1941: On this day, 814 20-year-old city girls responded to their call-up papers - although some forgot their registration card! Many of the girls had come with their mothers, while others had their boyfriends for company. Some are described as arriving 'with an army escort on either side'. Quite a few perambulators are also recorded as being parked outside the building. (Gray, David, Peterborough at War 1939-1945, David Gray, 2011)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.
The Memorial Hospital was opened by Field Marshal Sir William Robertson in 1928, as a memorial to those of the city and the 6th Northamptonshire Regiment who died in the First World War, it replaced the Peterborough Infirmary; the building that had housed the infirmary becoming Peterborough Museum.
When the Memorial Hospital opened it had six wards in three blocks: separate male and female surgical and medical wards, an accident ward and a children's ward. It had 150 beds, two operating theatres, a radiology department, a small casualty department, and outpatients, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy departments. A separate hospital at Fengate was used to treat infectious diseases.
The Memorial hospital was transferred to the newly formed National Health Service in 1948.
On Thursday the 6th of August 1914, just after the outbreak of World War I, a crowd gathered outside the Westgate butcher shop owned by the German Frederick Frank, shouting insults and singing patriotic songs. The next day, Friday 7th August things turned nastier and stones were thrown, breaking the shop windows. This developed into a riot and the shop was badly damaged and its stock scattered. The Chief Constable rang the mayor, Sir Richard Winfrey, who arrived on his bicycle and read the Riot Act. The police were assisted by the Northampton Yeomanry in restoring order. On Saturday the 8th of August the unrest continued and a public house on Long Causeway, the Salmon and Compass was attacked.
Following this trouble 24 men were brought before the magistrates, 3 were jailed, others were fined, bound over to keep the peace or recruited into the armed forces.
The Great Eastern Soldier’s and Sailor’s Rest Room opened on Christmas Eve 1915 at Peterborough East Railway Station. The rooms were managed by the Women’s United Total Abstinence Council (WUTAC), supporters of the temperance movement popular at that time.
During the first nine days alone, 321 servicemen called at the tea room. They were given food, drink and an opportunity to rest in comfort whilst waiting for their trains to and from the front. The ladies who managed the tea room encouraged the men to write in the visitors’ books, only two of which have survived from 1916 and 1917.
There are over 590 signatures in the books that reveal the servicemen came from across the United Kingdom and as far away as Australia. They wrote messages of gratitude, poetry and drew pictures expressing their appreciation for the service that the ladies were providing. These two slim volumes provide a brief insight into the thoughts and feelings of the men transiting through the city during the Great War.
The books have been digitised and transcribed and the servicemen’s personal histories researched in an effort to tell their story and trace their families.
World War 1 ( also known as the Great War) was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. It led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel and directly resulted in an estimated nine million combatant and seven million civilian deaths. It completely changed the world, politically, economically and socially.
The immediate cause for World War 1 was the assassination in Sarajevo of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his pregnant wife Sophie on June 28th, 1914. Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was the nephew of Emperor Franz Josef and heir to the throne of Austria and Hungary. The assassin was a Bosnian revolutionary called Gavrilo Princip but the assassination was [planned by a Serbian terrorist group called The Black Hand.
Though the assassination was the trigger for war there were many political factors that led up to it. Before the onset of war there were a number of defence alliances between the major European countries, which meant that if one country declared war on another, the other allied countries would also have to enter the conflict. Germany was allied with Austria-Hungary, known as the Central Powers, whilst Britain, France and Russia were part on an alliance called the Triple Entente.
After the Archduke’s assassination Austria-Hungary threatened to go to war on Serbia, Germany supported Austria-Hungary and the Russians supported Serbia. One month after the assassination, on 28 July 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia with the backing of Germany and on 1 August 1914 Germany declared war on Russia then, on 3 August 1914, on France.
On 4 August 1914, German troops marched on France through Belgium and, as Britain had guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany. The first clash between British and German forces was on 23 August 1914 at the Battle of Mons in Belgium.
In Peterborough as soon as war was declared there was a rush of volunteers to a recruiting office established on Cathedral Square, in the first week over 160 men signed up. Peterborians joined local regiments like the Huntingdonshire Cyclists Battalion. 'Pals' units were made up of men from the same town or factory; men who worked for Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins (now Baker Perkins) were recruited into 'Werner's Own' and ‘Whitsed’s Light Infantry’ was also made up of Peterborough men. Both of these were part of the Northamptonshire Regiment.
Image:
The Official Visits To the Western Front, 1914-1918
Troops of the 1st Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment marching past Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught, at his inspection of the 2nd Brigade. Near Bruay, 1st July 1918. The Imperial War Museum.
References:
See links
World War 1 ended at 11am on 11 November 1918. Germany surrendered and the fighting ended with an armistice, an agreement to stop the conflict, while the terms of the peace were negotiated. On June 28 1919, Germany and the Allied Nations (including Britain, France, Italy and Russia) signed the Treaty of Versailles, formally ending the war.
Why did Germany lose?
At the start of 1918, Germany was in a strong position. Russia, one of Britain's allies (the Triple Entente), had left the war after the Russian Revolution and the seizure of power by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks in November 1917. Lenin wanted to concentrate on building up a communist state and wanted to pull Russia out of the war. He accomplished this by agreeing to the Treaty of Brest-Litvosk with Germany on March 3, 1918.
However, despite this, events moved against Germany. In April 1917 the powerful United States joined the war, American troops went into action just over a year later on the side of the Triple Entente. There was unrest at home for Germany, the population becoming tired of the war and the shortages it caused.
Germany and its allies knew that they had to launch a big offensive if they were to win the war before too many US troops arrived but this ‘Michael Offensive' failed and on 8 August 1918, the French and British armies launched the Hundred Days Offensive - a counter-attack, which pushed the Germans back.
By the autumn of 1918, Germany and its allies realised it was no longer possible to win the war and the allies began to withdraw, so that by the start of November, Germany was fighting alone. Kaiser Wilhem, the German leader abdicated on 9 November and on 11 November the armistice was signed.
The Treaty of Versailles
The leaders of the United States, Great Britain and France met in Versailles to decide on the terms of the peace, Germany, Austria and Hungary were not given the opportunity to negotiate and were presented with what the allies had decided. Though Germany protested they had little choice and it was signed on 28 June 1919.
This treaty was very harsh and it contributed to the reasons for the next World War twenty one years later. In it Germany had to accept total responsibility for the war, it lost large amounts of territory including Alsace-Lorraine, was banned from having an army larger than 100 000 men or having submarines or an air force. Germany also had to pay vast reparation of 132 billion gold marks, an impossible sum. The anger and privations this treaty caused helped form the groundwork for the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party and the Second World War.
References:
https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/how-the-first-world-war-ended
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2018/11/09/the-war-that-did-not-end-at-11am-on-11-november/
On Thursday the 6th of August 1914, just after the outbreak of World War…