Dover in the Great War

By Stephen Wynn

Situated on the south coast of England, geographically and strategically, Dover more than played its part in the First World War. It was from its harbor that the many vessels of the Dover Patrol set about preventing German ships from using the English Channel. It was undoubtedly one of the most important Royal Naval units that Britain had during the First World War.Because of its important defensive roll, Dover was identified as a legitimate and relevant target by the German authorities. As a result, German Zeppelin's and Gotha aircraft subjected Dover to 113 aerial attacks, dropping 185 bombs in the process. The first of these raids took place on Christmas Eve, 1914; this was also the first time a German bomb had been dropped on British soil. The last raid was on 24 August 1918, in which twenty adults and three children were killed.The local residents who, for whatever reason, were unable to enlist in the military during the war, but who still felt the desire and obligation to serve their King and country, were able to do so in organizations such as the Dover Volunteer Training Corps. Most towns had similar units, and their members carried out some sterling work on the Home Front.By the end of the war, Dover and its people had sustained through testing and difficult times. Like every community throughout the nation, they had paid a heavy price. They had been as close to the war as it was possible to be, without actually being on the Front Line. Ships had sailed from its harbour to engage the enemy, and wounded soldiers had returned to the same harbour. Its men had gone of to fight in the war and, sadly, 721 of them never came back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781473865051

Stephen Wynn

Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone – Afghanistan: The True Story of a Father’s Conflict, published in October 2010. Both Stephen’s grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.When not writing Stephen can be found walking his three German Shepherd dogs with his wife Tanya, at some unearthly time of the morning, when most normal people are still fast asleep.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

A brief history of Dover and why the war took place

The fact that the First World War actually started was not a shock to most serious observers of the day; it had always been a case of when rather than if. This was because most countries had been making plans for war for many years, not with a view to necessarily starting one, but for how best to defend themselves when it eventually arrived. By the turn of the twentieth century the chances of a war not taking place were really quite low. With all of the political and military posturing that had been going on, coupled with the number of treaties that were in place amongst countries trying to protect themselves from the threat posed by powerful neighbours, it was never going to take too much in the way of an incident to ignite the political powder keg that was waiting to explode upon the world.

So it was that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo, Serbia, began what became known as the Great War.

It would be more than four years before normality would once again descend on mankind. The real shock of those times came in the scale of its brutality and senseless waste of human life, which were on an almost industrial scale. Never before had the world experienced such a maelstrom of its own design and making.

What was Dover’s part in all of this madness? Let us take a look, but first a brief history of the town and what it was like at the outbreak of the First World War.

Dover has an important and historical past, mainly due to its position on the Channel coast and the existence of its castle, which has seen many changes over the centuries. If its inner walls could talk, they would have many a tale to tell. Although there had been fortifications in Dover since before the Battle of Hastings in 1066, it was only during the reign of King Henry II, between 1133 and 1189, that today’s Dover Castle really began to take shape.

In 1216 King Louis Vlll of France, with the support of some disloyal English barons, tried his best to take the castle and with it the English Crown, but failed after being unable to breech the castle walls.

It played a prominent part during the English Civil War between 1642 and 1651, when during the first year of the war it was captured from the king’s supporters by the Parliamentarians. The war saw the eventual demise of both King Charles I and an eventual victory for the Parliamentarians at the Battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651.

The Napoleonic wars of the early nineteenth century saw Dover become a garrison town, with barracks being added to the inner sanctum of the castle’s defences as part of massive improvements, overseen by William Twiss, a renowned military engineer. One way or another the town of Dover has had a prominent role to play over the years in the history of England.

Dover Market Square

CHAPTER TWO

1914 – Outbreak of War

At the end of July 1914, as the spark that ignited the flames of the First World War was struck in Sarajevo, the 6th and 8th Destroyer Flotillas of the British Royal Navy were engaged in a military exercise in the Straits of Dover. After it was over they arrived at Dover harbour on 26 July, along with three scout cruisers, HMS Pathfinder, HMS Adventurer and HMS Attentive.

The next day the Attentive, whilst still in Dover harbour, fired her guns and ran up the Blue Peter, which is the nautical name for a signal flag (P). It is raised when a ship is about to leave port, and it is a warning to all crew members of that ship to get back on board immediately.

Dover Harbour

Within the hour HMS Pathfinder and a number of destroyers left the harbour and made their way up the east coast of England, possibly to Harwich. In the meantime the activity in and around Dover was really starting to be ramped up. The town’s residents knew something was going on; they couldn’t but know, they had heard the two loud bangs from the direction of Dover harbour and, after realizing that neither was an explosion, most would have worked out what had in fact happened, even if they didn’t know exactly which ship had fired the shots. Later the same day a train arrived from Portsmouth. It was packed with enough sailors to make the crews of both the Adventurer and Attentive up to war strength.

Seeing so many men suddenly coming into the town after what had happened at Dover harbour earlier the same day, still wouldn’t have necessarily caused a panic in the minds of those townsfolk aware of international tensions. The declaration of war by Great Britain against Germany was still some nine days away and the threat to Belgium had not yet taken place. Most would have believed that another training exercise was underway.

On 26 July with the military situation throughout Europe getting worse by the minute, Britain attempted to organize a conference to look at the dispute between Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the reason behind why Europe was close to the brink of a war, to see if these matters could be resolved by political means. This included most of the major European powers. France, Russia and Italy all agreed to the conference but Germany, who by now seemed hell bent on going to war, refused to attend.

On the evening of 27 July HMS Hazard, a Submarine Depot ship, arrived at Dover in company with several C Class Submarines; their arrival could have been simply more vessels that were due to take part in the supposed training exercise.

The situation in Europe quickly deteriorated and on 28 July Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, bringing the threat of an all-out European war even closer.

The British Government, which was still trying to do all that it could to prevent war, called for international mediation on 29 July, but alas, it did not materialize. On the same day, Russia, becoming increasingly concerned about Germany’s intentions, begins a mobilization of her troops as a precautionary measure. Germany immediately follows suit and begins to mobilize.

The next day, 30 July, saw HMS Bulwark arrive at Dover harbour with HMS Arrogant in tow. Arrogant became the stationary flagship at Dover for the Port Admirals as well a home and sleeping quarters for the submarine crews from the 4th and 5th Submarine Flotillas who used the port throughout the war. From February 1918 she became one of the ships of the Dover Patrol until the end of the war.

The activity of naval ships arriving and leaving Dover harbour, kept on increasing. On 31 July, eleven Tribal-class destroyers arrived including HMS Alfrida, Amazon, Cossack, Crusader, Gurkha, Maori, Mohawk, Saracen, Tartar, Viking and Zulu.

The likelihood of war increased with the passing of each day. The Port of Dover had searchlights added to its defensive capability for the first time, and during the hours of darkness they would continuously sweep backwards and forwards across the harbour basin, paying particular attention to the entrances. Across the English Channel the outbreak of war was getting closer to becoming a reality as Germany declared war on Russia, and France and Belgium began the full mobilization of their troops.

Monday, 3 August 1914 was a Bank Holiday throughout England and Wales, which was the excuse for most to make their way to the coast and enjoy some leisure time. The weather was mainly cool and slightly unsettled for the first few days of the month, but it was good enough for the traditional Bank Holiday Monday cricket matches of Surrey v Nottinghamshire at the Oval and Lancashire v Yorkshire at Old Trafford to take place. It was also the day that the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, remarked whilst watching the street lights being lit that evening outside his office in Whitehall, ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our life time.’

Rumours of naval battles being heard in the North Sea were rife amongst those sitting upon the white cliffs of Dover. Some were under the misapprehension that the war had already begun. Some may have been there in the hope that they might witness some action between the British and German fleets.

This was the day that Germany declared war on France. The following day Great Britain declared war on Germany and a dark cloud settled over Europe that brought with it death and destruction on an industrial scale. It would be more than four years before sanity and peace returned.

In what was a last minute attempt to escape an all-conquering German army, Britons and Belgians clambered aboard all available ships leaving the Belgian ports and headed for England. The last ship to make it out of Belgium before Britain declared war on Germany was the Princess Henriette, a paddle steamer which sailed out of Ostend with over 1,200 people on board and arrived at Dover on 3 August 1914. She had been launched on 14 March 1888, having been built by William Denny & Brothers in Dumbarton on the River Clyde for the Belgian government, and during the war she served as a troopship based at Folkestone, sailing backwards and forwards across the English Channel.

Her arrival at Dover was watched by Lord Kitchener who was waiting to leave for Calais on his way back to Egypt when he received a telegram offering him the vacant position of the Secretary of State for War. He changed his plans and returned to London the same day to take up the post.

Princess Henriette Paddle Steamer

The Princess Henriette survived the war, having taken thousands of soldiers across the English Channel to fight in France and Belgium, and was eventually scrapped in 1922.

The day that Great Britain declared war on Germany for refusing to recognize Belgium’s neutrality and remove her troops, was a busy one with all of the last minute political ramifications that were taking place to try and prevent war. The sailing of the Dover to Calais passenger ferry was suspended with immediate effect and a British destroyer captured two German merchant vessels in the English Channel and escorted them into Dover harbour. They were the Franz Horn and the Perkeo. Their crews were removed and initially taken to Archcliffe Fort, off Bulwark Street in the town. During the war the Fort was the home to 3rd Fortress Company, Royal Engineers. The Franz Horn was sold at auction in 1915 to Melrose Abbey Shipping and renamed the Melrose Abbey.

J.B. Firth’s book, Dover and the Great War, explains that the last passenger ship to arrive at Dover from Calais before war broke out was the SS Endgadine with a mere twenty passengers on board, whilst the last one to arrive from Ostend was the Belgium-owned Rapide, with over 1,000 passengers. Amazingly, as soon as she had off loaded her passengers, she returned to Ostend with six passengers, who, knowing the political and military situation in Belgium at that time, must have desperately wanted to make the journey.

The Dover to Ostend crossing did not resume until 18 January 1919, when the Ville de Liege sailed with 332 passengers on board, nearly all of whom were Belgian exiles returning to their country. Her full capacity at that time was 900. During the war she had served both as a troop carrier and a hospital ship between England and France.

The tightness of the security in and around Dover had increased as war drew closer. Notices were put up all round the town warning residents that they should not approach any military establishments or sentries, especially during the hours of darkness, and if they did they were to immediately obey any instructions given by any military personnel who were present.

In addition certain roads in the town had been closed including the old St Margaret’s Road as well as the Old Dover – Folkestone Road which had been closed between Aycliffe House and Abbotscliffe House. There were similar restrictions placed on some of the paths that run along the cliffs. Swingate Downs was an area designated as being out of bounds to the public, possibly because of the airfield that had been put in place there.

At the outbreak of war the Dover Garrison consisted of the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), the Lancashire Fusiliers and the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, which were all part of the British Army’s 12th Infantry Brigade. Collectively they all left Dover on 8 August 1914, initially for a location on the east coast of England before leaving for France, most arriving there on 22 August. Their commander was Brigadier General H.F.M. Wilson, who had previously been in charge of the Dover Command.

Just four days after arriving in France, the 12th Infantry Division, part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), were involved in the Battle of Le Cateau during the retreat from Mons. In total there were 40,000 British troops involved in the battle, 7,812 of whom became casualties, out of these 700 were killed. Another 2,600 were taken prisoner.

Of the three regiments that had been part of the Dover Garrison and who had left the town on 8 August, 200 were killed in the fighting at Le Cateau. This included ninety-nine men from the Lancashire Fusiliers, sixty-six from the King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment) and thirtyfive from the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. Many of those who were killed had no known grave and their names are commemorated on the La Ferté-Sous-Jouarre Memorial, in the Seine-et-Marne region of France.

The dead included Lieutenant Colonel Alfred McNair Dykes, of the 1st Battalion, King’s Own (Royal Lancaster Regiment), who had served in the 2nd Boer War in South Africa, between 1899 and 1902.

The Dover Garrison was eventually replaced by the 5th and 6th Battalions, Royal Fusiliers (City of London) Regiment, who were stationed at the Duke of York’s School. The 3rd East Surreys and the 3rd Buffs (East Kent Regiment) were at the Citadel. The 3rd Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment were at Connaught Barracks and the 4th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, had the luxury of being garrisoned at Dover Castle.

With the beginning of the war an unusual calmness prevailed amongst the people of Dover. But was that so surprising, after all it was a garrison town with at least four separate regiments garrisoned there at any one time? There was also a strong naval presence, which included the respected Dover Patrol. The actual fighting on the ground in France and Belgium was far enough away across the Channel for it still not to feel totally real, especially as the hundreds of thousands of men who would be wounded during the course of the war had not yet started arriving back in the UK. Air attacks by German Zeppelins and Gotha bombers had not yet begun, so the potential threat to public safety from them, had not even been considered.

At the beginning of the war, there was no fear of a German invasion in the minds of the public, but that did not stop the authorities from preparing for that eventuality. A system of field defences were put in place around