The 'Great' War
Cricket and Elmswell
Outbreak of War
"The lamps are going
out all over Europe, we
shall not see them lit
again in our life-time".
Sir Edward Grey
British Foreign Secretary
Play Up and Play the Game
Cricket continued after war was declared but the likes
of W G Grace encouraged more cricketers to enlist:
"There are so many who are young and able, and still
hanging back. I should like to see all first-class
cricketers of suitable age set a good example…".
The Rush to Enlist
By January 2015 over a million
enlisted - including many
cricketers who had "exchanged
flannels for khaki; they are
playing in the most important
game that has ever claimed
their attention".
More Than a Game
The War Office was quick
to realise young men
would be keen to serve
alongside top cricketers
and sportsmen…
Cricket Had to Stop
"There is to be no cricket season…
we cannot play cricket this year
because it would not be cricket".
(The Globe, January 2015)
"Cricketers… can help to bowl out the Germans, who
started hitting hard before some of their opponents
could take their places in the field. The Allies are hoping
to ‘have a knock’ on the other side of the Rhine".
(Athletic News, December 1914)
'Golden Age' Cut Short
The early 20th century - the 'Golden Age' of cricket - was
infused with a nostalgic yearning. Cricket was played
according to 'the spirit of the game' and replete with
both dashing amateurs and skilled professionals - yet
many of cricket's finest would never make their way out
to the middle again…
Cricket at the Front
Unsuitable terrain and lack of cricket gear
proved no obstacle.
In 1915 the South Staffs regiment played
"with a cork ball, a pick helve, and an old
periscope" - the latter being the wicket.
Thomas Manning, Northants, encouraged his men to play "under
any and all circumstances" - they did - "with tops of hop poles as
bats, bully beef tins as the wickets, and a ball of the tennis type".
Cricket at the Front
Amidst artillery fire at Vermelles a game used a bird cage
containing a dead carrier pigeon as a wicket - "22 hardy
northern men were able to give an unhurried but determined
exhibition of the game’s finer points" - abandoned when bullets
began landing dangerously close to the pitch!
Hastily-made graves in
the ruins at Vermelles
Importance of Cricket
England bowler Fred Root
wrote that military leaders
valued cricket at the front
"the game played its part in
keeping our warriors fit and
happy under conditions most
impossible…".
At home, badges were sold to
raise money for the wounded
…and charity cricket matches
played - attracting royal and
political spectators.
Cricket in the Trenches
A bat sent to Sgt. J Piggott on the front line in France
in 1917 - it was pierced by shrapnel before being used
so Sgt Piggott sent it back for a replacement!!
(Now in the MCC Museum)
Gallipoli
A match played by the Australian Light Horse Brigade in full view of
the Turks - before heavy shelling drove the soldiers to cover. It was
part of an attempt to protect Allied troops in their withdrawal
from the peninsula.
Cricket at the Front
Siegfried Sassoon recalled a game at the time of the Battle of
Arras using a stump, wooden ball and old brazier as the wicket.
1918 at La Marraine Camp - 12th Lancs. Fusiliers paused in
defence of the enemy’s final offensive to stage a weekend
tournament of limited-overs matches!
Cricket Skills Employed
Officers demanded proper training in grenade handling. Cricket
bowling action became standard for the No. 5 Mills grenade the optimum range being 22-yards (length of a cricket pitch).
"The Cricketers of Flanders"
Poem praising the valour shown by cricketers ('cricket balls'
being grenades):
The first to climb the parapet
With 'cricket balls' in either hand;
The first to vanish in the smoke
Of God-forsaken No Man's Land…
Full sixty yards I've seen them throw
With all that nicety of aim
They learned on British cricket-fields.
Ah, bombing is a Briton's game!
Cricket - Aid to Morale
Cricket featured in Ruhleben Internment Camp (near Berlin) detainees were men of the Allied Powers stuck or stranded in
Germany at the outbreak of war plus captured North Sea
trawlermen - the camp held between 4,000 and 5,500 prisoners.
Cricket - Aid to Morale
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps and convalescent soldiers
playing cricket in the camp at Étaples in France on 1 May 1918.
Cricket in the Trenches
Many in the trenches left behind photographs
"typically showing a dozen or so men standing with a…
grim cheerfulness, holding up cricket bats and balls…
like a picture in a team annual…".
Death knew no status. Men who graced the game from
Lord’s to the most rustic village track were being taken
every day.
Tyne Cot Cemetery
In Ypres Salient the largest Commonwealth
military cemetery in the world: 11,954 burials
including 8,367 unnamed.
Tyne Cot Cemetery
"I have… asked myself
whether there can be
more potent
advocates of peace
upon Earth… than this
massed multitude of
silent witnesses to the
desolation of war".
The Cross of Sacrifice
King George V
when visiting in 1922
No Sides in Death
In 1934 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (President of Turkey) wrote a
moving tribute to mothers of Allied soldiers killed by the Turks
at Gallipoli:
"your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After
having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as
well".
No Sides in Death
The Atatürk sentiments echo
elsewhere. Neuville-SaintVaast hosts the largest
German cemetery in France 44,833 burials.
Langemark German Cemetery
in Belgium, resting place of
44,061. Especially moving - the
statue of four mourners
watching solemnly over so
many.
St Symphorien Cemetery
The cemetery outside Mons, dedicated to Anglo-German
reconciliation, houses the dead of both nations.
Death and Life
Individual stories are typically poignant.
England player Major Booth (his name, not
rank) was killed in the Somme. A young
Yorkshire cricketer, himself hit by shrapnel,
nursed Booth through his final moments but forced to abandon him in a rat-infested
crater.
Booth’s body was not recovered for nine months… only being
identified by the MCC cigarette case in his pocket.
Death and Life
Lionel Tennyson - mentioned in
despatches twice and three times
wounded - was left with only one
good hand but went on to captain
England.
W B Burns - one of few to
achieve a hat-trick and
century in the same game killed in 1916. He was such a
terrifying fast bowler that
Hampshire's George Brown
said "He'll kill someone one
day!"
Death and Life
England spinner Colin Blythe - one of the
finest bowlers of the time. When his brother
fell at the Somme, Blythe volunteered for
the front in his place - to be killed a year
later at Passchendaele. A bat and cricket ball
always lie next to his grave.
Death and Life
Dashing England amateur Kenneth Hutchings,
an Ashes centurion - blown apart in the
trenches at Ginchy in 1916.
Percy Jeeves played just 50 matches - one seen by
P G Wodehouse who immortalised his name.
Taking over 100 first-class wickets in 1913 he was
tipped for greatness - but another Somme victim his body never recovered. "Even in the trenches,
Jeeves was known for his impeccable grooming…".
Death and Life
Most towns and villages were touched by grief.
Fatalities included popular cricketers like Arthur Collins
whose 628 not out in 1899 is still the highest individual
score ever recorded - killed in 1914 at Ypres.
Great Leveller
Such cricketers "were
the superstar sportsmen
of their day but when
they got to the trenches,
their fame didn’t
matter…".
Disabilities
Cricket also lost those injured. Two million British
servicemen were disabled by the War. Thousands of
survivors were physically and mentally impaired, like
Frank Chester and Harry Lee.
Disabilities
Chester - the most talented teenager cricket
had seen - at 17 the youngest to score a county
century. He lost his right arm in Salonika and
suffered terrible psychological problems but
later became the finest umpire in the world.
Lee - given up for dead, lying for three days in
No Man's Land. A miracle recovery left him with
a pronounced limp - but he later scored doublecenturies for Middlesex, once took eight
wickets in an innings and won a Test cap.
Inconceivable Death Toll
888,246 British and
Commonwealth
servicemen were
killed - most in the
mud and horror of the
fields in Flanders.
Men from all walks of
life and of all ages.
Young and Old
John Condon 14 - believed the youngest Allied
soldier killed but now known to have lied
about his age. His grave still an important
reminder of all those underage (some 250,000)
who joined the army and lost their lives.
Jasper Richardson - the oldest
known British battle death killed in 1918 just days from his
69th birthday.
First and Last
John Parr - known as the first British
soldier to die - shot two days before
fighting began at Mons. It is not
known by whom or why…
George Ellison died just 90 minutes
before the Armistice came into effect in
1918. He was not alone - that day saw
almost 11,000 casualties in the final
hours and minutes of the War.
St Symphorien Cemetery
By sheer coincidence Parr (left) and Ellison (right) lie feet apart
in the same cemetery. Their stories illustrate the horror faced by
ordinary citizens who became heroes in the 'war to end all wars'.
Late in all Respects
10.58am on 11 November 1918 - a mere two minutes
before the Armistice took effect - George Price
became the final Commonwealth soldier to be killed
in the War itself…
Why the Poppy?
The scarlet corn poppy grows
abundantly on barren battlefields.
Its significance as a memorial to
the fallen realised by John McCrae
in his poem "In Flanders Fields".
The poppy came to represent the
immeasurable sacrifice made by
his comrades and a lasting
memorial to all those who died.
"In Flanders Fields"
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place…
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields."
One Was Too Many…
37 million military and civilian casualties in
the War - 16.5 million deaths and 20 million
wounded and injured - one of the deadliest
conflicts in human history.
They Played the Game
Cricket deaths paled against the total human toll yet
decimated the game itself. "Village cricketers… county
cricketers, cricketers from all corners of the Empire:
they fell by the hundred of thousand in the filthy mud
at Ypres, at Loos, at Arras, at the Somme…".
(David Frith, Author and Historian)
They Played the Game
In particular, some 4,000
cricketers and officials of all
standards signed-up… and died.
12 Test players were killed from just three countries with
Test status at the time.
210 of 278 professionals
answered the call of their
country - 34 never came back.
290 first-class cricketers were
killed.
Village Match: 100 Years On
3 August 1914: Lee CC v Manor House - rain stopped play. The
captains vowed to finish the game at the earliest… but next day
war was declared - both men perished in the trenches. In
commemoration the clubs completed the match in August 2014.
"If the war had been lost, a
whole traditional way of life
would have been lost… village
cricket may not have survived".
War and Elmswell
The Cricket Club existed in the 1890s; likewise 1910 but there is
no record of it between 1914 and 1924. Did our village cricket
escape the War? Did any of those pictured or listed on the card
fight? Possibly… who knows?
War and Elmswell
Elmswell itself did not escape. Listed
in Church: the 119 who went to war
and returned - and the 29 killed.
A substantial contribution and toll
from such a small population…
Death Knows No Sides
The son of sculptor Käthe
Kollwitz was killed after two
days at the front - prompting
her compelling tribute "The
Grieving Parents" - her and
her husband mourning on
their knees.
A diary entry shortly before her death reads: "One day… there
will be an end to all wars… It will need much hard work... The
important thing, until that happens, is to hold one’s banner high
and to struggle... Without struggle there is no life".
Cricket and War
"Perhaps the final lesson of
1914-1918 is of man’s
continued capacity both for
homicidal destruction and
higher functions like cricket,
and that, thankfully, the
game itself still tends to be
regularly renewed even in
the direst circumstances".
Menin Gate
Memorial to the Missing
WAR DOES NOT DETERMINE
WHO IS RIGHT…
ONLY WHO IS LEFT
When you go home, tell them of us and say
For their tomorrow, we gave our today
When you go home, tell them of us and say
For their tomorrow, we gave our today
Lest
We
Forget