern and will take place at 7.30pm on Tuesday 21^st August, 2013, and will feature the origins and deployment of the Royal Naval Division.

Tickets – Free – can be obtained from the Low Lights Tavern, Keel Row Bookshop, Fenwick Terrace, Preston Road and the Project workroom.

Project prepares for a busy year ahead

Project prepares for a busy year ahead

Few people can have failed to notice the upsurge in media coverage of the government’s plans for the marking of the forthcoming centenary of the Great War, which will be commemorated at key dates over the four anniversary years of the conflict.

Here in North Tyneside we are launching our commemorations with a series of lectures beginning on 9^th October, 2013 at Northumbria University, where, in conjunction with the History Department, we will welcome Professor Sir Hew Strachan, a member of the government’s commemorations working party, who will deliver the first lecture. As perhaps the leading authority on the history of the conflict alive today we are delighted to have him to launch the programme. Further lectures will follow at monthly intervals – full details on our website. www.tynemouthworldwarone.org

The project has a number of outreach activities and these have been enhanced recently by the decision of Norham High School to dedicate a week of study to the war in all its aspects for students from certain year groups, in the autumn term of 2013. We will be working with the school to deliver a programme which puts the war into the context of North Shields - the area in which many of Norham’s pupils live today – in some cases in the houses of men who died.

Local playwright Peter Mortimer is currently engaged to write a full-length play concerning William Hunter (aged 19) who was shot for military offences in 1916. Peter hopes to be working with pupils from Norham as part of the development of the play and may be able to involve some pupils in the production planned for September, 2014 which is to be staged at the Linskill Community Centre in North Shields, only a few hundred yards from Hunter’s home in Coronation Street.

The project has plans for a major exhibition of stories of local men and materials collected from relatives and other sources; to be staged over three months starting in July, 2014. This is to be held in the Exhibition Area of the newly refurbished Customer Service Centre and library in Northumberland Square.

The major focus of 2014 for the project will be the launch of the database of biographical data on the almost 2000 casualties of the war, which will be open to public access on the internet from 28^th June, 2014 – the anniversary of the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria. This is will be the culmination of more than three years of effort by more than fifty local volunteers, who have painstakingly researched the stories of the men of the town who lost their lives in the war.

The culmination of the coming 12 months will be a public service of commemoration in Northumberland Square on 3^rd August, 2014 – planning for this is now well in hand.

The next in our series of talks will be at the Low Lights Tavern and will take place at 7.30pm on Tuesday 21^st August, 2013, featuring the origins and deployment of the Royal Naval Division.

Tickets – Free – are limited, and can be obtained after 1^st. August, 2013 from the Low Lights Tavern, Keel Row Bookshop, Fenwick Terrace, Preston Road and the Project workroom.

Bloodiest month for town ends with second tragedy for Brook family

The First World War was the first in several hundred years, if ever, to engage the entire population of the country. The incidence of losses however was not something distributed evenly across the four years and four months of the war.

Research by the Tynemouth project shows 145 men killed or died in the month of July, 1916 - about 8% of the total number recorded on the Roll of Honour printed in 1923. That month stands alone in the severity of the losses borne by the community. However, the impact of an average daily death toll of 4 or 5 of the town’s men was tempered by the fact that many died on a single day - the bloodiest day of losses ever for the British Army - on the First of July, 1916; when 19240 were killed and a further 36000 were wounded. Large numbers of those men (78 died from Tynemouth Borough) would be reported as Missing in Action and their deaths not presumed or confirmed until the spring of 1917.

One of the last casualties of July, 1916 was James Edward Blythe Brook, Killed in Action on the 29^th he was the brother of Nevill Brook (KIA – 27^th April, 1915 - see News Guardian 4^th. April 2013). James was studying for the priesthood at St John’s Church of England Theological College in Perth, Western Australia when he learned of his brother’s death in the Second Battle of Ypres. He determined to ‘take his brother’s place at the front’ and left college to enlist in the Australian Imperial Forces in October, 1915.

The Christ Church Parish Magazine noted that their father had been a Collector of Excises for the government but had returned to London with his family (except Nevill) in 1910 -

“We are also deeply pained to have to record the death of Nevill Brook's brother,

Corporal James E. B. Brook, of the Australian Infantry, who was killed in action on July 29th

and who was studying for the ministry at St. John's, Perth, when he enlisted in order to

take the place of his brother who was killed at Ypres last year.”

A former pupil of Tynemouth High School, James was recorded in the School’s Record of Service, from which the photograph featured here was taken.

The next in our series of talks will be given by me at the Low Lights Tavern and will take place at 730pm on Tuesday 21^st August, 2013, featuring the origins and deployment of the Royal Naval Division - in particular the Collingwood Battalions.

Tickets – Free – are limited, and can be obtained after 1^st. August, 2013 from the Low Lights Tavern, Keel Row Bookshop, Fenwick Terrace, Preston Road and the Project workroom.