THE GATHERING STORM
bothkennar IN 1914
The First World War, the “War to end all Wars”, the “Great War”, began for Great Britain on 4th August 1914 following the German Army invading Belgium on its way to fight the next battle in the ongoing conflict between France and Germany.
The war allowed the various states of, principally, Europe to attempt to resolve the various smouldering jealousies and antipathies that existed between the contending states. At the top of the list was the 100-year-old unsettled business between France (and its ally Russia) and Germany supported by the Austro-Hungarian Empire both groups with a complex mix of allies, ethnic groups and enemies. Great Britain and its Empire had previously stood somewhat on the side-lines, seeing itself as a maritime nation with its powerful Navy ruling the waves and consequently being able to access the huge resources of the “Empire on which the sun never sleeps”.
Between 1890 and 1910, the German Empire sought to challenge the primacy of the Royal Navy on the high seas by building numbers of ships that could compete with the Royal Navy and which began with the building of HMS Dreadnought which revolutionised the design and building of warships
The challenge lead to the race to build a class of warship that made obsolete existing warships but which created a competition between Germany and Britain for primacy on the high seas
FRANZ FERDINAND OF AUSTRIA
The British Empire excited the envy of both the Germans and the French, but the seething envy between France and Germany and their various supporting nations or groups was the key driving force in the search for power and prestige. A complex series of alliances and agreements tied the various states into a row of dominoes that collapsed into war when a desperate anarchist sought to change the status quo by assassinating the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, on June 28, 1914. The spark led to the road to war drew the nations of Europe, one by one, into crisis. For Britain, that crisis came a head when Germany invaded Belgium, triggering the commitment of France and Great Britain to guarantee Belgium’s independence by military means.
The build up to war that had been moving forward was precipitated by that act, but the threat to peace in Europe had been building up for years and accelerated between the assassination in June and the invasion of Belgium with France and Russia’s declaration of war on Germany and the declaration of war by Great Britain on 4th August 1914. War as such was no great surprise: the reality would be beyond the worst nightmares.
Forty men from the parish or associated with the parish died on active service during the 1914-18 war and are commemorated on the plaque in the parish church.
In 1914, Bothkennar and Carronshore were still mining communities hauling coal from several mines owned by the Carron Company. Nearby, the Carron Works continued ironworking as it had done since1759 and was a significant source of employment in the area. Ironworking and mining went together: it was hard and often dangerous work. Groome’s Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland is useful for giving a picture of the area in the late 1800’s:
Carron Works from the West
- Falkirk Archives
Carronhall Colliery No 5 Pit, known as the Garibaldi Pit
- Falkirk Archives
Bothy Row, Carronshore
- Falkirk Archives
Tramway Cars passing over Carron Bridge at Carron Works
- Falkirk Archives
“Carronshore, a village in Larbert and Bothkennar parishes, Stirlingshire, on the left bank of the River Carron, 1 mile ENE of Carron Iron-works, and 2 miles WNW of Grangemouth. Connected with Carron Ironworks by a double-lined railway, it was formerly the port of Carron Company; but has, in main degree been superseded by Grangemouth. Yet it is still used for the landing of ironstone and lime, and for drydock repairs; and is accessible, in ordinary tides, by vessels of 150 tons burden. It has a post office, a mission station of the Church of Scotland, and a public school, which, with accommodation for 399 children, had (1891) an average attendance of 336, and a grant of £335. 9s. 6d. Pop. (1871) 966, (1881) 962, (1891) 1071”
(Groome, Francis H, Ordnance Gazeteer of Scotland, quoted on Scottish Mining Website/Stirlingshire)
Mining continued in support of the war effort and men were kept aside to ensure that the war work such as munitions work being completed at Carron Works could continue. Carron Works and the mines were closely linked, and the men of the area more often worked in the Carron Works or worked down the local mines owned by Carron
The dangers of mining and iron-working continued to be a cause of death and injury and the workers worked hard and lived hard. The coming of war offered an opportunity for men in this harsh world to escape to what was seen as an adventure, and miners across the Scottish coalfield and from Carron leaped at the opportunity.
Canadian Soldier
Drawn by Inglis Sheldon-Williams
The Kitchener poster is well recognised and the recruiting campaign that drew a second wave of recruits to the Kitchener army that had its initiation on the Somme battlefield
The poster above is Canadian specifically identifies the need to replace ‘reinforce’ men who had become casualties in the initial.
Returning from Canada, William Forsyth from Longdyke was one such man, killed on active service with 13th Canadian Battalion in 1915. He had worked in Carronhall Colliery before emigrating to Canada
The spirit of patriotism and/or jingoism will have undoubtedly offered an excuse for the change in lifestyle that would come with joining the army in the hour of the country’s need. Some men were already members of the Territorial or Volunteer Forces, part-timers very different to the well-trained and (quite) well-equipped regulars, soldiers that filled the ranks of the Army, committed to 7 years with the Colours and 7 with the reserve.
The Army had learned hard lessons from the Boer War which had resulted in the creation (between the years 1906 to 1909) of the Territorial Force fashioned from the Militia, Yeomanry and Volunteers.
In the light of the experiences of the British Army in South Africa, the Army had made significant changes to the structure of the army and the training of the troops. For instance, the importance of “musketry” training meant that the army was increasingly proficient in its ability to fight: the lessons of the Boer War, reflecting tactical lessons learned the hard way meant that the regular army was prepared for war. But the mobilisation of the regular army and reservists took time. The rush of volunteers, some of whom had been part of the Voluntary Force and others that had been members of the Territorial Force which replaced the former meant that there was a cadre of men that had some experience of military training. The 1896 OS Map of Grangemouth which details much of the parish shows the rifle range on the Forth that the volunteers used.
However, the level of training was nothing like the proficiency of serving regular soldiers and men in the reserve (7 years with the colours and 7 years with the reserve). And the British Army was small compared with the conscript armies of the European mainland.
Despite the enthusiasm and energy, these would-be soldiers needed time to be processed through training. There had been a degree of preparedness in the run up to the outbreak of war with a growing realisation that war could be coming. In the event, the soldiers of the Territorial Force would rapidly become a key addition to the original B.E.F. and would become veterans before their time.
The outbreak of war was no surprise, with the level of heat in international relations and the increasing rivalry between the great powers. The rush of men to enlist reflected the Jingoism that saw the wish to sort out those “arrogant” Germans who had the temerity to challenge the might of the Royal Navy by engaging in a race to build warships. The enthusiasm for coming to grips with the threat from Germany was reflected in such books as Erskine Childer’s “The Riddle of the Sands”. The prospect of war, the greatest of “adventures”, led to a growing surge of volunteers enlisting in the Territorials.
One of the first of these volunteers was James Huskie. James Huskie was a pattern-filer at the Mungal Foundry, part of Carron Company. Previously he had been a member of the local Volunteers (the predecessor to the Territorial Force) for four years and had at least some notion of the life military.
The local regiment was the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders with its depot in Stirling and was where the training started with the newly formed 7th Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
On 8 September 1914, James and his comrades enlisted in the Territorial Battalion of the 7th Battalion, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders. The battalion had begun forming at Stirling on 4th August as part of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Brigade of the Highland Division, and the training of men eager for adventure and glory began in earnest.
The outbreak of the war meant that the relatively small British Army would be hard pressed to match the sheer numbers of the either French or the German Armies. The total strength of the Regular British Army in July 1914 was 125,000 men in the British Isles, with 75,000 in India and Burma and a further 33,000 in other overseas postings. As a consequence, the initial Battles were almost exclusively fought by regulars and reservists, whilst the processing of volunteers coming forward were organised and fed into training. The initial impact of the British Expeditionary Force (B.E.F.) was limited: whilst units of serving soldiers were brought back from all parts of the Empire to reinforce the B.E.F., there was a lag between the organisation, training and deployment of reservists.
It was inevitable that volunteer training fell well short of the level of proficiency of regulars and reservists. The sheer numbers of volunteers meant that there were difficulties managing these new recruits, and it would be at least six months before the volunteer recruits were able to be brought up to an approximation of readiness. The reality of warfare on an industrial scale on the battlefields of France and Flanders was unprecedented. The comparatively small regular army fought well but was unable to support the casualty rate from the regular army resources. The B.E.F. was reinforced by calling in men stationed across the Empire, but there was necessity to process unprecedented numbers of willing, but not necessarily able, men to meet immediately address the needs and skills of warfare in the 20th Century.
For the volunteer recruits of August 1914, the race was to become sufficiently proficient enough to have some chance of survival on a battlefield where machine guns, artillery, aircraft and gas was used on an industrial scale to kill men in numbers never seen before.
James Huskie is believed be the first man from Bothkennar to have been killed in action.