Thursday November 7th, 1918
Parade 9:15. Practice 10am till 12 noon and from 2pm till 3pm. Raining hard. Good news from the line.
News from the Front
Frank is still in Le Cateau today and the band is practicing hard. He claims ‘Good news from the Line’. The 9th Battalion would be an unlikely source for this update as it is still making its way to the front. Instead news must be trickling in from elsewhere. As a humble Private, I don’t think that Frank will be receiving any official updates. After all, we know that Haig is keen that his troops focus on prosecuting the war not on the propaganda of peace. However General Jack, obviously much closer to the top brass, does record some good tidings in his diary today:
‘…The British Armies are across the Sambre; the Americans, too, have won a great battle in the south.
General Ludendorff, Commander of the German Armies, has resigned.
In the afternoon Sir Claud Jacob calls and says he thinks the war is virtually over. German delegates have left Berlin for Marshal Foch’s Headquarters at Compiègne to sue for an Armistice.
The news is almost too good to be true; we still hear the distant boom of guns.‘¹
General Jack clearly isn’t going to count his chickens…
News on the Home Front
Today, the British newspapers also report the German ‘Armistice Mission’ from Berlin. It apparently comprises two Generals and two Admirals and is at the behest of the German Government (as opposed to the German High Command and the Kaiser). Whether or not it will be empowered to agree terms of the Armistice or just report back is as yet unclear.
Unfortunately this news isn’t enough to stop the calling up of men under the current conscription terms. Sir Auckland Geddes however does report that ‘possibilities of any relaxation of the instructions with regard to recruiting, particularly in the case of married men over 45, are kept under constant consideration, and we might, he thought, legitimately hope that before long some relaxation will be possible.’
Cleanliness and Godliness
We have reported on this site about the Tommies’ cleanliness – and the reaction of foreigners to this apparent obsession. Today, there is a rumour that the Government is to take control of the British soap industry. Soap is in short supply because many of its traditional ingredients are now going into butter and lard substitutes.
‘Whatever the cause, the Englishman makes of his ablutions a mightily serious ritual. Dickens wrote of the vigorous application of soap and water in a mood of almost mystical exaltation. In Mark Twain (who in these days seems more an Englishman then ever) soap is somewhere mentioned as fundamental to the uplifting and civilising of peoples. To an enormous number of people in this country Millais is known only because his art was pressed into the service of soap.’
‘It would only be fitting, then, should ours be the first of Governments to lift up the soap industry to a position of imperative national importance.’²
The painting, referred to above, was by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, John Everett Millais and is of his grandson. Painted by Millais later in his career, it was used for many years on the advertisements for Pears Soap.
Fittingly, it can still be viewed at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Port Sunlight. However, its use was not universally welcomed and some of Millais’ admirers accused him of ‘selling out’.
9th Battalion War Diary – 7th November 1918 – Maroilles
Battalion moved to Marbaix and billeted there.
References & Further Reading
¹ ‘General Jack’s Diary, War on the Western Front 1914-1918’ edited by John Terraine, Cassell, 2003, (1964). Page 295
² ‘The Guardian’ newspaper November 7th, 1918, page 4
* ‘Bubbles‘, painting believed to be in the public domain, Wikipedia