Why Were People Keen To Volunteer To Fight In WW1?

It's now 100 years since the end of the First World War, a conflict that claimed the lives of over three-quarters of a million British men. Now, featuring rare and previously unseen personal testimony, alongside newly restored archived film, this groundbreaking three-part series will tell the story of the Great War as never before. From the suffering and sacrifice experienced by the men on the front line. The corpses there, they all had ratchets in the cage of the chest. And when you disturbed them, the ratchets ran out of the chest. You can't forget things like that. To the dramatic change in women's lives on the home front. I felt, when I was working on munitions, I really thought, oh, I haven't got any brothers to go and fight. I'm doing the next best thing. And I was quite pleased to be able to do it. In this film, we'll meet the veterans who volunteered to fight at the beginning of the war. I had a pal in the army. And we were the best of pals together. And they called him Joe, poor Joe. And we'll find out what happened to those they left behind. I couldn't really imagine him not being there. I couldn't imagine it. I thought, maybe one day they'll find out they made a mistake. And perhaps he might turn up one day. This is the story of the tragedy and turmoil of Britain's Great War. Britain declared war on Germany on the 4th of August, 1914, after the German army invaded Belgium en route to Paris. Britain's small, regular army set sail to engage them. And reserves from the army and navy were mobilised, ready for action. Fearing a long and bloody conflict, Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, called for 100,000 volunteers to take up arms in a new civilian army. The response was extraordinary. Your country needs you. Didn't he, the Kitchener's famous picture? So we went to stop being taken over by some foreign country. It was our duty, nothing out of the ordinary. It was obvious. I was working with the Crystal Manufacturing Company and this war broke out. And as a young man, it was my duty and the duty of every young man to go and defend it against all invaders and to give, if necessary, our lives to do it. Kitchener had no trouble in finding the first 100,000. Damaged, you couldn't get into the running army. There was such a rush to get there, to get on and defeat the enemy and prevent him from taking over this country. Well, the war was declared in August. And everywhere you went in Glasgow, the great big poster's up of Kitchener with his finger pointing at you. No matter where you were, this finger seemed to be pointing at you. Your king and country need you. I worked in an insurance office. And now and again, I could hear the piper in the left, right, left, right. And I went to the window, I could see probably 200 or 300 men. And the pipes almost seemed to do something to arouse my enthusiasm. I thought to myself, well, I want to do something like this. When I told my manager of my insurance company, he said, well, it'll be a nice six-month holiday for you. Yes, you join up. So I joined up. I was only 15 when I joined up. I was working down the coal mine. It's a place called Rainford, just outside Olmskirk. We used to have six men from Olmskirk who used to be on night work. And this particular night, one of them maybe was late. And he said, there's no work tonight, chaps. The war's breaking out tomorrow. So I've got to report to the headquarters. The sergeant, he said, what do you want, sonny? Well, I said, I want to join up with the other chaps. So he said, you're so young, aren't you? I said, no, I'm not too young. I said, I'm 18. So he said, are you sure? I said, yes, I'll go and get my birth certificate. He said, it's all right, I'll take your word for it. Of course, I got home and told my parents. And my mother bled hell because I had no right going. And she was going to stop me. And my father said, don't interfere with him. If he wants to go, let him go. You never enter your age, really, to think about what the results was going to be. On the day the war broke out, I was just 20 years of age. I thought I'd like to be a soldier, you know, and do a bit of shooting. I always fancied being a rifleman, that was the point. And I went up to this place at Sheppard's Bush where we joined on. And they gave me, then, the choice of, oh, three different regiments I could have been in. But the third one was the old Sherwood Foresters, 7th Battalion. And they were called the Robin Hood Rifles. So I fancied that. I thought, oh, I'd like to be a Robin Hood Rifle. Didn't understand anything about what war was like or what it was all about. When we went to the 22 czars at Colchester, you have to ride all different horses, nothing on them, no saddle, no bridle, no nothing. You have to have a stick and a little cane under each arm. And then when the road masters cracked the whip, he didn't say anything. He didn't. He just cracked the whip and the horses, all the horses that you were on, stopped dead. I never come off. I'd sit there. But I'd put me arms around his neck. I knew. But half of them fell off. And the sergeant major shouted, who the hell told you to dismount? While Britain's young men rushed to volunteer, it was their loved ones at home who were left to deal with the consequences. The day war was declared. We, as a family, were all living on a farm, nobody more excited than my elder brother, George. Keen for so long to be a soldier, here was his chance. My father tried to persuade him against going so soon. Stop and see the harvest, then, he said, and go then. But nothing anybody did or said would alter him. He went into my mother's bedroom, and he picked up a stick, tucked it under his arm, and marched about the bedroom. This is how I should strut about the London parks, he said. Jokingly, of course. We sang him a little song. No more will I work in the harvest field to reap the golden corn. But I'm going to join the army, and I'm off tomorrow morn. I don't think it occurred to any of them that they might never come back again. We were desperately in love with each other, thinking of him day and night, and he was me. Yeah. Discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians, all on History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Download the app now to watch everything, from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to Operation Barbarossa and D-Day. Immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description. We made that promise that as soon as the war was over, which was about Christmas, we'd get engaged. But he was quite convinced that he was going to be killed. I didn't know what to say. I knew nothing about war or anything like that. But all I could do was to tell him to look on the bright side that there were better days in store when it was all over. That was a promise he went away with in his heart, that it wouldn't be for long. By the end of November 1914, over a million volunteers had joined Kitchener's army. Meanwhile, on the Western Front, the British had already lost close to 100,000 men. What had begun as a mobile campaign had turned to stalemate as both sides settled into the trenches that would become the defining feature of the war. They would soon stretch in a continuous line from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps, transforming Kitchener's new recruits into fighting men, ready for the demands of trench warfare, would take training and discipline, the like of which most had never experienced before. I certainly enjoyed it. Some of them were weaklings. I was a weakling being an insurance holder, but some of them were weaker than I was. But the harder to be, the more training you got, the harder you became and the more used to it. We began to do these physical jerks, physical exercises. And this particular sergeant, he got a nasty wagging tongue. And he used to call us all you flippin' little mother's boys and all that sort of talk, you know what I mean? And use language that we never liked at all. He used to use swear language, too. And we used to absolutely dislike this fellow when he came and took over. There was one little bugger, waxed hash, turned up, and he was yapping and shouting. And he used to call me Licker Fair, because he was short, too, and he couldn't get Licker Fair. And I was in one of them good humours. I never answered him. So he come up to me, who the hell do you think you are? He said, I think you're a bastard. Ooh, if somebody said that, I'd hit him in the mouth with that. No, I said, don't prove it. We saw these boys, and they were all sticking bayonets into sacks of straw where children used to play. And they were running towards them and told just whereabouts in the sack that bayonet had to go. Your bayonets were always there to be used, if necessary. You're killing the enemy when you're learning it, when you're stabbing a sandbag full of sand. When you're sticking that bayonet into it, you're sticking one at the enemy. You're not sticking the sandbag, and that's how you're taught. You had to learn how to use a gun. Used to go on musketry courses. I got to be, as it happened, quite a good shot. And I became, eventually, what they called a marksman. And so, for which I got an extra six for today, I'll be wages. Used to get an extra six for today if you were a qualified marksman, which I was. We were all, I think, very proud to be in the army, defending our country, for the people to come after us. The morale was tremendous. We were anxious to get on with the job. We wanted to go to France and stop this nonsense. Back on the Western Front, the British army was facing a crisis, as its artillery shells were being used faster than they could be produced. So, to increase production, thousands of women left their traditional domestic roles and, instead, began making munitions. Well, I had no brothers to go and fight for us. So, I said to Dad, could I go and work on munitions? And he said, no. And I said, oh, Dad, we haven't got anybody to go and fight for us. I must admit, Dad was always my favourite. And I wheedled around him, to let me go to the labour exchange and see if I could get work on the munitions. You were supposed to be 18. I was three or four months off at my 18th birthday. But they wanted the workers so badly, they said, yes, all right, then you can come. I felt, when I was working on munitions, I really felt, oh, I haven't got any brothers to go and fight, I'm doing the next best thing. And I was quite pleased to be able to do it. Meanwhile, the Red Cross had launched an appeal to recruit women aged over 19 to work as volunteers alongside professional nurses, known as the Voluntary Aid Detachment, or VAD for short. Most were recruited from middle and upper-class families, as the job was unpaid. I had to go up to Dimitri's house to see the head of the Red Cross. He interviewed me over a double desk. And I was always very good at reading on the other side when I was sitting there. And he said, how old are you? So I said, 20, sir. So he said, how old? I could see him now looking over the top of his glasses. I said, 20, sir. I saw him write down, age 20, apparent age 16. I said, now you've written it down, sir, in black and white, you can't alter it. But it isn't 16, it's 17. And he did a grin and left as it was, and passed me. By the early summer of 1915, the first units of Kitchener's Volunteer Army left their training camps to begin the journey to the battlefields of France and Belgium. Most had never been abroad before. I thought it was great, you know, getting out of England, going to something new. That's a feeling, love. A lad's feeling, as you might say. It was more or less a novelty to you, you know. Oh, we've never been out of England, we've never seen out. Aye, now that was how we felt. We certainly wanted to, you know, get out and do our bit. Of course, you never knew what it was going to be, whether you were going to shoot Germans or whether they were going to shoot you. You never knew what the future held. I don't think I was ever afraid, never seemed to worry me. Something was happening, you wanted to see what was happening, and you were there to witness it. I never thought of being killed, never thought of that. Not thought of a good fun killing somebody. We were the best country in the world, the best everything in the world. We were all very proud of ourselves. And that's why I think Kishine had no difficulty in finding 100,000 men to go and defend it against all invaders. And to give, if necessary, our lives to do it. Joining the men on the way to the front were the nurses who'd look after them. At the beginning of the war, volunteers in the VAD weren't allowed to go overseas. But as the casualty figures soared, inexperienced recruits found themselves en route to France. You don't know the word fear at 17. At least I don't think you do. I never felt like this. I think the worst moment was really saying goodbye to my father, wondering about coming back on us. We landed at Boulogne, because we had no idea where we were going to. We're just on foot marching, as it were, laden right up with all our equipment, all you could carry, you know, everything on. And you wonder what it was going to be like. We were all happy. We'd start singing. You know, there's no unhappiness about it, because at that time, at that time, we hadn't been in the frontline trenches. We didn't know what the war really was. You could probably hear a very, very faint noise of gunfire. Very, very faint. And then the nearer we got, of course, then we realised what we were in against. Suddenly, you begin to see the sky lighting up, flashing, flashing, flashing. And you begin to hear the noise of the guns. You know, you're getting nearer. You're getting nearer. You can't help feeling butterflies in your tummy. Began to shake then. Yeah, it began to shake then. The nearer we got to the frontline, when you heard that noise, you began to realise that we were for it. You went up the line wondering what it was like. Will I come back? You know, all these things went through your mind. Aye, if a bloody jury comes for me, I'll give them the bayonet. You know, all that went through your mind. And then, of course, you get in the frontline, the first thing you want to do is, where are the Germans? You put your foot up in the fire step, which might be 18 inches or two feet up, and somebody said, sit down, you silly bee, you'll get shot. We still wanted to look over and see where the Germans were. For the most part, life in the trenches consisted of daily routine, lack of sleep, and utterly miserable conditions. When you get in the frontline, you're completely lost, and you're cut off from the rest of the world, as it were, and you've got to be there until you can be relieved. When the rain came down, it would just stay there, and you'd be walking about in mud. And then, when that dried, you can guess the condition of your feet or your legs, particularly to those who wore a kilt. If the mud would work up onto the bare knees, it was pretty painful at times, when the mud dried and the hairs were rubbing. It was pretty painful. You never got a chance of a wash or a shave for several days. Nothing like that. So you can just imagine the state we were in. You had to sleep, more or less, sitting up. You can't sleep sitting down in the mud, for instance, could you? You couldn't sleep in the mud. You're sitting on what you call a fire step. You'd just sit down there on those. You couldn't lie down on the ground unless it was dry weather. Once their shift in the trenches was over, the men could enjoy a few days' respite behind the lines. Here, they could relax, get clean, and rid their bodies of the lice which were a constant nuisance. The worst thing in the war was being so lousy. You could burn and run along with a candle, with your shirt, you see me? Today, and you'll be just as bad tomorrow. That was terrible. That was the worst thing of the lot. I used to get paraffin out of a damn telly lamp. Rub me, rub me till all over with paraffin. I killed the boogers. Safe behind the lines, the men often put on their own entertainment to boost morale. Someone lent me an old drum. It wasn't much good, but there was a drum and there was a couple of sticks to it. And so I got up there and I sang a San Mayo number with the drum. And it was, ♪ Beholding me, a one-man band ♪ ♪ There once was six, but down the strand ♪ ♪ We clicked for a bob and five got canged ♪ ♪ Bum, bum, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum ♪ ♪ So I have just come here to say ♪ ♪ Everybody's got to live some way ♪ ♪ And the only tune that I can play is ♪ ♪ Bum, bum, diddle, diddle, dum, bum, bum ♪ And I bent on, there was about three verses to that one, till when I got to the end, I stuck the sticks right through the bloody drum. And of course, I of course, rose and laughed at the back. But all too soon, the men were back in the trenches, where the greatest danger came from German artillery fire. The first dose of trenches I had was sent to Loy, on the right of Yeapery. This was supposed to be the cushy part of the line, which still a lot of ---- flew over the top, just the same. You could see the trench mortars coming over, great big thing like that, with a sort of two foot handle on it, looked like that from this up in the air. You could see it coming, going up from the, going up and then you could see it coming down. If it's coming, you think it's coming towards you, you run to the left or run to the right. And if you're lucky, you miss it. If you're unlucky, well, you're gone. All the time, you wondered whether you were going to be the next one to be killed. The Padre used to say a little prayer. He said, however near, and that helped us, and that helped me, however near you are to death, there's somebody nearer. So, and that always happens in the trenches. I was with a friend and all of a sudden, there was this terrific bang overhead. It was a terrific bang, so it must have been very near to us. And all of a sudden, of course, all the earth above us all suddenly collapsed and came right down straight on top of us, absolutely as we were sitting there, buried us just completely alive. It covers right in. And I knew I must have been struggling hard to breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't move hand, foot, only me toes and me boots. How I survived on whatever breath I'd got in my body, I've no idea if that dated me. Wounded men were taken to casualty clearing stations behind the lines for treatment. Here, inexperienced volunteer nurses worked alongside their professional colleagues, dealing with the terrible injuries caused by bullets and shrapnel. You would call the dirtiness and you had to do all the buggy things. And they just amputated the leg and they put it in the bucket. And I had to let it lay away in the bucket down to the incinerator. Didn't like it. You've no idea what a leg weighs when it's once amputated. I had to lug that with the foot sticking up like that all the way down to the incinerator. I didn't enjoy that at all. Girls of my age or inexperienced girls of any age, it wasn't work you do normally, but of course in war you do different things from what you do in other times. You just carry on as soon as you can. For the men on the front line, who lived with the constant threat of death, camaraderie was vital to morale and close bonds of friendship were formed in the trenches. Well, they were all, where did you come from? What did you do? What did you work at? Any cigarettes? You got a light? You got a gasper? They're all friendly. Married? No. Any girls? Oh, yes. Half a dozen. Yes. Yes, very friendly. I had a pal in the army and we were the best of pals together and they called him Joe. Oh, he was a grand lad. We had our ups and downs between us, but still we were always good pals. We would wanna help one another. What I had was his, what he had was mine. He had no writing papers. He didn't want to write a letter. Now he had it, he got it, a pen. We were all like that. The ritual of writing and receiving letters was one of the few treats the men had to look forward to. Around two billion letters were delivered by the British Army Postal Service over the course of the war. Letters raised the spirits and a reassuring note from a sweetheart could ease the pain of separation. I used to write letters to him and tell him that I missed him, missed him an awful lot and I wish that he was a bit nearer so I could see more of him. I'd always tell him that I wouldn't look at anybody else while he was away and that I'd wait for him. I'd wait for him to eternity. As long as ever it was necessary, I would wait for him. I said to him, I said, just think of the future, the future and us. And that's what I thought of. I was living for the future and to live my future with him. Back on the Western Front, it was the job of the army's marksmen to harass the enemy whenever they could. This often meant leaving the trench to crawl into no man's land. You had a camouflage hood made of this big wooden thing which were all like green leaves with holes in the front so you could see. You had a camouflage suit on. You had camouflage gloves and a camouflage sort of to hide your gun till you got lying down. And if you see anything that's really worthwhile having a pot at, you used to have a shot or two. If your target is close enough or your target is still enough that you've got the time to think of where to shoot, I should probably shoot at the head. For many, there was always the temptation to take a pot shot from an observation post within the trench. My best friend, Lenny Persil, said I'd had five or six shots and then he said, let me have a go, Smiler. And he jumps onto the fire trench. I'm down in the trench and the fire trench is up there where you stand on and shoot through that little hole. And he said, let me have a go. And he had two or three and then I could see him crawling. The sniper had got him right through that little hole. His rifle's still stuck in the hole up there. Lenny's rifle, still stuck in the hole there. The sniper had got him through there. The bullet went right through here and out the back. They finished me as far as they'd go. There, you know what I mean? I had got two or three other good mates, but Lenny, I never really forgot it. Not to this day. After a year of stalemate in the trenches, the Allies planned a major offensive against German positions in Champagne and Artois to begin in the autumn of 1915. The British would attack 40 miles south of Ypres at the French coal mining town of Luce. It would be the first time over the top for the men of Kitchener's army. You've got to get on with the job. You've got to go forward and beat the enemy. You were surrounded with a lot of damn good chaps. They were all damn good fellas out to fight for their country. Kitchener said, your king and country needs you. And we were out, that was the first you got shot. Well, that's too bad. Not too bad, but you've got to get on with the job. A huge artillery bombardment to knock out the German defenses would precede the attack. At home, Britain's munitions workers toiled round the clock to meet the demands. 12 hours shift each time. 12 hours, day, one week, 12 hours, night, the next week. You came off at 7.30 Sunday morning and you started on day work, 7.30 on Monday morning. Week in, week out. I had never stayed up all night in my life. When I started on night work, I never thought I'd get through that shift. But I did. Like everything else, it's surprising what you can do when you've got to. Your main object was to get to the German wire as soon as you got your call. You've got to feel like in a race. You're waiting to start off in a race, a sprint or a long-distance race, and you're just waiting for the off. At 6.30 a.m., the men went over the top under a barrage of artillery fire. I was that near to one of the guns that it burst my ear because the eardrum, it bled, it bled, and they had to pack it with cotton wool. So I went over the top with me already wounded. The Battle of Lujes was the 25th of September. Well, I was afraid then. You get the word advance and you advance. You're not on the parade ground when you're over the front. The parade ground, you've got to be so many inches away from each other, but when you go over the top, you can't measure there. Some can run faster than the others. You didn't do anything bloody daft. You know, I'm a British army man. That style, you didn't do that. You went over very quietly. Well, there's a bit of shelter, you took it. Aye, aye. As the men moved forward, it became apparent that the bombardment had failed to destroy the German defences. It's not a nice experience to see neighbours, if you like to call it, neighbours falling by your side. You could feel the whizzing of the machine gun bullets flying past you, just missing you kind of thing. You had to stop, you had to keep on. No matter what happened, even if you had to lose a member of the thousand, you had to keep on going. And the guns would fire almost straight at you. More than once you could hear the whizz of a shell going past. So if you're on my right, I was speaking to him about something, and then I turned to this fellow, I turned back again, you were missing. One of those shells, straight at him, he was missing. Then I turned to this fellow on my left, I said, Bill's gone, and I turned to this fellow, lying there. The shell burst and it was shrapnel flying all over. I knew what had happened and down he went and groaned. If I'd had time to do it, to lift his head up and try to talk to him, that's what I would've tried to do, but no good, he had to keep going. Either that or he'll get trampled on, I warned you all. We've not even said so long to one another, eh? By the end of the battle, British casualty figures totaled over 50,000 men. Over 16,000 had been killed. Among them was Len Whitehead's brother, George. The first we knew of it, of his being killed, was a pal of his, who joined up at much the same time, wrote to my mother, dear Mrs. Whitehead, I am writing to tell you your son George has been killed. My mother, of course, burst into tears, and after a time, when she calmed down a little, she said to me, go and tell your father. My father was ploughing in a field near to the farmhouse and I waited for him to finish about with his plough and two horses. George has been killed, I told him. And he didn't answer, but left his horse all steaming in the mild late October weather, and we walked back in silence to the house. When we got to the house, he went to the bottom of the stairs and called up, that's all right, ain't it? He made no attempt to comfort my mother, but went into the kitchen. Sat in his wooden armchair and put his arms on the table, his head on his arms for a little while, wept, I think. Then he went back to his ploughing. Across Britain, scenes like these were now becoming all too familiar, as thousands were left to mourn lost loved ones. And with no body to bury, it was hard for some to accept that those dearest to them would not be coming home. I was working at Palace Hotel Buxton, a little housemaid, and one of the porters came up with this letter from the war office. When I saw it, my heart sank a little bit. I thought it must be something very, very important. And I thought, if it was a letter from Ted, it would be an ordinary, oh, it would be a smaller affair, a soldier's one, but this one looked quite important. When I opened it, it was to say that they regretted to tell me that Ted had been killed. The letters from me were found on his body, and that's why they could find out where I was, you see. I couldn't really imagine him not being there. I couldn't imagine it. I thought, maybe one day they'll find out they made a mistake, and perhaps he might turn up one day. I couldn't imagine life without him. I couldn't, but it dawned on me after a while, but stayed with me for years, years after.