Tuesday Oct 1 1918 Letter from Alfred Forbes Johnson to wife Essie

The news continues to be splendid from all fronts. We have been doing another push and are now hoping it will last for a bit, so keen are we on the war. Reading: Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (from 1816)

T.E.Lawrence enters #Damascus w/ Arab troops, getting "a tremendous but impromptu greeting" from locals https://t.co/25DitntJy4 pic.twitter.com/4nSx90oZcY

— Tweets from WW1 (@RealTimeWW1) 1 October 2018

Lady Mary’s diary: Weds October 2nd 1918

Did nothing but study the map. Am pretty well up in the various sectors. pm walked and turned in by chance at Jephson’s cottage. They kept me to tea and I had a most moving talk with Captain the Rev. He thinks the German game is up. He was all thro’ Gallipoli.

[William Jephson, former curate at Beaminster, and Rector of parishes including Highclere in Berkshire, had served as chaplain with the 9th Hampshires in England, Egypt & the Dardanelles. He played first class cricket for Hampshire until 1914 and later captained Dorset]

A very sad letter arrived from Lee “I have gone and tried to end my life and should have done so if my husband had not prevented me, as it sends me out of my mind with the pain - after two children I have been in terrible pain for 7 years - I am pregnant again- what can I do?

I replied to Lee “so at this stage there is nothing I can do to help”- so very sad that women in 1918 are not in control of their bodies

2/10/1918: Ltr from Alfred Forbes Johnson to Essie Today I have been out with Simpson to a town where I was when I first came out. It is all in ruins now.

I am writing this is a crowded mess with the table covered with the latest papers and everyone discussing the news.

Olive Harcourt’s diary 4th Oct 1918

Postchild and Perry so funny, throwing about a potato in the kitchen & playing up splendidly. In the evening I hold their hands and said Postchild was a great artist and I knew that because I had been much among them.

He looked at me very earnestly and said: “Miss ’Arcourt, you & me is one.” Convoy arrived yesterday.

[At the age of 22, Henry Postchild (born 1989 in Stepney in 1889) was living with his parents and working as a ‘carman’. By 1915 when he enlisted in the Suffolks (16617) he was described as a stevedore. In 1950 he was living in Tower Hamlets]

Sat 5th Oct Letter from from Alfred Forbes Johnson to his wife Essie

Yesterday I walked about 10 miles with the Major to see the war.

I divide my days into a walk, reading and playing bridge in the evening.

Reading: The Adventures of Roderick Random, Tobias Smollett (1824)

Lady Mary’s diary: Mon Oct 7th 1918

The Germans being driven back at all points this morning, wish to open negotiations with America for “an honourable peace” an impudent German peace: that will not do. A great emotion to think they have come to this. They are burning our beautiful old French towns as they retreat. I hear my beautiful old Laon is in flames. No cathedral safe.The French will take their revenge at Berlin. This day week Bulgaria surrendered unconditionally and today the cry is the Germans shall do the same and receive their punishment

Letter from Alfred Forbes Johnson to his wife Essie, 9th October 1918 We have been pushing the Hun back again, but still there is a general air of fedupness due to lack of all the comforts of life..

"If you this very night should ride to death, Straight from the piteous passion of my arms..." Forgotten female poet of WW1 Mary Borden to be honoured at armistice centenary https://t.co/K4AbnJSiJD @guardian @mariestopes1918 @LadyMonkswell @OliveHarcourt

— Voices from 1918 (@VoicesFrom1918) October 10, 2018

Lady Mary’s diary: Oct 10th 1918

President Wilson replies to the German Chancellor that there will be no pause and no talk till they have cleared out of all their conquests France, Belgium, Servia, Romania, Montnegro, Italy, Russia and Poland. Saw a very noble cartoon by B Partridge “Die Wacht am Rhein” the exhausted Hun like a beaten wild beast.

Friday Oct 11th 1918 We hear today that our enemy has sunk “Leinster” an Irish liner crossing from Dublin - lots of women and children and this when they want peace. And a Japanese passenger steamer. Altogether some 800 lives lost. We have taken Le Cateau.

Hit in the leg by a British shell fragment, Guardsman Fred Noakes has to walk - or limp - two miles to a dressing station

We went over the top again at 5.30 and I was wounded just after six. It is a very cushy one, almost too cushy, for I am afraid it is not bad enough to get me to England. We knelt down to allow the barrage to go forward, when – whiz – crash! A shell screamed over my head.

— Fred Noakes (@fredtwells) 10 October 2018

The loss of RMS Leinster on Oct 10 1918 with more than 500 on board was the greatest loss of life in the Irish Sea.

The added irony pointed out by Lady Mary was that it came just four days after the Germans had asked US President Woodrow Wilson for peace

On 10 October 1918, the RMS Leinster departed from Dún Laoghaire en route to Holyhead just before 9am.

With an estimated 771 passengers and crew on board, the ship was hit by three German torpedoes and sunk just before 10am with the loss of over 580 lives. pic.twitter.com/TguzDbmsgy

— Siobhán Doyle (@thekickart) 10 October 2018

Lady Mary’s diary: Saturday October 12th 1918

Greatest indignation over the Leinster outrage. This may perhaps bring Ireland round.

Short piece here about him: https://t.co/CzVWhwjXg3 His book Recollections of a prisoner of war sounds worth a read. Hopefully @LadyMonkswell will say more in her diary about him! @HLFSouthWest @shascreenplay @alastair https://t.co/eCURYfhdHB

— Voices from 1918 (@VoicesFrom1918) 13 October 2018

Lady Mary’s diary: Monday Oct 13th 1918

What may this week bring! It is almost paralysing to read the Spectator and the Observer to take in that we have won the war: the wicked cruel enemy asking for peace (see vulgar poem) I must take it slowly. No more thought of invasion, no more air-raids and I hope very soon, no more U-boats. Every morning I hope to mark on my map the rapid retreats and hear of immense masses of prisoners guns and material captured. The most immediate anxiety is of our precious prisoners Godfrey Phillimore Jack Mellon.

[According to the IWM Lt Godfrey Phillimore (above) went missing presumed dead on the Western Front on April 5th 1916. (https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205387095 …) Godfrey, 2nd Baron Phillimore, served with the Highland Light Infantry, was captured in 1916 and spent the rest of the war in a prison camp. He wrote a book about his time in captivity entitled Recollections of a prisoner of war (Arnold 1930)]

Lady Mary’s diary: Tues October 15th 1918

In much agitation as to what President Wilson would say in reply to Germany.

I hear now (Tues 5pm) a telegram has come in that his reply is “unconditional surrender. We know now where we are. The Bosh thought they were going to get “armistice before evacuation”.

The battlefields filmed in colour in the 1930's by Anne Louise Avery's grandfather. “I cry every time I watch it. He only spoke of sharp fragments of his experiences - the time his pal, a regiment cook, accidentally cut off a couple of fingers in the horrendous cold, using pee to try to protect himself from mustard gas, friend after friend dying in front of him.”

Once more, as we approach Armistice Centenary, my grandfather's 1920s colour film of his pilgrimage to visit the trenches - the corn fields still strewn with rusting tanks, the war memorials freshly carved, the crosses of young lads still in greening oak. https://t.co/5nLx77clTn

— Anne Louise Avery (@AnneLouiseAvery) 14 October 2018

Oct 15 1918 letter from Alfred Forbes Johnson to wife Essie.

What do you think of the news now? I really think the end is not far off. I see the Daily Mail tries to make out that these negotiations won't come to anything chiefly because they don’t wish it.

Writing from hospital. Having ankle massaged and expect to be here about three weeks. I have finished Roderick Random (Tobias Smollett 1748) and shall soon have to search the hospital for literature.

British sailors at a naval convalescent hospital playing a game of football, 1916. @FootballArchive @MemorabiliaMal pic.twitter.com/r7F2oYAeLK

— Jeff Nichols (@backwards_river) 17 October 2018

Weds Oct 16th 1918

The President’s words are in the paper. Generals in the field Foch, Haig and Allenby are to dictate the terms. The outrages to stop at once. Arbitrary power to cease, the Kaiser and Junkers to go. This before the thought of armistice will be even for a moment considered. Of course the Kaiser will go on fighting as long as he can get his army to fight.[adds later] No, he ran away.

From Times “Nothing is more singular that the utter incapacity of the ordinary German mind to understand the situation. They express indignant surprise that President Wilson should venture to require from Germany any guarantees at all.” They must awaken before long.

#WW1 Cheadle Hume Hospital. https://t.co/dgo3HetuGn pic.twitter.com/tZLbqKaMHS

— ww1photos .org (@WW1photos_org) 17 October 2018

Saturday Oct 19th 1918

The most wonderful week of our lives. It is clear the Bosch will fight on to the last. Will settle himself on the line of the Meuse

Monday October 21st 1918 President Wilson refuses Armistice in Austria, he stands quite firm

Tuesday 22nd October The German reply makes curiously little impression upon one. For so great an occasion it seems so slight. It denies its outrages says the U-boats are told to leave passenger boats, and is supported by the German “people”. We cannot stop fighting for this.

19/10/2018

Other letters such as this one come...“I have read your book Married love and consider it the best advice I have seen for husbands...A writer here (Ohio) advises a short nap of an hour before intercourse. Do you think this advisable?

Married Love is not on sale in America as yet

He continues “Would you please give me a few hints as to the best method of bringing about the proper state, especially with regard to the best approach on the first night?”

I also note your discovery of a periodic rise in the sex feeling of women. Would you advise picking out one of these periods for the wedding date?”

If the wedding night is spent on board a sleeping car would it be better to put off first intercourse until the quiet of a hotel or house? I ask you these questions so I can start off right. Thank you very much - James

Marie Stopes - a Wiltshire librarian asks “I get shy request for books on birth control. What is the best, safest book to give a young woman who is getting married shortly?...the whole thing must be kept strictly private, as interfering people might object to my giving even bibliographic info

#WW1 Soldier poses with two young french girls - https://t.co/Xy2fTYQ5g4 pic.twitter.com/drL1fmfWD1

— David Doughty (@DavidWDoughty) 21 October 2018

James Sansom: Sunday October 20th 1918 We have had three weeks at a village called Allouagne and although we have been hard worked we are out of the scrapping for a while

23.10.18 We move again this time 50k to Aseq. I go in a motor instead of marching. We remain here while taking in wounded and having air raids. We are billeted in an old chateau in a ruined village. Rumours of peace all the time though the fighting is just as heavy

#WW1 #Wakefield nurse Nellie Spindler was working in 44 Casualty Clearing Station, Brandhoek. On 21st August 1917, the hospital was shelled all day. She was struck at 11am, became unconscious immediately, and died 20 minutes later in the arms of Nurse Wood, also from Wakefield. https://t.co/8OPUaTHPvn

— WW1 Lives (@ww1lives) 22 October 2018

Lady Mary’s diary Thurs 24th October

Prince Max of Baden the German Chancellor makes use of the words “..go under with honour” Terrible words for Germany to hear. Balfour says the Huns shall not have their colonies restored to them in East and West Africa and New Brunswick near Australia

Saturday 26th October I went to see Mrs Beament today, her worthy, excellent husband cabinet maker and carpenter died last week.She said I had been a great consolation.I put this down to encourage myself. My own little doings obliterated in the great world movement.

26.10.1918 Letter from Alfred Johnson to his wife Essie:

What do you think of the news now? I am still inclined to think that an Armistice will be signed in a few weeks time, which I take it will mean the end of the fighting. Reading: Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope

Oct 21st 1918 Update to Alfred Johnson from a battery colleague. We pushed off straight into action the day after you left, had another ‘do’ and are now in delightful billets in beds & and untouched houses with glass in the windows - all the furniture and ornaments intact.

The liberated inhabitants are weeping on our necks, gardens filled with vegetables of all kinds. In the words of the poet we are quids in. The only trouble is trying to keep Lee & Gregson in order where the two Mademoiselles of the house are concerned

Across a world where all men grieve, and grieving strive the more - Rudyard Kipling's poem Justice from Lady Mary's 1918 diary @ww1lives @ww1lit @poetryww1 @DorsetArchives https://t.co/2xtYDp5Jlz

— Voices from 1918 (@VoicesFrom1918) 26 October 2018

Lady Mary’s diary 27.10.18

The news is too immense for private life. Service 11 Good sermon from Mr Davies: we are to forgive the Germans where they repent and make full reparation (so there is no hurry)

November 1st 1918

These wonderful days. Almost dazed with the news that pours in upon us. Turkey’s unconditional surrender. Immense Italian victory from the Trentino to the sea.

Returned home after three days with Mrs Godden at Compton House. Most thankful to have dear little house. Know and like Mrs Godden all the better.

She regrets having missed the clever people I have been privileged to meet and know. En revanche, I love her beautiful country home. Influenza is upon us.

74th General Hospital BEF lettter from Alfred Forbes Johnson to his wife Essie 29 October 1918:

I am glad to see the MG [Manchester Guardian] after a spell of the Daily Mail. I don't think one need be despondent about peace. There is a strong rumour that Austria has given in. I don't know what it is worth

Reading A Change in the Cabinet by Hillaire Belloc

How did I become a nursing orderly at Beaucroft ? It all started with a women’s demonstration in London.
Follow my story in Tommy’s Sisters Nov 9,10,11 in a double bill with The Gathering https://t.co/Q9y1tAAAdp @artsreach @artsdevco @StorytellingUK Wimborne tickets: 01202 886116 pic.twitter.com/DhGcoS5EVV

— Olive Harcourt (@OliveHarcourt) 31 October 2018