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Sir Frank Fox

First World War and WW2 Author, author of Breaker Morant

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G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer

Lecture on GHQ, The King´s Pilgrimage and Sir Frank Fox in Montreuil-sur-Mer by Fox´s great grandson

September 23, 2022 by Ed Goodson


In the theatre of Montreuil-sur-Mer, Sir Frank Fox´s great grandson, Dr.Charles Goodson-Wickes, the first sitting member of the House of Commons to see active service in the armed forces since World War II, gave a lecture on G.H.Q. which has also been translated. It was the heart of the British Army’s Military machine between 1916 and 1919 in the First World War. The lecture followed the unveiling of the restored Haig statue.

Transcript of the lecture:
This lecture follows the most memorable and stirring occasion to endorse Entente Cordiale, epitomised by the restoration of Haig´s statue. That statue is a poignant Anglo-French symbol of our shared endeavours in times of war when our joint liberties have been under threat from malign forces.
Haig Statue Unveiling

As Monsieur Bruno Béthouart, the former mayor stated, Montreuil-sur-Mer was surprised to find itself at the heart of the British Army’s military machine between 1916 and 1919. How curious indeed it was for this charming mediaeval town to become the nerve centre of the Allied planning of the ultimate defeat of the German forces. Life in Haig’s GHQ was described by my great grandfather, Sir Frank Fox, under the nom de plume “GSO”, for serving officers were not allowed to write under their true names.

No remote relation was he to me, few people are lucky enough to know their great grandfather. I knew him well. I was 15 when he died and he was my childhood hero.

Sir Frank Fox and Dr.Charles Goodson-Wickes
Sir Frank Fox and his great grandson Dr.Charles Goodson-Wickes

As his literary executor, I have taken enormous pleasure in republishing three of his World War One related books, all of which can be bought, I hope, after this lecture.

Let me tell you something about him. Fox was a remarkable man, having first experienced battle as the Morning Post war correspondent in the Balkan wars, he was in Belgium in August 1914 to report the German invasion. So horrified was Fox by the atrocities meted out to the civilian population, the first use of Zeppelins for air warfare and the destruction of historical buildings that he was determined to become a combatant.

Sir Frank Fox painted by Normal Lindsay
Sir Frank Fox painted by Norman Lindsay

During hostilities he had become close to King Albert who invested him with the Order of the Crown and awarded him the Belgian Military Cross.

Antwerp cathedral

Commissioned (over-age) in the British Army, he was twice wounded on the Somme and sent to convalesce in England. Whilst there he worked in MI7 (Propaganda) writing to encourage the US to enter the fight. He then pulled springs to get back to France and was posted to the Quartermaster General´s Department. He must have been quite a sight, missing half his right foot, having a withered left arm, and on top of his disabilities, being profoundly deaf from shellfire. I’m not surprised that no photographs of him in uniform survive!

He was awarded the OBE military and was mentioned in Dispatches.

Some Staff Officers were criticised for being “desk warriors” far from the front. At least he was immune from such remarks. Indeed it seems from his account that many Staff Officers were, in his own words, “cropped”, having “taken a knock”. Fox appreciated regular physiotherapy for his wounds at the hospital which is now the Hermitage Hotel, where some of you may be staying. But enough of him for the moment.

What did he record of life here from 1916 to 1919, when Montreuil was the hub of the most extraordinary planning and logistical exercise, leading up to the final defeat of the German army?

I hope you’ll read for yourselves, however, I will pick up one or two points. Montreuil was selected for its all important role owing to its accessibility, both to the trenches, and to Paris, and to London. GHQ was moved here from Saint-Omer in March 1916. The British Expeditionary Force, BEF, with Haig as its commander in chief, could thus communicate with ease with the Secretary of State for War and the government in London. Fox describes its attributes as, quotes “central remoteness”. There was a military population of up to a maximum of 5,000 including 300 regular officers, supplemented by temporary officers referred to irreverently by some as “temporary gentlemen”.

This is the officer’s mess, the building on the left is now, I think, the music academy. The wall has disappeared. That was where the officers, obviously, lived.

The next photograph was the one of the École Militaire which was where the G.H.Q. was based. It is a very fine building but unfortunately it has been demolished. In more enlightened days it would have had a blue plaque or whatever, however the French commemorate such buildings.

ECOLE MILITAIRE

Fox says that life here was, quotes: “a fantastic life, serious, monkish and the almost total absence of the female sex, sober, disciplined, and exciting.”
Typical hours worked were nine in the morning till ten thirty at night with no distinction for weekends. Leave was given only every six months. It is curious that he uses this last adjective “exciting” as elsewhere, in contrast, he describes life in the trenches as quotes, “tedious with only rapid moments of high excitement and horror.”

General Travers Clarke, the distinguished Quartermaster General under whom Fox served was insistent that staff work should be seamless between the office and the trenches. Despite the difference in rank, although they were close in age, Travers Clarke and Fox became close friends. It is very odd, I mean, a Lieutenant General and a Captain. In the remarkable Game Book of Statistics, which I have republished for the first ever time as an appendix of the GHQ book, it is inscribed to Fox, from Travers Clarke, quotes: “from his sincere friend.” They worked together later in peacetime, staging the British Empire exhibition. I recently had the pleasure of presenting a copy of GHQ to Travers Clarke’s son John.

Now there is the 98-year-old, John Travers Clarke and I’m sure he’s with us in spirit, I will have the greatest pleasure when I go back to London to tell him that we gave the lecture and the book narrating his father and of course, Haig, much more so, who was well received here. Five British divisions were deployed, each of 20,000 men, larger than the standard. Perhaps the most significant statistic is that for every rifleman or gunner in the front line there were three soldiers in support.
I say British, but let us not forget that this included men from throughout the British Empire, let alone brave soldiers from France, of course, Belgium, the United States, Italy and Portugal.
An early and truly international headquarters had missions here, and we’ll try to see if we get that map back again. Now – there we are – now I think it’s a fascinating map because it shows throughout the town how the various missions are spread and the key buildings. But I can’t find any reference to the Belgian and Portuguese missions that must have been here.

But the other nationalities are represented in this slide. So what were the main headline functions of GHQ? It was the link between the army in the field and the political leaders
of the Allies formulating strategy in the British sector in order to deliver one of the most complex logistical exercises of all time. By the end of 1918, the British army consisted of no less than 3.8 million men. The Quartermaster General’s role involved no less than 17 directorates and five inspectorates. Supply of all clothing, food, munitions and pay, transport by road, by horse, by motor and by rail and by water, agriculture and food supply, medical, veterinary and spiritual support, etc. all vital for maintaining morale.
Although it was noted by Fox that GHQ officers were poor churchgoers, in contrast to the very religious Haig. Travers Clarke was also praised subsequently for his humane handling of German POWs.
There was occasional recreation here in this very building, in the theatre, and in sport. Fox particularly enjoyed riding and took a special interest in the welfare of the many horses, and mules, at the front. Whilst British soldiers were described as quotes: “lions in the trenches” he maintains that they behaved as quotes, “lambs in the villages”.

The relationship between the army and the civilian population was a crucial one being the unusual state of a country being occupied by friendly forces. This required civilian assent and cooperation, which was complicated by the movement of refugees.
New insights in the book are given into the importance of a Labour Corps, of up to a third of a million men. Elderly and disabled French civilians did sterling service. More demanding physical work was carried out by Labour companies made up of Indian, Caribbean, Chinese, Fijian, native South African and Egyptian men, supplemented of course, by German prisoners of war. I will not go into descriptions of the waxing and waning of the campaign all which you can read elsewhere, but I wanted to concentrate on the logistics behind the whole operation.

The current reassessment of Haig’s reputation is supported by this first hand and contemporary record. He is given fulsome praise for his faithfulness to friends -despite political and Press criticism; of which he had more than his fair share, his brilliant insight for Appointments; his religious convictions; his great trust in others; and perhaps, in a particularly neglected quality, his enlightened promotion of education of soldiers, to prepare them as better citizens for their return to civvy street after such an extraordinary and exceptional experience in battle. The book ends with Marshal Foch´s appointment as Commander in Chief of the Allied Armies, a move which was wholeheartedly supported by the British and American generals Haig and Pershing, in an enlightened demonstration of international cooperation. And I was absolutely delighted to hear that Foch´s great grandson was at the ceremony that we just all attended. He wrote Johnny Astor a charming letter, praising the relationship that his great grandfather and Haig had on a deeply personal relationship. I think I’m right in saying that when the statue of Foch was… yes… the statue of Foch, outside, Victoria station? AUDIENCE: “Victoria, yes”

I believe that that epitomized the relationship that the two of them had. Once we all know of the ultimate victory, one only has to visit the serried ranks of graves of the military cemeteries to recognise the appalling human cost. Particularly poignant an inscription was actually pointed out to me by John Hussey the other day, it read: “How beautiful is victory, but how dear. His loving wife. Extraordinarily moving inscription.

The King´s Pilgrimage
The King´s Pilgrimage – Princess Royal

Frank Fox accompanied King George V and Haig to pay their respects on a small,
very small, private visit to those cemeteries in Belgium and France, exactly a century ago, culminating in Étaples where many of us will be tomorrow.
He recorded this emotive journey which is accompanied by evocative and unposed photographs
in the King’s Pilgrimage. Next slide please which should be the King´s Pilgrimage one.
I think this is a lovely portrait of the King.
All the photographs in this book are unposed. The Princess Royal came a couple of weeks ago to Étaples to celebrate the centenary of this tiny journey of the King and his private secretary and private staff the King just wanted calm reflection and to pay his respects and you will see if you’re kind enough to acquire the book the very, very moving photographs because they are all unposed.

There is the book which is on sale, to be commercial about it, outside, and I rather like this photograph of Haig and all his commanders. A curious aside that really has got nothing to do the military at all, but when I was helping Johnny Astor, I said it would be rather nice to track the descendants of all Haig´s commanders and it’s absolutely extraordinary that of the peerages awarded to his commanders, every single one is extinct. Quite extraordinary. They may have been marvelous generals but they were bad breeders, or bad breeders of males anyway! And I think only one peerage went down one generation, and the nearest we got was Rawlinson. Rawlinson didn’t have a son, but he inherited a baronetcy, his brother inherited the baronetcy on his death and Sir Alfred Rawlinson is alive today but unfortunately he’s not well enough to come out to the ceremony.

I would like to end this talk with the photograph, I love this photograph because it epitomises the close relationship between the King and Haig and Foch.

This also comes up from the book The King´s Pilgrimage.

There’s no better demonstration, I think, of the Entente Cordiale which we celebrate today.

Thank you all very much for coming and I hope that you might acquire the books as a memento of what I think you will agree has been a remarkable weekend.

Thank you very much.

Buy G.H.Q. by Sir Frank Fox
Buy The King´s Pilgrimage

Filed Under: G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer, The King's Pilgrimage Tagged With: world war one, ww1

The Haig Statue Restoration Ceremony in Montreuil-sur-Mer, on 18 June 2022. First World War G.H.Q.

July 20, 2022 by Ed Goodson

The restored statue was formally presented to the public in a moving ceremony.

Standing in the beautiful, peaceful town of Montreuil-sur-Mer in front of the theatre, is the equestrian statue of Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig. It was home to his WW1 G.H.Q. from March 1916 to April 2019.

The original statue, by the world famous sculptor, Paul Landowski, was paid for entirely through public subscription and the generosity of the French veterans. The campaign was organised in the 1920s by French Veterans’ Associations, in recognition of the crucial contribution of a WW1 army consisting of British and Empire troops in winning the war.
Haig is the only British military figure to be commemorated in France with an equestrian statue.

Thanks to Morgane Quere and her great team for their amazing work on the video.

Sir Frank Fox’s G.H.Q., first published in 1920 and now reissued in a limited edition by his great-grandson, Dr. Charles Goodson- Wickes is an absorb­ing study of Haig’s chateau-HQ at Montreuil-sur-Mer. Fox paints a vivid picture of the comprehensive com­plexity of the British Ex­peditionary Force, with organisational dia­grams, statistics and vi­gnettes of day-to-day life.
Buy G.H.Q. by Sir Frank Fox: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992890128/ #ww1

Filed Under: G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer

An insider´s view of G.H.Q. review by Professor Gary Sheffield

July 6, 2020 by Ed Goodson


‘Gary Sheffield has established himself as one of the foremost authorities on the British Army of the First World War’
Professor Saul David, University of Buckingham

‘Gary Sheffield is one of Britain’s foremost historians of the First World War – insightful, original, and superbly informed’
Sir Max Hastings, military historian

AN INSIDER’S VIEW OF GHQ- Review by Professor Gary Sheffield

G.H.Q. (Montreuil-sur-Mer) by SIR FRANK FOX

London: Beaumont Fox, 2015
216pp., hardback, many illustrations, foldout chart, ,ISBN 978-0-9928901-2-4

G.H.Q., first published in 1920, is something of a hidden gem.It is a long time since I first read this book, and I had forgotten how interesting and useful it is. Written by Sir Frank Fox, originally under the pseudonym ‘G.S.O’, it is an account of what went on at the BEF’s General Headquarters written by a staff officer who served there.

It serves as an excellent introduction to some vital aspects of the BEF’s war. Administration, logistics and staff work are not numbered among the glamourous aspects of warfare, and so, far too often, are overlooked. Tellingly, the one part of this book which may be familiar to readers focuses on the human element. Fox mentions that Haig was rarely seen, and when he did appear, staff officers rushed to a window ‘to catch a glimpse of him’. This annoyed Haig, who crossly annotated his copy of the book, perhaps sensitive to the accusations of remoteness from the rest of GHQ.

Fox wrote the book to defend GHQ against its critics, by explaining what went on there. He takes us through the various branches of GHQ, covering such matters as munitions, salvage, and the medical services, enlivening what might have been a rather dry account with anecdotes.

Lieutenant-General Sir Travers Clarke, the relatively youthful Quartermaster-General from 1917, emerges as one of the unsung heroes of the British army. All of this repays reading, but needs to be supplemented by recent works, such as Craig Gibson on relations with French civilians. Fox wrote as an outsider; an Australian and a journalist, not a professional soldier.

So, he was well placed to see the extent to which GHQ became civilianised, and this is one of his most interesting themes. In his view, the prejudice against New Army officers, which was strong in 1916, had largely vanished by the end of the war. These citizen-soldiers had not only brought their civilian skills into the army, but had made GHQ more interesting, with the Mess a far less stuffy place: ‘I was struck by the general good temper with which the Trade Union of Officers ultimately took its “dilutees”’ (p.133).

Both as a memoir and a history, G.H.Q. is valuable, and it is very good to see this new edition in print. It has a foreword from the author’s great grandson, Dr Charles Goodson-Wickes, a former MP, and, as a bonus, the ‘Game Book’, a statistical annex compiled by Travers Clarke for King George V.

Gary Sheffield

Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992890128/

Filed Under: G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer

The Times includes GHQ in its “Six of the best First World War reads”

September 12, 2018 by Ed Goodson


Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992890128/
Allan Mallinson from The Times reviewed new books on the wider aspects of the Great War. We were delighted that G.H.Q. was selected as one of the 6 books.

Sir Frank Fox’s G.H.Q., first published in 1920 and now reissued in a limited edition by his great-grandson, Charles Goodson- Wickes (Beaumont Fox, £25), is an absorb­ing study of Haig’s chateau-HQ at Montreuil-sur-Mer. Fox — a journalist and tempo­rary soldier — paints a vivid picture of the comprehensive com­plexity of the British Ex­peditionary Force, with organisational dia­grams, statistics and vi­gnettes of day-to-day life.

The BEF, or more correctly in the later stages of the war the British Armies in France, was the largest organisa­tion the country has ever maintained abroad — more than two million men. Montreuil-sur-Mer began to look as much like a colonial administration as an operational headquarters, with di­rectors of agricultural production (Brigadier-General the Earl of Radnor) and forestry (Brigadier-General Lord Lovat), controllers of labour, of salvage and of canteens, subordinate directors of docks, of inland water transport, of roads, and of light railways. The list goes on, testimony to the industrialisa­tion of the war and the sheer scale of Haig’s purview. For these and other reasons, on taking over as C-in-C at the end of 1915 he had moved GHQ back from Saint-Omer to Montreuil, almost on the Channel coast, placing him 70 miles and more behind the front line.

Fox writes: “It was the job of General Headquarters to try to see the war as a whole.” In fact. Haig found it difficult to see strategically beyond the Western Front or the tactical reality of the war in the trenches. Fox’s fascinating book explains a lot.”

The scan of the article is below and the link to the website here (summary only available to non-subscribers of The Times):
Six of the best First World War reads

You can also download the PDF of the article here: Six of the best First World War reads

Filed Under: G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer, WW1 books review

The RUSI Journal review essay including G.H.Q.

October 12, 2017 by Ed Goodson


Excerpt from THE SOMME A CONTEST OF ENDURANCE, Review Essay by Jack Spence:

So much for context. Two of the authors under review — Frank Fox and Taylor Downing — provide specialised treatment of two subjects: the work of General Headquarters (GHQ) based at Montreuil-sur-Mer and the impact of shell shock on those who suffered and those in authority who had to deal with it.

Frank Fox, whose G.H.Q. (Montreuil-sur-Mer) was first published in 1920, was severely wounded on the Somme, but after a year’s convalescence returned to France as a staff officer at Montreuil.
The work was reissued in 2015 by Charles Goodson-Wickes, the author’s great-grandson and literary executor.
The reader is offered a meticulous and well—researched account of the vast bureaucratic structure and process required by Britain to prosecute the war successfully. This was, in many ways, a miracle of improvisation that governments of the past had never had to deal with on this scale, given the logistic requirements of modern war. In effect, the war, at one level of analysis, was a bureaucratic contest between states, all of which were seeking to mobilise and destroy the enemy’s ability to wage war most effectively. The author considers this in superb detail: for example, how munitions were supplied and despatched to the front; how medical facilities were organised; how horses and mules were cared for; and how a rudimentary educational system was devised. Fox is also illuminating on Secretary of State for War Horatio Kitchener’s New Army, providing an altogether fascinating account of the supporting role of the Dominions and the US. This argument is supported by a wealth of statistical information, photographs and a helpful chart detailing the various directorates and inspectorates controlled by the quartermaster general. Finally, there is a delicately phrased account of GHQ at play: ’monkish in its denial of some pleasures, rigid in discipline, exacting in work, but neither austere nor anxious’.7

This is an important text full of insight into how the British organised themselves for war.

7Frank Fox, G.H.Q. (Montreuil—sur-Mer)
(Beaumont Fox, 2015), p. 1.

(The RUSI Journal Dec 2016, Vol.161)
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0992890128/

Filed Under: G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer

Rupert Edis on GHQ for “History Today”

October 12, 2017 by Ed Goodson

History Today book review
Sir Frank Fox is a largely forgotten figure whose life reads like a character from a John Buchan novel. A “strikingly handsome” Australian émigré to England, who became a doyen of Fleet Street, as a war correspondent he witnessed German atrocities against Belgian civilians in 1914 which so appalled him that he signed up – lying about his age – at 41.

Grievously injured at the Somme, he worked for a time at MI7, focused on bringing the USA into the war, before charming his way to a staff officer post at General Headquarters (GHQ) in Montreuil-sur-Mer, northern France.

GHQ was the ‘brain’ of the huge British expeditionary effort in France and Belgium, responsible for strategy, coordination with Allied governments, and administration.

This contemporary account, re-published to coincide with the centenary of GHQ’s move to Montreuil under Haig, is a fascinating reminder of the unsung but vital role of logistics in military success or failure – “for every rifleman in the trenches there are at least three people working to keep him supplied with food, clothing, ammunition, and on communication.”

The red-tabbed staff officers of GHQ, whose prior experience at best stretched to small colonial wars, suddenly found themselves as the “Board of Directors” of a vast wartime supermarket, transport (in charge of half a million horses, and a spider’s web of railways), laundry and health service which had to match the BEF’s tenfold growth 1914-16.

Fox compares the challenge to peacetime civilian administration: “Tell the manager of the London to Brighton line that next week he must carry 15 times the normal traffic for a number of days, and that it is extremely important that people observing his termini and his lines should not notice anything unusual”. During intense fighting, 1,934 tons of materiel had to be supplied to each mile of front, per day, to feed the war machine.

GHQ personnel led lives of monkish hard work, sealed tight inside Montreuil’s medieval ramparts against the dangers of espionage. Fox, who had experienced both, downplays the dangers of trench life, “not nearly so dangerous as one might judge from the lurid accounts of imaginative writers”, as set against the “fantastic” but punishing work at GHQ.

Work might continue through consecutive days and nights, and some men, tortured by their sometimes momentous effect on human lives, became unfit to work there. Hardly the image of cosy “chateau generalship” encouraged by some historians and “Blackadder”.

There are moments of high tension at GHQ when the Ludendorff Offensive of March 1918 smashed through British lines, threatening the Channel Ports, the conquest of which the author estimated could have extended the war by another ten years. GHQ worked then with the French on defensive preparations to destroy Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk and flood the Pas de Calais from the sea, which would have made “this great province a desert for two generations”.

From March 1918 until the Armistice, GHQ was subsumed under the overall command of the French Généralissime Marshal Foch, but continued to play its crucial role in the complex strategic and logistic planning for the ultimate defeat of the German Army.

This charming account, sometimes disjointed and written in the manner and language of its time, which will not please all modern readers, gives rare perspective on GHQ’s wartime operations. Its example 1916-18 (the author also reminds us that Montreuil was a jump off point for the Roman invasion of Britain, and “lay almost in sight” of Agincourt and Crecy) demonstrates the need for a flexible, bilateral approach to meet changing circumstances – at least in military and security affairs – rather than the over-idealistic “ever closer union” required by some of Britain’s current allies.
Buy the book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kings-Pilgrimage…/dp/0992890160/

Filed Under: G.H.Q. Montreuil-sur-Mer

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