14th February 1916.
Valentine's Day Big issue. (No! Not that Big Issue.) Ed.
No deaths are recorded for Monday February 14th 1916.
Two claims were made today.
Oberleutnant Rudolf Szepessy-Sokoll of Flik 17 of the Austro-Hungarian Empire flying Lohner B.VII (17.36) shot down a Caudron over Milano for his first victory.
A tall man, Rudolf Szepessy-Sokoll Freiherr von Negyes et Reno joined the army in 1914 and distinguished himself in combat whilst serving with the Hussars Regiment No. 1. He volunteered for the air service in the summer of 1915, scoring his first victory as an observer with Flik 17. In what may have been the first strategic bombing mission in history, Szepessy-Sokoll was a member of a flight of ten Lohner and Lloyd two-seaters that attacked Milan, Italy on 14 February 1916. By early April 1917, Szepessy-Sokoll completed pilot training and was assigned to Flik 10 on the Russian front. He served with Flik 27 in August 1917 and with Flik 3 in September 1917, where he scored his first victory as a pilot, flying an Albatros D.III. Killed in action the day after he became an ace, Szepessy-Sokoll was shot down by Francesco Baracca. He was buried with full military honors in the cemetery near Ajello. He was posthumously awarded the Order of the Iron Crown, 3rd class.
Leutnant Leopold Anslinger of FA 54 shot down a Russian EA Near Grobla, NW of Tarnapol for his second victory.
When the war began, Anslinger was already a licensed pilot (#566) serving with the Fliegertruppe. Posted to the Eastern Front, he was commissioned on 22 March 1915 and scored his first four victories in 1916. Reassigned to FA 24 and 242, he scored the remainder of his victories in 1917. In the last months of the war, he was stationed in Mainz with Kest 9 on homeland defence. When the war ended, Anslinger became a commercial pilot with Lufthansa and enjoyed sketching and building motorcycles and automobiles.
Awards.
Lieutenant ERIC ARCHIBALD McNAIR VC.
9th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment
Hooge - 14th February 1916
Citation from the London Gazette, No 29527 March 30, 1916:
"Eric Archibald McNair, Lieutenant, Royal Sussex Regiment. When the enemy exploded a mine, Lieutenant McNair and many men of two platoons were hoisted into the air, and many men were buried. But, though much shaken, he at once organised a party with a machine gun to man the near edge of the crater, and opened rapid fire on a large party of the enemy who were advancing. The enemy were driven back leaving many dead. Lieutenant McNair then ran back for reinforcements, and sent to another unit for bombs, ammunition and tools to replace those buried. The communication trench being blocked, he went across the open under heavy fire, and led up the reinforcements the same way. His prompt and plucky action undoubtedly saved the situation."
Born on 16th June 1894, at Calcutta in India, Eric Archibald McNair was the son of a solicitor then working and living in India. He was educated at Charterhouse school, and Magdelen College, Oxford where he met the then Prince of Wales.
Commissioned into the Royal Sussex Regiment in October 1914, he joined the 9th Battalion at Brighton. Their training took them to barracks near Dover, and crossed to France with the Battalion in August 1915, to take part in the ill-fated Battle of Loos. The 9th fought near a position called The Dump, and suffered heavy casualties. The Battalion they moved to the Ypres Salient, where they took over trenches on the Bellewaarde Ridge near the hamlet of Hooge. It was here on 14th February 1916 that the action which resulted in the award of the VC took place.
McNair was appointed to the rank of Captain, continued to serve with the 9th Bn after the award of the VC until badly wounded at Guillemont, on the Somme, on 18th August 1916. He never returned to the battalion, his wounds and sickness resulting in a Staff job. This staff work took him to Italy in 1917, where he was attached to General Headquarters. McNair again contracted sickness, dying at Genoa Hospital on 12th August 1918, aged twenty four. He is buried in Staglieno Cemetery, Genoa, Italy (Plot I, Row B, Grave 32).
His VC is held at the Royal Sussex Regiment museum at Eastbourne.
Lieutenant William Marychurch Morgan. Albert Medal.
During grenade instruction in a trench a man drops a grenade which sinks in the mud so only the smoke from the burning fuse can been seen. Second Lieutenant William Marychurch Morgan (Royal Welsh Fusiliers) who is outside the danger zone at once springs forward and gropes in the mud for the grenade. The difficulty of finding it adds greatly to the danger but he still picks up the grenade and throws it over the parapet just in time saving several men from death or serious injury. For his actions Lieutenant Morgan will be awarded the Albert Medal.
Today’s highlighted casualties include:
- Lieutenant Eric Henry Porter (South Staffordshire Regiment) is killed at age 27. His brother will be killed in November.
- Second Lieutenant John Whiteley Mallinson (Rifle Brigade attached Machine Gun Corps) is killed at age 20. He is the son of the Reverend J H Mallinson.
- Private Cyril Edward Briggs (East Kent Regiment) is killed in action at age 27. His brother will be killed in December 1917.
- Private George Brown Brocklehust (Royal Fusiliers) is killed at age 27. His brother was killed last November on Gallipoli.
Western Front.
Germans take 600 yards of British front trench on the 'Bluff' South East of Ypres between Ypres-Comines railway and the Canal.
Further German attack on Soissons failed.
Tunstall's men.
Billets at Fort Rompu.
The Battalion began its move back into Corps Reserve; this necessitated a 22 mile march to Steenbecque which was to be completed in two stages. The move began in heavy rain; Battalion transport, carrying kit and equipment moved off during the afternoon, but the men, in marching order and wearing their greatcoats, did not depart from Fort Rompu until 9.45 pm and marched overnight, crossing the River Lys at Croix du Bac and on via Steenwerck and Le Verrier, arriving at Vieux Berquin at 3 am on 14th.
Pte. Tom Darwin (see 13th February), who had originally been taken ill ten days earlier, was transferred from 8 Casualty Clearing Station at Bailleul to the Australian General Hospital at Wimereux for further treatment.
Capt. Harry Hildyard (see 11th February), who had been on sick leave since early January, reported for duty with 11th Battalion West Ridings at Brocton Camp, Cannock Chase, Staffs.
Eastern Front.
Continued Russian success round Dvinsk.
Southern Front.
Austrian airmen bomb Milan, Treviglio, Bergamo and Monza.
Asiatic and Egyptian Theatres.
Russians take another fort at Erzerum.
Political, etc.
War Office requests people not to phone it for “information as to the progress of events” when a Zeppelin raid is going on.
As it points out, when such events are happening “the whole of the military staffs are concerned are fully occupied, and, moreover, the telephone lines must be free for the receipt of official reports, the issue of orders, and the necessary control of defensive inquiries greatly impede the collection of information.”
Entente Powers make declaration guaranteeing to Belgium eventual independence and indemnification.
Remaining classes of single men called up in Great Britain.
Partial Romanian mobilisation completed.
Messrs. Rigden sentenced.
'TRADING WITH THE ENEMY". Feb. 14. Last. month William Gurden Rigden, William Fownes Rigden, and Stanly Fownes Rigden, partners of the well-known glove firm of Fownes Brothers and Company, were charged at the Guildhall with having traded with the enemy. Counsel insisted that an accountant was appointed under the Trading with the Enemy Act, and he found correspondence showing that the defendants, who had a branch in New York, and owned a company in Germany, had imported into New York from Germany goods to the value of £6,000. promising to pay the German firms after the war, paying additional interest, and promising more orders. Defendants were remanded, the presiding alderman remarking that it was a very serious case. Defendants were ordered to find bail in the sum of '2000 each.
The defendants have now pleaded guilty. W. C. Rigden was fined £5600, and W. F. Rigden sentenced to twelve months'. and Stanley P. Rigden to four months' imprisonment.
Unrest in Ireland.
Keep your eye on this.Ed.
An attack on vans of a Galway trader was blamed by the RIC on hostility towards him as a sub-director of army recruiting. Mr Young’s vans were carrying empty mineral water cases when the drivers were forced to leave them, the horses were driven away and the cases thrown out on the road between Clarinbridge and Oranmore.
Tailpiece. (for Baz.) Ed.
The soldiers of the Australian Imperial Force who fought in WW1 are usually remembered as heroic and patriotic. But they weren’t always compliant to military rule and were prone to cause trouble, both here and overseas.
Conditions in the recruitment camps at Liverpool and Casula were overcrowded and uncomfortable. In 1916, a year and a half into the war, the volunteers started agitating for better conditions, demanding more flexible leave arrangements and a canteen serving alcohol. When the recruits were told at morning parade on Monday 14 February 1916 that their weekly training regime would increase from 36 hours to 40 and a half hours a week, all hell broke loose.
The soldiers declared they were going on strike and decamped without permission. News of the strike travelled fast among the soldiers and by late morning about 3,000 men marched from Casula into Liverpool where they joined up with the Liverpool recruits.
They ran riot through the town. They packed into the hotels demanding drinks and distributing it out on the street in pots and pans, smashed and looted shops and overran the train at the railway station and headed into the city.
Mrs Elsie Collimore, interviewed 30 years ago, remembers scenes from the 1916 soldiers riot in Liverpool, which happened when she was a little girl. The euphoric and drunk soldiers reached Central station by about 11am and kept pouring into the city into the afternoon. Initially the protesting soldiers formed up and marched down George Street behind a placard protesting at their increased training load. But discipline soon disintegrated.
For a few hours anarchy ruled the streets of Sydney. The police were powerless to control the mob. Hotels were raided for booze, fruit stalls overturned, shops at the Queen Victoria Building and Grace Brothers at Broadway were smashed. The drunk soldiers targeted businesses with German affiliations – such as Kleisdorff’s tobacco shop in Hunter Street and the German Club in Phillip Street.
In the end the police called other military recruits from the Sydney Showgrounds to assist in bringing the soldiers under control. They were gradually pushed back towards Central and sent back out to Liverpool. However a fiery remnant of protesters took a last stand at Central in the evening, throwing missiles at police. This provoked a response. In the melee shots rang out. When things calmed down, Ernest William Keefe, a 20 year old trainee in the Light Horse, lay on the ground dead, and 6 or 7 others in the crowd (including a civilian) were injured. The shooting sobered everyone up.
It’s hard to know exactly how many recruits participated in the riot. There were both military and civic trials. At least 279 trainees were discharged from the army. And over 30 men were charged in the civil courts with riotous behaviour, assaulting police, damaging property, indecent language and the like.
Liquor Referendum sign, urging citizens to vote fro 9pm closing and 8pm as their 2nd choice. Located on the corner of Riley Street and William Street looking SW towards Yurong Lane, 1910. (City of Sydney Archives NSCA CRS 51/1831)
The unintended consequence of the riot was much more lasting. One of the soldiers’ gripes was that they wanted a canteen at the training camp serving alcohol. Well, they managed to spoil it for everyone, playing right into the hands of the temperance movement. An early-closing Referendum was scheduled for the 10th June on the liquor question. The temperance movement, supported by the conservative Sydney Morning Herald, demanded the closing of all bars until the war was over. The drunken behaviour of “Black Monday” was condemned as unpatriotic and made NSW “the shame of Australia”. Four months after the riot, the citizens of Sydney voted to close all pubs at 6 o’clock. This law remained in place until 1955.
So when you are having a beer at your local pub today on the 100th anniversary of the 1916 soldiers riot, spare a thought for the soldiers. While we might admire them for standing up for better conditions, their behaviour transformed pubs in Sydney forever.
Rob.
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