A LADY NOVELIST AT WAR

by J .R.Lethbridge

Mary Mackay was born out of wedlock on 1 May 1855 in London. Her father, Charles Mackay, was a journalist and songwriter and her mother was Mary Ellen Mills. in 1859 Charles Mackay's wife died and in 1861 he married Mary Mills when their daughter was six.

On growing up Mary Mackay planned to be a professional musician but her public performances were poorly received so she became a journalist using the name Marie Corelli. Her novels mixed family saga, sensationalism, sentimentality, religion and the occult. She was an enemy of the 'Votes for Women' movement satirising it in her novel  “ My Wonderful Wife” in which a man has a wife who smokes, shoots and wears men's clothing.

By 1914 Marie Corelli was a best selling novelist earning an average of ten thousand pounds a book. She lived in Stratford-Upon-Avon with her long standing friend Miss Bertha Vyner. When war broke out as a good patriot Marie Corelli spoke at recruiting rallies, offered her house as a military hospital and donated heavily to the Red Cross but in 1917 she got into trouble with the authorities.

On 2 January 1918 the Stratford magistrates tried Marie Corelli for food hoarding between 5 September and 15 November 1917. The prosecution explained that there were seven people in her household ( I have been unable to discover who the other five were) so she would have been entitled to thirty-two pounds of sugar for this period. She had in fact obtained two hundred and thirty-three pounds from two sources -- a Stratford grocery Noakes and Crofts; and Lipton's a major national food firm.

The police had raided Marie Corelli^'s house on 15 November 1917 and she had told the policeman who led the raid  “I hear you are accusing me of hoarding. I am a patriot and would not think of hoarding. I think you police are overstepping your duty by visiting my house. You are upsetting the country altogether with your food orders and whatnot. Lloyd George will be resigning tomorrow and there will be a revolution in England in less than a week.”

Evidence of Marie Corelli's excessive sugar purchases was give by staff from Noakes and Crofts and an assistant manager from Lipton's. The defence argued that the sugar had been bought for jam making which as a home made food article was exempt from food control orders. What decision did the magistrates reach? Did they:

(a) Send her to prison?

(b) Fine her and if so by how much?

(c) Laugh the case out of court and tell the police to catch some real criminals such as burglars?

Answer overleaf.

FROM THE OTHER SIDE by Bob Butcher

I have not heard tan Passingham's talk about the German Army's Experiences on the Somme but you may perhaps, be interested in how I think that the Germans viewed it:

“Our army was powerful, experienced and confident and even at this stage, still contained a substantial number of the highly trained NCOs with which we had began the war. It was upon them that the superb fighting value of the infantry rested. Our position on the Somme was the strongest part of our entire line and our carefully sited machine guns and artillery combined with formidable barbed wire defences made it seem well nigh impregnable.

The British preceded their assault on 1 July with a long bombardment which left our men largely untouched in our deep dugouts (although it was a different story once they left their comparative safety). Parts of our wire were still uncut. When they heard the cry 'The Tommies are coming' our front line troops raced to man their machine guns and parapets which in places had been heavily damaged by enemy. Regular practice ensured that this could be done in seconds and before the attackers could reach them.

On our left the French advanced in quick elastic formations and were successful. But the British, instead of making probing attacks, advanced in slow long straight lines which enabled our artillery and machine guns time to tear great holes in them. Even when one line had been decimated, another came steadily along to take its place. It seems that no one in command could stop this suicide. On our left the British conducted the attack more skilfully and were successful. Otherwise, the Tommies with great dash and gallantry did penetrate our line in places but mostly gave up when they found themselves to be unsupported on their flanks. The day ended with our line almost entirely intact and we had inflicted very great losses on the obviously amateur attackers.

Looking back on the early days of the Somme it seems that the British commanders were not equal to their tasks in difficult situations. It was noticeable that they attacked with more officers in the line than was our custom, but when these became casualties; the NCOs seemed unable to take command as would have our experienced NCOs. The men lost their heads and surrendered if they thought that they were cut off. It was striking how the British assembled and brought up large bodies of troops in close order into our zone of fire.

The British continued to attack using overwhelming artillery fire. This was a new and severe ordeal for the front line troops. We were witnessing the beginning of the material-Schlact (battle of material) which eventually ground us down. They were obviously learning and as the offensive continued on its bloody way, they succeeded in capturing position after position although usually at considerable loss to themselves. If we lost any ground we always counter attacked but found that once Tommy had consolidated a position, he was very hard to dislodge.

Generally the enemy tactics improved but were always clumsy. The British artillery fire to which we were continuously subjected was hard to bear for we were never free from it: it seemed to increase in both volume and accuracy and caused us such heavy casualties, particularly among the veteran NCOs, that we reduced the number of men manning the front line trenches to reduce them.

The successful dawn attack on our second position on the Bazentin Ridge in July with only moderate casualties, and the capture of Thiepval in September showed that the British were becoming more formidable, but the frontal attacks over open ground against a portion of our unshaken infantry, carried out by several British cavalry regiments which had to retire with heavy losses give some indication of the tactical knowledge of their High Command. The introduction of tanks was not skilfully handled.

The Somme became the muddy grave of the German field army and what still remained of the old first class peace trained infantry had been expended on the battlefield. As Ludendorff said, we had been fought to a standstill and were utterly worn out. We never fought quite so well afterwards although we were always formidable but the idea began to form that we were not, after all, invincible. Moreover the seriousness of the British offensive left us with no alternative but to halt our Verdun attacks.”

NOTE: Much of the above assessment of the British has been abstracted from a German monograph on the experiences of the German IV Corps on the Somme.

ANSWER: (b) The magistrates were divided but the majority agreed that Marie Corelli should be fined fifty pounds with twenty-one pounds (twenty guineas) costs. This was about fourteen thousand pounds by our standards but given her wealth the main blow was to her pride. Her novels declined in popularity and she died of heart disease in 1924 aged sixty-eight.

 

 

The Bulletin of the Birmingham Branch of the WFA

Compiled by Bob Butcher

September 2006 2006