A SONG FROM THE WESTERN FRONT

Submitted By David Walker 

(DARLINGTON FOLK WORKSHOP )

Whilst researching my Grandpa’s military service I stumbled across a short song, which written on the western front by one of his comrades.

By way of context, Grandpa was a clerk in Swansea docks at the outbreak of the first world war and, not surprisingly, enlisted with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. However, its not widely known that many of these volunteer “sailors” ended up in the army as the “Royal Naval Division.” They had a mixed uniform of army khaki with traditional blue and white sailor’s caps. They clung to their naval ranks and saw themselves as different to the other army divisions.

In 1916 they were on the western front when they were put under the command of an Army commander one Major-General Cameron Shute. This was a grim time for all who served under him, as he regarded the Division’s nautical traditions as unsoldierly and grotesque

He inspected the trenches at a time when they were “having problems with the latrines,” and this song resulted. 

It was written by A P Herbert, a man of letters, who, amongst other things contributed to Punch magazine after the war, and also became an MP.

If no-one is liable to be offended, I sing the song folk clubs to the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

The General inspecting the trenches
Exclaimed with a horrified shout
‘I refuse to command a division
Which leaves its excreta about.’

But nobody took any notice
No one was prepared to refute,
That the presence of sh** was congenial
Compared to the presence of Shute.

And certain responsible critics
Made haste to reply to his words
Observing that his staff advisors
Consisted entirely of t***s.

For sh** may be shot at odd corners
And paper supplied there to suit,
But a sh** would be shot without mourners
If someone would shoot that sh”” Shute.