John Smyth

March 8th 1915

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Lieut. Jack Smyth has sent us an interesting leaflet he came across in the Front Line. It is a translation of an article supposedly written by a Lieut. Colonel Kaden in the March 3rd edition of the  ‘Lille War Gazette’, a German weekly newspaper, which came into English hands when found on a German prisoner captured in recent fighting.

It is printed under the title, ‘A Nation Gone Mad’ and marks the birthday a hundred years ago, on  April 1st, of the German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who famously created modern Germany out of ‘blood and iron.’

“Let every German, man or woman, young or old, find in his heart a Bismarck Column, a pillar of fire now in these days of storm and stress. Let this fire, enkindled in every German breast, be a fire of joy, of holiest enthusiasm. But let it be terrible, unfettered, let it carry horror and destruction! Call it HATE! Let no one come to you with ‘Love thine enemy!’ We all have but one enemy, England! How long have we wooed her almost to the point of our own self-abasement. She would have none of us, so leave to her the apostles of peace, the ‘No War’ disciples. The time has passed when we would do homage to everything English – our cousins that were!

‘God punish England!’ ‘May He punish her!’ This is the greeting that now passes when Germans meet. The fire of this righteous hate is all aglow!

You men of Germany, from East and West, forced to shed your blood in the defence of your homeland through England’s infamous envy and hatred of Germany’s progress, feed the flame that burns in your souls. We have but one war-cry ‘GOD PUNISH ENGLAND!’ Hiss this to one another in the trenches, in the charge, hiss as it were the sound of licking flames.

Behold in every dead comrade a sacrifice forced from you by this accursed people. Take ten-fold vengeance for each hero’s death!

You German people at home, feed this fire of hate!

You mothers, engrave this in the heart of the babe at your breast!

You thousands of teachers, to whom millions of German children look up with eyes and hearts, teach HATE! Unquenchable HATE!…

What CARTHAGE was to ROME, ENGLAND is to GERMANY. For ROME as for us it is a question of ‘to be or not to be.’ May our people find a faithful mentor like Cato. His ‘ceterum censeo, Carthaginem esse delendam’ for us Germans means – ‘GOD PUNISH ENGLAND’”

The translator adds, “It is of interest as showing the hatred of Great Britain which is being sedulously cultivated in Germany. This hatred is being encouraged and fostered officially by every possible means.”

February 22nd 1915

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Only ten years ago, Jack Smyth, aged 12, was recovering from a serious illness. For two years he had blown up like a balloon, whilst getting weaker and weaker. His recovery was almost as sudden as its onset. His nurse, thinking he was dying, decided to offer him whatever he would like to eat and for some reason he chose a steak. Although this surely cannot have been the only reason, it proved a turning point and by the Easter Term 1905 he was able to return to school.

After Repton and Sandhurst, Jack, who did not have the private means to consider a British regiment, joined the Indian Army. The bill for his kit, when he spent a year with the Green Howards in 1912, was beyond what he and his mother could afford, so I and a number of others stepped in to help.

Now he is with the 15th Sikhs, involved in the continuing trench warfare. We received two letters from him last week, dated the 11th and 15th February:

Jack Smyth

Lieut. Jack Smyth

15.2.15. “I am writing this in a German trench and am too filthy and muddy and disreputable for words. As I expect you saw in the papers the Indian Corps captured a German position the other day, and here we are holding on to it for all we are worth. It is more interesting here in a place where the Germans have been for about four months; the place is quite dry, a captured pump tells us the reason why; they did themselves pretty well as all the dug-outs are littered with old bottles of champagne etc., and photos of the Kaiser, and letters and food, etc. Our men rather fancy the German boots and I have one of their haversacks.

There are about 100 of their dead lying just outside my trench where they were discovered creeping up to try and recapture the place and were promptly laid out by a machine gun. 

I haven’t taken off my boots for five days and am a sight for the gods.”

Clearly, his kit is still a matter of concern for Jack!

His earlier letter tells a remarkable tale of good luck enjoyed by a friend of his.

“About five years ago, an old mullah in India gave him a silver charm, which he said would bring him luck and also save his life. He went home on leave the other day and was promptly married (I suppose that was the luck) and yesterday, from a good position behind a big tree, he was having a good look  at the German trenches, when a bullet came through the tree (not bullet proof) and hit the bottom button of his coat, smashing it to bits and winding him, but never penetrated his body. The charm, which he always wore and which was underneath his shirt, was squashed flat, but beyond a very sore tummy, he is none the worse and is now fairly convinced that he will see this show through all right.” 

 

January 4th 1915

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This is the third letter we have received from Tyrrell Brooks (Capt. Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry) – see September 28th & October 29th for his previous ones. With some nine years’ experience in the Army, he has got to know “Tommy” pretty well.

“Dear Skipper,JBBrooks

A strange mixture of sentiment and pathos is Private Thomas Atkins. A splendid grouser when in clover, when really up against it he faces with equanimity the longest of days and most trying trench work.

In letter writing he uses the most pious and well rounded phrases which would delight the soul of a cleric and give him hope, and afterwards you will hear the same hero expressing to his friends his grievances in language that even a bargee would resent.

The glamour of the battlefield of the last century is conspicuous by its absence in this. The bayoneting of the German is not a daily occurrence, but when the chance comes it is taken and afterwards affords pleasurable thought and scope for writing home – as after all there is little to write about when you live in a trench for four days at a time, having shrapnel for breakfast, high explosive for lunch, and rifle fire when you should be having your evening glass of ale in the canteen.

Perhaps the great thing which buoys up T.A during the weary days in the trenches is “castle building.” By this I mean highly exaggerated thoughts of home, his best girl (they all have them) and of the time and reflected glory, consequent on the defeat of the enemy, that will be his when he gets there. And if he is wounded – well somebody else will take his place and he will become a ‘ERO.

His sense of humour allows us to name the various kind of shells he is daily in contact with. They are “Little Willies,” “Dirty Dicks,” “Black Marias,” and “Jack Johnstons,” according to their size.

Here is a good and true story. Just after Ypres, a troop train full of enthusiasts pulled up opposite a hospital one in a siding. Those in the troop train were longing to perform deeds of valour and longing for blood. Those in the hospital train had already shed much in the lowlands of Flanders. Those in the troop train were hanging out of the windows and trucks joking with each other. Suddenly the hospital train started slowly forward and a troop train enthusiast shouted out “Are we downhearted?” and the chorus answered “No” – but again he shouted “Are we downhearted?” and again the chorus bellowed “No.” This was more than a figure in the hospital train, swathed in bandages, could stand. Propping himself up he retorted “Ain’t you? Well you bloody soon will be!” which said, he returned to a prone position.

Remember Pte Thomas Atkins and the great work he is doing under conditions which are difficult, to put it very mildly, and wish him a speedy return to realize the “castles” that he built in the trenches.”

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Jack Smyth played Juliet in the 1906 production of Romeo and Juliet here at the OPS to good reviews and if this did not necessarily suggest a military future for him, the following year he played a very youthful Macduff in Macbeth and, as the reviewer noted,  “looked a sort of Sir Galahad in his armour, but he showed plenty of fire when his opportunity came in the final scenes.”

Coincidentally, now a 21 year old Lieutenant in the 15th Sikhs, he writes in a similar vein about the splendid British Tommy:Jack Smyth

“The British Tommy is simply magnificent… One in a regiment close to us the other day came up very pale, and saluted, and asked if he could go to the rear. ‘Whatever for?’ said his officer. ‘Well sir, I’ve been ‘it three times’ he said.

Before we came under fire for the first time I asked a sergeant who had been at Mons what it was like. ‘Perfect ‘ell, sir,’ he replied, and he wasn’t far wrong.”