August 4th, 1914 - The Tree Brothers go to War

This is extracted and slightly edited by me, from a book called Orate Fratres, written and privately published by Jessie Tree, my husband's great aunt.  It seemed appropriate to post here today. I've posted some bad poetry I wrote about these three boys on this site which has their pictures.

I well remember a long argument on August 3rd, 1914, in which all three of my brothers maintained that war was an unmitigated evil and yet that very week Charlie went to Oxford to volunteer for service, and the following month all were in the army, a striking example of volunteering purely and simply from a sense of duty. War had no glamour for them.

War was declared while we were on holiday. So little did any of us understand its significance that it struck us almost with amusement when the news came that Charlie had volunteered. It seemed so extraordinary to think of Charlie, of all men, as a soldier, and so unnecessary too, for had it not been proved that it was economically impossible for a war on this scale to last for more than three weeks?
However, as the three weeks went by and August grew into September and things grew worse instead of better, it seemed probable that we should have to face, three months of it instead of three weeks. And then came Kitchener's appeal for three years-or for the duration. And we left off theorising as to how impossible it was for the war to last much longer, for we felt we were up against the unknown, and we began to consider how we could each one of us "do our bit." To Frank and Peter their course of action was obvious, they without any fuss, and as the natural thing to do, joined up. Frank was gazetted to the l0th Worcesters, and Peter entered the ranks in the Public School Corps.
For the first year they all remained in England, and we congratulated ourselves on our good luck. The amount of leave obtained by the two elder boys was very uneven; this was partly due no
doubt to the difference in the characters of their Company Commanders, but partly also to the difference in their own characters. Charlie, rather conscientious and shy, seldom asked for leave and seldom got it. Frank's attitude towards life, on the other hand, was "have as good a time as possible, and combine pleasure with duty as far as possible." Besides he was to marry a wife, and a week-end leave he considered a necessity. He had, too, luckily for him, a Company Commander who was anxious for his officers to marry before they went out, and who gave away leaves to likely candidates as often as possible. So Frank we saw about one week-end in three, Charlie not more than three times in the whole year.
Of Charlie's life as a soldier there is little to be said. The tale is soon told. After passing through the O.T.E. at Royston he was given a commission in the 9th Worcesters, and spent a year in training his men, moving about from one part of England to another' according to the whim of the War Office. He spent most of the year on various parts of Salisbury Plain. He got, I think, about as much interest out of the war as possible considering how distasteful such a life was to a man of his highly-strung temperament. He said little, but just on one or two occasions he gave vent to his real opinions. On one occasion he was asked how he liked the army." Like it?" He wheeled round on the questioner with a look of astonishment. That was all, but those two words spoke volumes. But he never let this distaste show in his work, and what probably saved him from utter boredom was the genuine  interest he took in his men, and he was as a result much beloved by them. He very soon won, too, the affection of his senior officers, especially of the Colonel, who, we are told, never went anywhere if he could help it without taking "the Tree boy" with him. In this connection one of his great friends in the battalion wrote: "The men of his platoon would do anything for him, and among the officers he was recognised as the ablest of the subalterns, as he was most certainly the most popular."
In June, 1915, after very nearly a whole year of training, and after many false alarms, the 9th Worcesters left England. They went in the end rather suddenly, and Charlie never had his last leave, in many ways rather a good thing, for as it is our last memory connected with him is of a peculiarly happy Whitsuntide, with no thought of long farewells to overshadow the meeting.
Somehow we never expected him to come through. I don't know how it was, we did not feel the same with the others, but about him we all had a deep conviction that when his good-bye came it would be a final one. This feeling was shared, or perhaps it would be more correct to say was led, by himself. That he looked forward to no future in this world is evidenced by his retort to someone who was meditating on what he would do after the war. What's the good of worrying about that? You don't suppose any of us will come out of this alive, do you?"
The battalion left Avonmouth in the Cawdor Castle on the 22nd of June, and sailed for the Dardanelles, the voyage taking about three weeks. We had three long cheery letters from him during the voyage, which in spite of rather close quarters he seems to have enjoyed  greatly. He was much interested in the glimpse of Eastern life, and was particularly - fascinated by Malta and the Mediterranean coast. Writing to Miss Rochfort about a glimpse he had had of Tangier, where she had once lived, he says: Saw the Outskirts of Tangier the other day, and lost my heart to it. Am praying to St. Anthony about it. Having a splendid time." (Miss Rochfort, our old nurse, is a firm devotee of St. Anthony, and Charlie used often to tease her about it.) From Alexandria he wrote: The chief disadvantage of Egypt is the plague of flies, which is still going strong, and the smells in the narrower streets are novel rather than pleasant."
After two or three days in Alexandria the battalion sailed for the Dardanelles. He wrote of that: The opinion of authority is that we shall gain a big success - out here before long, say within four or five weeks."
The following is the last letter we had from him;
"5.5. Cawdor Castle, Near the Dardanelle;
"I wrote yesterday to say we were going up to the trenches, but we were put off for a day. However, we are going this afternoon, and land there sometime after dark. I don't suppose we shall go into the firing line for a day or two. We have an ample supply - of papers and weeklies coming out. Everyone is looking very fit after the voyage and in the best of spirits. We heard this morning that the British gained a useful line of trenches yesterday. I rather gather from what we hear that we are likely to be on the defensive now for several days, so that our first experience of war will be fairly safe. I believe one of our troopships had a narrow escape from a submarine on the way out, but none have been hit. I am glad to hear that Frank and Evers have been promoted. Frank ought to be enjoying his three weeks in London. I don't suppose he will learn as much about soldiering as I shall during the next few weeks, but he will probably enjoy it more. I expect we shall find it a bit hot at first, but we are wearing light clothes, and shall do very little moving about for some time. The nights are very pleasantly - cool out here except on the lower deck, where the atmosphere is stifling. We have regularly been playing bridge at nights in an atmosphere thick with smoke, all port-holes shut and about 120 degrees. So we have no fear of asphyxiating gases now, as a matter of fact I don't think they are using them out here. Everyone seems to agree that the Turks fight very fair. I shall be able to let you know myself presently. I am afraid we are going the rest of the way in small boats, trawlers, or destroyers, so that we shall probably be thoroughly sea-sick before the day is out. I think I marked enough books in that list to last till Constantinople, when I shall doubtless be able to get some myself.”
Events proved how wrong his optimism was. The slaughter was awful. Out of the whole battalion hardly one returned to tell the tale, if they escaped in one engagement it was only to be cut down in the next. What exactly happened we never heard from him, but we gathered a fairly full account from what a fellow officer wrote, and afterwards told us.

He wrote:
"You will have heard before you get this from the War Office of your son's death. It was on the night of the 17th that he was with his platoon in a part of the line where the enemy was only about fifty
yards away. In the middle of the night the Turks set fire to our barricades in front of our trench, and your boy received a bayonet wound while supervising the defence of the most critical point in the trench line. He was so brave about it all, pretended that it was only a scratch, and was only taken away on a stretcher when things were going all right. He was brought down to the sea the day before yesterday, and died last night on a hospital ship.
"He was the bravest of the brave. The day before he was wounded he repaired a parapet with some of his platoon under heavy fire with the coolness of a seasoned soldier. The men of his platoon would do anything for him. Among the officers he was recognised as the ablest of the subalterns, as he was certainly the most popular. As for myself, I have lost my greatest friend in the regiment. Since last September we have lived together and worked together, till I have come to feel him to be a brother.
"I have collected as much of his kit as I can, and am sending it to be forwarded to you. I took out all the tobacco in it and gave it to the men of his platoon, as I felt sure he would like it to have been used in some such way."
To many it seems highly tragic that he should have thrown up a brilliant teaching career for two days' fighting. Perhaps in one way it was a waste, and yet to us who knew his highly-strung temperament, looking back with the war still raging three and a half years after his death, it is a matter of thankfulness that he had been spared further horrors. We do not look upon it as "waste;' for we are convinced that he is carrying on higher service "beyond the stars."