Centenary of the Armistice

Mark Francois Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Mr Speaker, thank you very much for allowing me to participate in this important debate, in which we have heard excellent Back-Bench and Front-Bench contributions in commemoration of all those who gave their life in that epic conflict which became the first world war. Although I do not come from a military family per se, my father Reginald Francois fought in the second war, on a minesweeper at D-day, and my grandfather Matthew John Francois served in the first war in the Rifle Brigade, joining up in his 30s. He lost his leg as a casualty.

The first world war massively influenced the development of this country in social, economic, military and political terms, but I would like to focus on another area in which it greatly influenced this country: our cultural history. The first world war has been depicted in many art forms, not least in film. Famous movies such as “Oh! What a Lovely War”, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, “Gallipoli” and, more recently, “War Horse” have given us vivid depictions, both satirical and brutally realistic, of life in the trenches. There have also been books and plays of many kinds; “Birdsong” and “Journey’s End” are two that spring readily to mind.

However, some of the most evocative memories from the first world war are brought to us by the soldiers who became known as the war poets. These were young men, mainly—although not exclusively—from English public schools, who served as junior officers or in other ranks, predominantly on the western front. One of the earlier, arguably more optimistic, war poets, Rupert Brooke, was born on 3 August 1887, the son of a housemaster at Rugby School. Educated at Rugby and then King’s College, Cambridge, he was commissioned into the Royal Naval Division in 1914, before being redeployed to Gallipoli in March 1915, where he became fatally ill and died of blood poisoning that April. However, while on leave in December 1914, Brooke wrote his five war sonnets, of which the most famous is undoubtedly “The Soldier”.

“If I should die think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.”

As the war progressed, the mood of the war poets changed. In Siegfried Sassoon’s “The General”, he expresses great scorn for those who gave the orders that led men to die. In the latter stages of the war came Wilfrid Owen, who was born on 18 March 1893, the son of a former mayor who had fallen on hard times. He never attended university, but in 1916 he was commissioned into the Manchester Regiment. In 1917, Owen wrote arguably the most famous of all the war poems, “Dulce et Decorum Est”. The final verse refers to a casualty:

“If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.”

Contrary to the “Blackadder” theory of world war one—of senseless slaughter in the trenches, with no gains by either side—in the summer and autumn of 1918 the British Army did get it right. It breached the impenetrable Hindenburg line and broke the back of the German army. Using new tactics of combined arms, short and sudden artillery bombardments and the mass use of tanks, the British Army comprehensively defeated the Germans in the field and brought about the Armistice. By a great irony, Wilfred Owen was awarded the Military Cross in October 1918, and on 4 November, just one week before the Armistice, he was killed leading his platoon in an assault on the Sambre-Oise canal.

The great writings of these men live on today to remind us of the horror of war, and of trench warfare in particular. We must never forget the sacrifices that were made so that we can continue to live in a free country. Lest we forget.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ruth Smeeth (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

It is a huge responsibility to follow the last two extraordinary speeches from my friend the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn). I think that everyone in the Chamber was touched by both.

We use the phrase very easily, but it is a genuine privilege to take part in this debate and to pay tribute to all those who serve and have served and especially to the memory of all those who fought in the great war of 1914-18 and their families. For the first time in history, an entire generation was touched by the horrors of war. One hundred years on, there are still no words to articulate the sacrifice they made or the debt we owe. There can be no tributes to meet the measure of the price paid, lives lost or impact on our society.

In the spirit of honour and remembrance, however, we try as best we can. As we approach the centenary of the Armistice, it has been awe-inspiring to see the outpouring of support and commemoration across the country, especially in my own constituency. I recently had the great pleasure of visiting the Weeping Window installation at Middleport pottery, installed in the heart of my constituency. As well as being a powerful and beautiful commemoration of our fallen heroes, the ceramic poppies that cascaded from our bottle kiln served as a beautiful tribute to our own city’s heritage and craftsmanship.

These commemorations convey so clearly and so movingly the Potteries’ wartime history and the people of our community who lived in the shadow of war. North Staffordshire has a proud military tradition, past and present, and my constituency is home to many service families, for whom this season of remembrance holds a deep importance. I am sure I speak for everyone in this place when I say to them: thank you. Thank you for what you have done for our country and for the sacrifices you have made in our defence.

In each of the six towns of Stoke-on-Trent and the villages and communities in between, our permanent memorials have been joined by other tributes as our community comes together to pay our respects. One example is the brilliant There But Not There project, which was honoured in the recent Budget. It is an art installation whose aim is to put figures representing every name on local war memorials in the places around the country where their absence was felt, whether in schools, workplaces or places of worship. From St John’s Church in Burslem and its beautiful poppy display to Milton parish church, where parishioners have knitted more than 3,000 poppies to adorn their building, local people are doing their part to mark this historic occasion.

As part of the Stoke-on-Trent Remembers campaign, a series of silhouettes—made and designed locally by Andy Edwards and PM Training—has been installed in each of the six towns. The 8-foot-high steel figures depict a real account of a local person’s experiences of war. There are stories such as that of Corporal A. P. Oakes, of Scotia Road, Burslem and the 1st Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment, who was present for the Christmas Day truce at Flanders in 1914. In his diaries, Corporal Oakes described his experience of that all too brief moment of humanity between the trenches:

“Our chaps started to shout across good humouredly, and the Germans replied in the same spirit. Then both sides got on top of their respective trenches, and one man from both sides met half way. Then peace on earth, good will to all men! was the order of the day, or rather the night... They all seemed anxious for a speedy termination of the war and one fellow made us all laugh by saying that both sides should stand back-to-back and advance.”

Across our community, there have been so many wonderful stories of commemoration. I was particularly struck this week by news that a quilt embroidered by 60 soldiers who had been recovering at the Stoke War Hospital had been rediscovered more than 100 years after it had been stitched. The quilt had previously been unveiled at Newcastle-under-Lyme’s municipal hall in 1917, and raffled to raise funds for the hospital. It is a beautiful and touching reminder of the hardships that so many faced in those years. I hope that that beautiful quilt will end up alongside the recently found “Bayeux tapestry” of world war one, painted in 1923 by members of the 5th Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment to remember 960 of their fallen comrades. It is now on display at the Potteries Museum in the constituency of my hon. Friend and neighbour the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell).

It would take far more time than I have today to offer a full account of North Staffordshire’s contributions to the war effort. Undoubtedly, such a history would include the likes of Corporal Albert Ernest Egerton, a Potteries soldier with the Sherwood Foresters, who earned the Victoria Cross during the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge on 20 September 1917. Corporal Egerton single-handedly charged a machine gun nest, shooting three German gunners, and forced the surrender of 29 enemy soldiers. His comrades in that assault included another Stoke-on-Trent soldier, Sergeant Major E. Kelly, who led a charge in which four machine guns were taken out of action and 30 enemy troops captured. He received the Distinguished Conduct Medal for his actions.

These were incredible acts of heroism, but such acts were repeated a thousandfold by so many men, from the Potteries and beyond, who risked, and so often lost, their lives in the defence of their country and of the men serving beside them. These were the extraordinary deeds of ordinary people.

[Mr Francois]

Does the hon. Lady agree that as she has two pages left and only 15 seconds, an intervention would come in handy?

[Ruth Smeeth]

The right hon. Gentleman is a good man.

This Sunday, one century on, we will honour and remember those people. We will remember, too, all those who have lost their lives in all the conflicts since and pay our respects to today’s serving and veteran armed forces personnel. However, as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces covenant, I am all too aware that we owe much more than respect. We owe a duty of care to those who continue to serve in our military. That means ensuring that the armed forces covenant is really delivering and that our service personnel are getting the support that they need. It also means supporting local groups such as the brilliant Staffordshire Tri Services and Veterans Support Centre, so that they can continue to work to support veterans.

At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, we will remember them. But we must ensure that our history informs our present and that our commemoration of those who have gone is matched by our commitment to those who remain.