The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 1: Chronology

20 July 1916 The 11th Battalion spend the day in training at Beauval. At midnight Lieutenant W.H. Reynolds, to this point the Battalion Signalling Officer, takes over command of Brigade Signals. Tolkien succeeds him as Signalling Officer of the 11th Battalion.

21 July 1916 At 10.00 a.m. the 74th Infantry Brigade parades and marches to billets at Bus-lès-Artois, arriving at 4.00 p.m., having had dinner on the way. Tolkien will note in his diary that he slept in huts in a wood this night and the two following nights.

22 July 1916 Lieutenant Ralph S. Payton, one of Tolkien’s friends from King Edward’s School, is killed on the Somme while leading his machine gunners into action.

22–23 July 1916 The 11th Battalion is kept busy with more training at Buslès-Artois.

23 July 1916 In the morning, Tolkien attends a Roman Catholic service.

24 July 1916 At 10.00 a.m. the 74th Infantry Brigade, including the 11th Battalion, parades and marches to Mailly-Maillet. They arrive around noon and are served dinner. The 74th is to relieve the 87th Infantry Brigade. The large wood south-west of the village is often used for troop encampments. At 1.30 p.m. each platoon of the 11th Battalion is guided from the wood to the front line trenches at Beaumont-Hamel by a member of the 1st Border Regiment, whom the battalion is relieving. The relief is completed at about 5.00 p.m. The Battalion diary will note: ‘Trenches very good + a good supply of deep dugouts for men’. A, B, and D Companies are in the front line, with C Company in support.

25 July 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, praising his poem The Lonely Isle.

25–29 July 1916 Except for occasional shelling which causes six deaths, the 11th Battalion spends much of this relatively quiet period repairing and strengthening existing trenches as well as digging new ones and a headquarters area for the battalion and the brigade. At night men excavate forward dugouts and set up wire barriers. The communications system is mended and strengthened. An armoured cable is laid between battle headquarters and the battalions in line. On the night of 28–29 July patrols sent out to examine enemy wire are unable to do so because of hostile fire. On 29 July two German aeroplanes circle for from 5.00 to 7.00 p.m. until driven away by anti-aircraft fire. During this period Tolkien spends his nights in trenches near Auchonvillers and Beaumont-Hamel.

30 July 1916 The 11th Battalion is relieved at 4.00 a.m. by the 9th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and returns to Mailly-Maillet as part of the Division reserve. Tolkien will note in his diary that he slept in the wood at Mailly-Maillet on the nights of 30 July to 4 August.

31 July 1916 The men of the 11th Battalion take baths. New men are trained on Lewis Guns (light machine guns) and bombing.

1 August 1916 Minden Day. At 9.30 a.m., following physical drill, the 11th Battalion commemorates with a ceremonial parade the Lancashire Fusiliers’ part in the Battle of Minden on 1 August 1759, a famous victory against the French during the Seven Years’ War. In late morning there is training, and in the afternoon sporting competitions are held: Inter-Company Drill Competition, Blindfold Boxing, Potato Race, Inter-Company Relay Race, and Inter-Company Tug-of-War. At 6.00 p.m. the 74th Infantry Brigade Troupe gives a concert. The officers dine with staff captain Major G.C.S. Hodgson. During the night working parties from the battalion help to repair trenches.

2–4 August 1916 The 11th Battalion, still in reserve, is occupied with drilling and training. Working parties assist day and night in work on dugouts and trenches for the 74th Infantry Brigade headquarters.

4 August 1916 (postmark) Smith writes to Tolkien, probably enclosing a letter Wiseman had written to Smith on hearing of Gilson’s death, in which Smith has underlined parts. When Tolkien receives it he too marks certain parts and adds his comments.

5 August 1916 The 11th Battalion, relieved of reserve duties at Mailly-Maillet by the 1st Leicestershires, marches to a camp between Acheux and Bertrancourt, arriving at 2.00 p.m. Tolkien will note in his diary that he slept in a tent at Bertrancourt on the nights of 5 and 6 August.

6 August 1916 At 10.00 a.m. Tolkien attends a Roman Catholic service in the church at Bertrancourt. In the afternoon, the 11th Battalion undergoes more training.

7 August 1916 In the morning the 11th Battalion is given physical training. Lieutenant-Colonel L.G. Bird, Commanding Officer of the 11th Battalion, orders an advance party consisting of Second Lieutenant G.A. Potts, Second Lieutenant Tolkien, the battalion sergeant major, and four company sergeant majors to report to battalion headquarters in the trenches at 11.00 am. The rest of the battalion is to parade at 1.00 pm, then at 1.30 p.m. to proceed to the trenches. The Headquarters Signallers are to leave first, followed by D and C Companies, the Battalion Bombers, and A and B Companies. Officers’ kits for the trenches are to be handed in to the Quartermaster by noon, carefully and legibly labelled. By 5.30 p.m. the battalion arrives at its destination, opposite Beaumont-Hamel with the villages of Colincamps and Mailly-Maillet to the rear. On arrival it immediately begins to repair trenches damaged by enemy action. See note. Tolkien will note in his diary that he slept in the sucrérie at Mailly-Maillet, south-east of Colincamps, on the nights of 7 to 9 August; in fact the ruined sugar refinery is nearer to Colincamps.

8 August 1916 R.H. Gordon of Exeter College is killed in action on the Somme.

8–9 August 1916 The 11th Battalion proceeds with trench repairs, interrupted only when under fire; four men are killed and four wounded.

10 August 1916 Relieved by the 1st Welsh Guards in the afternoon, the 11th Battalion marches to Bus-lès-Artois. Lieutenant-Colonel Bird’s orders for this operation instruct companies to report completion of relief by wire to battalion headquarters, and specify that all officers’ kits and other stores for transport are to be at the Dump at the end of Cheeroh Avenue (the main communication trench to the front line) no later than 3.00 p.m., with officers’ servants in attendance. If required, some of the signalling personnel are to stay in the line until 11 August to ensure the smooth working of communications; but Tolkien will record that he slept that night, and the following four nights, in the ‘same billets as before at Bus[-lès-Artois]’. In the evening he goes into a nearby wood, thinks about Gilson, and considers Wiseman’s letter (see entry for 4 August).

11–14 August 1916 The 11th Battalion remains at Bus-lès-Artois, occupied with drills, training, inspections, and boxing competitions, and on 13 August with baths. The 25th Divisional Engineers conduct training in visual signalling, and in office wiring and cable joining.

11 August 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, thanking him for a letter (written probably before Tolkien received Wiseman’s letter from Smith) and commenting, presumably in response to something Tolkien wrote, that he thinks ‘there are still a great many sober men and true’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). – In the evening, Tolkien again goes into the wood to sit and think.

12–13 August 1916 Tolkien writes a letter to Smith, thanking him for sending Wiseman’s letter. Tolkien has thought much since receiving it, and finds that he no longer agrees with the comments he made on it:

What I meant, and thought Chris meant, and am almost sure you meant, was that the T.C.B.S. had been granted some spark of fire – certainly as a body if not singly – that was destined to kindle a new light, or, what is the same thing, rekindle an old light in the world; that the T.C.B.S. was destined to testify for God and Truth in a more direct way even than by laying down its several lives in this war (which is for all the evil of our own side in the large view good against evil). So far my chief impression is that something has gone crack. I feel just the same to both of you – nearer if anything and very much in need of you – I am hungry and lonely of course – but I don’t feel a member of a little complete body now. I honestly feel that the T.C.B.S. has ended – but I am not at all sure that it is not an unreliable feeling that will vanish – like magic perhaps when we come together again. Still I feel a mere individual at present – with intense feelings more than ideas but very powerless. [Letters, p. 10]

He hopes that those who are left will be able to continue its work. He ends by saying that if the letter seems incoherent it was ‘due to its being written at different sittings amongst the noise of a very boring Company mess’. He wishes that he could write more but has much to do (now on the 13th, a Sunday): ‘The Bde Sig. Offr. [Brigade Signalling Officer] is after me for a confabulation, and I have two rows to have with the QM [Quartermaster] and a detestable 6.30 parade – 6.30 p.m. of a sunny Sabbath’ (Letters, pp. 9–10).

14 August 1916 Robert Cary Gilson, Head Master of King Edward’s School, replies to a letter of sympathy Tolkien sent to him on the death of his son. Rob Gilson’s will directs that Tolkien should have some of his books or drawings.

15 August 1916 At 10.00 a.m. the 11th Battalion parades and marches to ‘hutments’ in the wood at Acheux-en-Amiénois, arriving at 1.00 p.m. They will remain there, occupied with training and drilling, until 19 August, when they will march to Hédauville and then on to the trenches at Thiepval on 20 August; Tolkien however will be on a signalling course (see below). – Smith writes to Tolkien, not yet having received his letter of 12–13 August. He cannot sleep for memories of Rob Gilson and of the last time he saw him. He thinks that in some ways Rob is to be envied: ‘After all he is out of the great struggle of life, and it often seems that rest and peace are a great boon…. I wish I could find you – I search for you everywhere’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford).

16–23 August 1916 Tolkien attends a course for the Battalion Signalling Officers in the 25th Division. The rest of the 11th Battalion is involved in other activities. Tolkien will note in his diary that he slept in the wood at Acheux on the nights of 15 to 17 August, at battalion headquarters at Acheux on 18 August, and at ‘billet 89 Acheux’ from 19 to 23 August.

19–22 August 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien on 19 August that he received his long letter (of 12–13 August) the day before and disagrees with much of it:

The idea that the T.C.B.S. has stopped is for me entirely impossible…. The T.C.B.S. is not so much a society as an influence on the state of being. I never for two consecutive seconds believed in the four-idealfriends theory except in its very widest sense as a highly important and very worthy communion of living souls. That such an influence on the state of being could come to an end with Rob’s loss is to me a preposterous idea…. The T.C.B.S. is not finished and never will be.

He returns Tolkien’s letter with ‘some rather curt and perhaps rude comments’. He had hoped to see Tolkien on 19 August as both Tolkien’s battalion and Smith’s are in Hédauville, but found that Tolkien was away on a course; but they are sure to meet soon, and ‘I am not quite sure whether I shall shake you by the hand or take you by the throat, so enormously do I disagree with your letter and agree with myself!’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). In fact he sees Tolkien later that day, and again each day on 20, 21, and 22 August.

22 August 1916 Tolkien, Smith, and H.T. Wade-Gery have dinner at Bouzincourt, and are shelled while eating. This is the last time that Tolkien will see G.B. Smith. Possibly on this date, Wade-Gery presents to Tolkien a copy of The Earthly Paradise by William Morris, vol. 5 of the Collected Works edited by Morris’s daughter May.

23 August 1916 The signalling course ends.

24 August 1916 Tolkien leaves Acheux, travels by way of Hédauville, and rejoins his battalion who are occupying trenches at the edge of a wood near Thiepval, a German stronghold and the focus of an Allied assault.

24–26 August 1916 The 11th Battalion spends most of this time constructing new trenches while other units take a more active role, but even so there are casualties due to shelling. – Tolkien writes two poems. He dates the manuscript of the first, The Thatch of Poppies, to ‘Acheux Hédauville Thiepval Aug[ust] 24–25 1916’. He dedicates the second, The Forest Walker, ‘To Buslès-Artois Wood’, and in it obliquely refers to his feelings when he had gone to that wood on 10 and 11 August to think about Rob Gilson’s death. He will later write on one manuscript of The Forest Walker: ‘HQ [headquarters] dugout Thiepval Wood Aug[ust] 25–26’. He will note in his diary having slept in a dugout at Thiepval on the nights of 24 and 25 August.

26–27 August 1916 From about 5.00 to 10.45 p.m. on 26 August the 11th Battalion is relieved by the 1/5 West Yorkshire Regiment, under shelling. The battalion marches to Bouzincourt, arriving at about 1.00 a.m. on 27 August. The men rest and clean up.

28–31 August 1916 At 4.00 a.m. on 28 August the 11th Battalion parades and marches to relieve the 4th Royal Berkshire and 5th Gloucester Regiments in trenches north of Ovillers, near the Leipzig Salient. The battalion works day and night to repair and strengthen the trenches, ankle-deep in water, hindered by heavy rain and shelling. Although the Battalion diary will describe each of these days as ‘quiet’, five men are killed and thirty wounded. Tolkien as Battalion Signalling Officer helps to install, or supervises the installation of, a new system of cables connecting the front line with Brigade headquarters. He will note in his diary that he spent the night of 28 August in ‘Specialist mess 88’, and the nights of 29 to 31 August at Ovillers-La-Boisselle. – Close to the trenches is Authuille Wood, described by John Masefield as ‘a romantic and very lovely wood, pleasant with the noise of water. But at its north-eastern end it runs out in a straggling spinney along the Leipzig’s east flank . . Here the enemy fearing for his safety kept up a terrible barrage. The trees are burnt, ragged, unbarked, topped and cut off short, the trenches are blown in and jumbled, and the ground blasted and gouged’ (The Old Front Line (1917), p. 65).

1–5 September 1916 On 1 September the 11th Battalion leaves the front line, exchanging places with the 9th Loyal North Lancashires who have been in support. The 11th Battalion spends the next few days cleaning up the relief trenches, but also sends working parties to the front line and communications trenches to aid the Royal Engineers. Tolkien is probably involved with the laying of more cables between each battalion and Brigade headquarters. He will note in his diary that he spent the nights of 1 to 5 September at Ovillers-La-Boisselle.

6 September 1916 The 11th Battalion is relieved by the 6th South Staffordshires and marches to bivouacs 500 yards east of Bouzincourt. See note. The men spend the day cleaning and reorganizing. Probably at about this time a letter written on 25 August by the mother of Thomas Gaskin, asking for information about the death of her son, is passed to Tolkien for reply. See note.

7–12 September 1916 The men of the 11th Battalion proceed in stages to Franqueville for a long training session. They are carefully ordered to march, on their way from Bouzincourt, through the southern outskirts of Beauquesne, not through the centre; that four companies, each with its signallers, Lewis Gun teams, and bombers will leave at five-minute intervals, followed by transport, with the first company leaving at 8.20 a.m.; that at 8.00 a.m. the battalion’s second in command will inspect the billets they are leaving to be sure they are perfectly clean; that all officers’ kits and company stores are to be at the quartermaster’s stores no later than 6.00 a.m., with officers’ servants in attendance; and that care is to be taken when observing the regulation halt of ten minutes each hour, to prevent closing up of the column. The battalion reaches Léalvillers on 7 September (Tolkien spends the night in a billet), Puchevillers on the 8th (Tolkien sleeps two nights in a bivouac; 9 September is spent in drilling and reorganizing), Beauval on the 10th, Candas on the 11th, and Franqueville on the 12th. Tolkien will note in his diary that he spent the nights of 10, 11, and 12 September in billets.

10 September 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, asking him to send a field postcard telling how he is. He has heard from R.W. Reynolds but has had nothing from Wiseman for ages. – Tolkien will note in his diary that he attended Mass this day, presumably at Beauval.

13–24 September 1916 In Franqueville the 11th Battalion, with the rest of the 74th Brigade, spends time with drills, parades, and inspections, and in physical, company, and specialist training. On 17 September the men are given a demonstration of drill and guard mounting by staff of the 4th Army School. On 22 September there is a battalion competition in bayonet fighting and assaulting. On 24 September the officers of the 74th Brigade take part in a staff ride held by their Commanding Officer, Brigadier-General Armytage. During this period the Divisional Engineers train six men for each battalion in visual signalling. A second trained signalling officer is now posted to the 11th Battalion, Second Lieutenant Leslie Risdon Huxtable. – Tolkien revises his poem The Mermaid’s Flute (first composed in March 1915), and probably writes a new poem, later dated ‘Franqueville? Sept[ember].’ The latter, beginning ‘O Lady Mother throned amid the stars’, will be called Consolatrix Afflictorum and Stella Vespertina.

15 September 1916 *John Mackreth of Exeter College, once a member of the Apolausticks, is killed in action on the Somme.

16 September 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, enclosing a letter from Wiseman. Wiseman has sent copies of the letters Smith and Tolkien had sent Wiseman in the winter of 1914, and while reading them Smith realizes that Tolkien was right when he said that they have changed. Smith apparently has had a letter from Tolkien letting off steam, as he says: ‘I am intensely sorry to hear of your frictions with others. I know how one officer can make a beast of himself to his junior, if he is a swine enough to do so’ (Tolkien Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford). Wiseman, writing from HMS Superb on 30 August and 4 September, says that he has been reading through his ‘TCBSian’ archive of correspondence and can see the changes and development in the group.

25–27 September 1916 The 11th Battalion makes its way back to the front line, mainly on foot, but on 25 September partly by motor bus. The men spend the night of the 25th at Forceville and of the 26th at Hédauville. They reach bivouacs near Bouzincourt on the 27th. On that evening they make their way through the communication trenches and relieve the 1/7 West Yorkshire Regiment at the front near Thiepval Wood. The battle for Thiepval Ridge having begun on 26 September, the village itself has just fallen, and the Joseph, Schwaben, Zollern, and Hessian Trenches have been captured, but beyond is a German strongpoint, the Schwaben Redoubt. Tolkien will note in his diary that on the night of 26 September he shared a tent with Second Lieutenant Huxtable, and on the night of the 27th he slept in a dugout at Thiepval.

26 September 1916 One of the tanks just introduced into the war by the British Army sticks fast and cannot be moved. It will be one of the sights of Thiepval for months to come.

28–29 September 1916 For much of 28 September the men of the 11th Battalion, in the front line trenches on the edge of Thiepval Wood, have a good view of the attack by the 18th Division on Schwaben Redoubt. At about 6.00 p.m. three patrols from the 11th Battalion, each consisting of thirty men and a Lewis Gun detachment and led by an officer, are sent to occupy trenches the enemy is believed to have abandoned. By 6.45 p.m. they have achieved their objective and taken twenty-one prisoners. They explore the communication trenches leading to the enemy’s close-support line, and during the night take twenty more prisoners and find a quantity of maps and an unopened mailbag. A signaller from the 11th Battalion, Lance-Corporal A. Fletcher, later will be awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal for using a discarded German torch to communicate with the front line when his own lamp is smashed, and for rescuing a wounded man. Early on the morning of 29 September, with the enemy still strongly holding its support line, an advance position is moved back slightly to consolidate and strengthen the front line. Tolkien will note in his diary that he was in action at Thiepval during the nights of 28 and 29 September. – The prisoners taken at the Schwaben Redoubt include men from a Saxon regiment which had fought alongside the Lancashire Fusiliers against the French at Minden in 1759. Tolkien speaks in German to one of the captured officers and offers him a drink of water; the officer corrects his pronunciation. In a moment of calm while the guns are silent, Tolkien’s hand is on the receiver of a trench telephone when a field-mouse runs across his fingers.

30 September 1916 The 11th Battalion is relieved by the 7th Royal West Kents during the early morning and marches to Englebelmer, arriving at 8.00 a.m. The men spend the day cleaning up and resting.

1–5 October 1916 At 11.00 a.m. on 1 October the 11th Battalion parades and marches to a camp at W8 Central, near Bouzincourt, arriving at about 12.30 p.m. The men spend the next few days in company and specialist training, including a battalion attack practice on 2 October.

3 October 1916 Smith writes to Tolkien, saying he has not heard from him for a very long time.

6–9 October 1916 On 6–7 October the 74th Brigade relieves the 75th Brigade at Mouquet Farm, a fortified position recently captured from the Germans. The 11th Lancashire Fusiliers relieve the 11th Cheshires and take up position in the front line in the recently captured Zollern and Hessian Trenches and in the Fabeck support trench east of Thiepval. Although the Germans have lost their forward trenches they are holding out in parts of the Schwaben and Stuff Redoubts. During the next few days and nights the men of the 11th Battalion spend much of their time under heavy shelling, repairing and deepening old trenches, digging new trenches to gunpits in No Man’s Land, and laying and burying new communication lines. – On 7 October the signal office of the 74th Brigade is moved two hundred yards from its original site, entailing extra cable-laying for the signals engineers. On 9 October two shells hit the signals dugout, and communications have to be repaired. The Stuff Redoubt is finally taken on this date. – Tolkien will note in his diary that he spent the nights of 6 to 12 October at Battalion headquarters in front of Mouquet Farm.