The Dover and Folkestone Mutinies of the First World War

 

Copyright Janet Cameron, Family Album

Desperate men took desperate measures to escape further enforced conscription and get home to their loved ones.

Certain crimes of the past seem to us today not to be crimes at all, for example, the mutiny of the troops during and after the terrible carnage of the First World War. Nor were mutinies confined to Britain. German, Italian, French and Russian soldiers were shot in large numbers as a result of refusing to fight, or walking off the battlefields.  Sixty British soldiers were shot for cowardice and desertion during 1916. A year later, the number was 221, and in 1918, there were 676 executions. After 40,000 French troops had withdrawn from fighting in 1917, the British Army bore the brunt of the war, so it is hardly surprising the figures escalated as the war drew to a close.

Grievances and Harsh Discipline

Once the Armistice was declared in November 1918, the soldiers wanted to get home to their loved ones as quickly as possible. At his election, with the intention of courting votes, Lloyd George had promised them exactly that, but the military had other ideas. There was talk of men being sent to fight the Bolsheviks in Russia, and although it was promised that only volunteers would be enlisted, common knowledge indicated that men were being conscripted unwillingly.

A soldier in Shoreham in West Sussex, enraged by the treatment of one of his comrades by an officer, walked out. It took the efforts of a general to calm the men down. The soldiers stood their ground, and, next day, 1,000 men were demobilised. A few weeks later, there were disturbances at Dover and Folkestone. The Folkestone soldiers had many grievances against the harsh discipline of their officers, as well as poor living conditions in the camp and the fear of being sent off to fight again. Soon, the harsh news that Folkestone soldiers were to be sent back to France caused further agitation.

A Desperate Protest Against Injustice by Folkestone Soldiers

The men announced that, until their demands were taken seriously, no military vessel would be permitted to leave from Folkestone for France, and they followed this up by planting pickets around the harbour. Men arriving back from the battlefields of France joined the demonstrators in their protest.

The men were surprisingly patient. Without undue force, they managed to repel fusiliers armed with bayonets and ball cartridges sent to discipline them. A procession of around 10,000 men set off to march through Folkestone, with the support of the people. The soldiers formed a union with officials of their own.  Sir William Robertson duly arrived from the War Office to hear their demands. He allowed the men to elect demobilisation committees from their own numbers.

Dover Soldiers Support their Folkestone Comrades

Meanwhile, 4,000 Dover soldiers, equally disillusioned with the futility of their situation and the harsh conditions at camp, stood firm in support of the Folkestone soldiers. The Dover men held a meeting at the harbour station to form a deputation, and they, too, decided to march in procession, presenting themselves at the Town Hall to confront the mayor. It is recorded that they were entertained with some welcoming piano music, and invited to attend a film at a nearby cinema.

The politician, Horatio Bottomley, MP, was known as "the soldiers' friend", and he helped to calm the situation. Ministry of Labour officials rushed the paperwork so the men could be demobilised. The Dover and Folkestone soldiers became role models for a number of other troops, and the War Office was beside itself with the protests. Before long, many other desperate soldiers were discharged and allowed home to their families.

Source:

• Dover Library Archives
• Dover - Murder and Crime, The History Press, Janet Cameron

 

The Chanctonbury Ring - a Site of Primeval Power

If you climb Chanctonbury Hill in West Sussex, you might come across a Witches' Sabbat. A witch explains that sex is a great rite and a powerful form of magic, but you have to know how to handle it!

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse 1886  Public Domain

The Chanctonbury Ring is a hill fort based ring of trees on the top of Chanctonbury Hill in the South Downs of West Sussex. A Mrs. Valiante, appeared in a review in the Argus newspaper, describing herself as a practising witch. She told how the sacred landmark was a favourite spot for witches' covens. "I became a witch many years ago... I have danced at the Witches' Sabbat on many occasions and I find enjoyment in it. I have stood under the stars at midnight and invoked the old gods and I have found in the invocation of the most primeval powers, those of life, love and death, an uplifting of consciousness that no orthodox religious service has ever given me." The review comments that 300 years ago, Mrs. Valiante would have been burnt at the stake for making such a statement.
     The most well-known legend, appearing in many sources of Sussex folklore, is that if you go to the ring at midnight and run around it several times, the Devil would appear and offer you something to eat and drink. "A bowl of soup," says Mrs. Valiante, "which sounds rather prosaic unless the contents of a witches' cauldron are intended."  Anyone who accepts the Devil's gift becomes his forever.

A New Enlightened Society

The author said it was difficult to know how many practising witches there are today (1973) because there was no central leadership, and while some covens sought publicity, others shunned it. She said we were advancing towards a new regenerated and enlightened society that repudiated the old persecution of witches. Witchcraft was a druid-like religion centred on nature worship, a belief in reincarnation, a philosophy and a way of life. 
     Achaeologists have discovered the Chanctonbury Ring was a site of a Romano-British temple. During the 1970s, there were also a number of articles about witchcraft as a Black Art invoking the Devil and many other unpleasant practices - although none of these articles are included here. Some things are best left well alone.

Sex and Witchcraft

Mrs. Valiante was also featured in an article by John Wellington in The Brighton and Hove Gazette dated 3 August 1979 where she talked about the use of sex in witchcraft rituals. 
     "I think that young people may want to have sex at rituals. The older ones prefer not to. I think we were more inhibited in my day. The world may be catching up with us," she said. "But in the old days they would have a great Sabbat and a terrific festival." Mrs. Valiante agreed the festivals often turned into orgies, although she was unhappy using that word.

     Her initiation into witchcraft was in 1953, and to her knowledge there were three covens in Brighton, each comprising between three and thirteen witches. She added that witchcraft was older than the druids, in fact its history stretched back into prehistoric times. "Sex is the great rite. It is a powerful form of magic - but you have to know how to handle it," she warned.

     Other sightings at Washington near Chanctonbury Ring include Caesar and his entire army, sounds of the hooves of unseen horses and phantom druids.

Valiante, Doreen, The ABC of Witchcraft, Robert Hale, 1973.

Wellington, John, The Brighton and Hove Gazette, 3 August 1979.

"Review" The Argus, 12 April, 1973.

Swimming Witches - Proof by Death of Guilt or Innocence

In Englnd witches were hanged, but on the Continent they were burned.
Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=596910

Thousands of innocent women, as well as a number of men, suffered horrific deaths after being branded as witches in 16th and 17th century Britain.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the practice of "swimming" to catch witches was a no-win situation for many women, who may only have offended a malicious neighbour, or been branded a "scold" by their husbands. It is also claimed that twenty-five per cent of accusations of witchcraft were made by children informing on their relatives. It can be imagined how terrified mothers, aunts and grandmothers must have been of punishing the children too harshly.

If a woman sank and drowned, her innocence was proven as she was hauled out, dead, by a rope around her waist. Many did drown, so that their names were cleared in death. If a woman floated and was deemed guilty, she would be brought to trial to be hanged or burned at the stake.

Generally, women in Britain were hanged, while those on the continent were burned.

Witches, it was claimed, appealed for the intervention of evil spirits, performing diabolical rites on the Witches' Sabbath, which parodied the Mass and the practices of the Orthodox Christian Church, They repudiated Jesus and the sacraments in their pursuit of the Prince of Darkness, who rewarded them with supernatural powers.

Burning and Pricking of Innocent Women

The usual method of burning witches was to tie the condemned woman to a stake and surround her with faggots so her death agonies were hidden from sight by a wall of flames. Death may have come from shock or from burned lungs as she inhaled the smoke.

"Pricking" was another way of identifying witches, because people believed that witches bore the mark of the devil on their body, and that this area was impervious to pain. To this end, no part of the body was considered sacred, and the accused had to endure being stripped naked and brutally exposed to pain and humiliation.

30,000 to 50,000 witches were executed between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries by a number of grisly methods, burning, strangulation, beheading or hanging. Most of the persecuted were women, but around twenty per cent were men. Almost all of their confessions were extracted by torture.

The "Swimming" of Old Nell Garlinge

In Coldred, a small village of the outskirts of the Port of Dover in Kent, the village pond was regularly used for swimming during witch trials to establish guilt by whether the accused floated or sank. In the 1640s, an elderly woman, Nell Garlinge, was tightly bound, her thumbs and toes being tied crosswise, and then she was hurled into the water. Nell drowned, and was pronounced innocent! The village pond where Nell and other poor women met their fate still exists, although, fortunately, the only swimming taking place today is by the ducks.

Nell's tragic story appears on Coldred's historic notice board by the pond.

In 1736, the law against witchcraft was repealed, although the witch-hunts continued. The last recorded witch to be hanged in England was Alice Molland in 1686.

Sources:

Folklore from historic plaques, word of mouth, Coldred, Kent.

This Sceptred Isle, Christopher Lee, Penguin Books, 1997.