Sunday August 28,2011
THE haunted eyes stare from the depths of a First World War trench, an officer struggling to make sense of the daily slaughter of friends and comrades.
Actor Dan Stevens captures the horror in the new series of the period drama Downton Abbey this autumn, where the Grantham family is engulfed by the Great War and heir-apparent Matthew Crawley signs up to fight for the fictional duke of Manchester Regiment.
He leads his men through the barbed wire and shell craters as the second series of the award-winning ITV drama explodes with new levels of intrigue and tension. It’s a hellish landscape that gives corkscrewing contours to the next age of downton.
Yet no script can encompass the astonishing spectrum of bravery to bereavement that befell the real Manchester Regiment, a unit that suffered 14,122 deaths and 31,000 wounded or missing in the conflict that changed British society.
The Manchesters won 11 VCs in four years of infernal fighting and at one stage had 24,000 soldiers on the Western Front.
He leads his men through the barbed wire and shell craters as the second series of the award-winning ITV drama explodes with new levels of intrigue and tension. It’s a hellish landscape that gives corkscrewing contours to the next age of downton.
Yet no script can encompass the astonishing spectrum of bravery to bereavement that befell the real Manchester Regiment, a unit that suffered 14,122 deaths and 31,000 wounded or missing in the conflict that changed British society.
The Manchesters won 11 VCs in four years of infernal fighting and at one stage had 24,000 soldiers on the Western Front.
 The Manchesters won 11 VCs in four years of infernal fighting |
Downton’s producers recreated the killing fields for the war scenes and Stevens says: “The whole experience of filming in the trenches was extraordinary and overwhelming and very, very difficult. until we got there I found it impossible even to conceive what life could have been like, then we got on set and the atmosphere... the horrific conditions...”
“I’m reading a book by John Lewis-Stempel called Six Weeks, the average life expectancy of a soldier of my class fighting on the front line. It is disturbing not only because of what these guys went through, but also because my chances of surviving the war are not looking good.”
Stevens’s trench terror is a trademark gaze captured in period photographs including one of their legendary leaders, the highly-decorated Lieutenant-Colonel Wilfrith Elstob who was charged with holding up the awesome German Spring Offensive of March 1918.
Outnumbered and overwhelmed, his 16th Battalion fought to save the strategic Manchester hill, overlooking St Quentin, in northern France. It was a near impossible task but the 29-year-old music teacher, rallied his men with the epic cry, “here we fight and here we die.”
A huge bombardment laid waste to the defences and out of the mist and artillery fog thousands of German stormtroopers punched through the lines and hand-to-hand fighting broke out.
Elstob, a commanding 6ft figure, raced to one trench under sniper fire, raised his revolver and accounted for an entire enemy bombing party.
He was wounded three times, blown off his feet by an explosion but carried on encouraging his troops.
Finally confronted by German officers he refused to surrender, saying: “never!” before being shot dead.
More than 500 men lost their lives but the delay helped the rest of the line repulse the offensive.
A German officer wrote after taking the hill: “Their position was hopeless but it was important for them to gain time. The seven officers who were holding out there, having refused repeated demands for their surrender, had to be killed one by one with grenades. Honour their memory!”
Elstob was awarded a posthumous VC.
Crawley signing up for it’s version of the Manchesters is entirely consistent as many middle class men joined up with their friends. One of the regiment’s battalions comprised mainly stockbrokers, solicitors, accountants, teachers and office staff.
Historian and author John hartley hopes the First World War storylines in Downton will inspire viewers to appreciate the real story of the Manchesters.
“It would be great if it encouraged people to look at the history because we can learn so much from it,” said John, who wrote the Sixth Battalion the Manchester Regiment In the Great War, and whose grandfather fought in the regiment.
“It is a short period of time when war and British society changed dramatically from Victorian times to what we have now. People stopped having servants. I’ve just looked at the 1911 Census and a lot of the middle classes had servants back then.
Even salesmen or insurance agents, who you would not normally associate with having staff, had a live-in housemaid.
“Society was in upheaval with women getting the vote. The way wars were fought also changed with aircraft and the first real weapons of mass destruction introduced. It is such a rich period of history and is acutely relevant to the events portrayed at Downton.”
Downton itself is not spared the impact of war as it is transformed into a convalescence hospital for officers.
The Earl of Grantham, played by Hugh Bonneville, is in the Army but still at Downton as the new series unfolds next month.
Crawley’s role on the Somme could have come straight from regimental records as battalions of the Manchesters were lined up on the frontline for the bloodbath Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916. Around 57,000 Allied troops were casualties on the first day, with almost 20,000 dead.
“The Manchesters were part of a brigade that took Montauban and they were one of the few that achieved their objectives on the opening day,” said Roy Sellstrom, who served as a regular soldier for 22 years and set up the manchesters.org information forum.
“Someone like Crawley would have joined his local regiment and, as the character is a Manchester solicitor, that makes sense. He would have been thrown in at the deep end. Basic training with the other ranks was often in municipal parks commandeered to drill troops.
“Then it would be training under the regular Army but within six weeks they could be on their way to france. He would not have been spared anything and, of course, it was his job to lead his men into battles.”
The Manchesters clocked up VCs through the period tackled by Downton with Colour Sergeant Major George evans volunteering to take a message across 700 yards of open ground even though five runners had already been killed attempting the task. Using shell-holes for cover he zig-zagged his way under fire and, despite being wounded, made it there and back.
In 1917, Sergeant Harry Coverdale, 29, won a VC for disposing of three enemy snipers and then rushed two machine gun nests and led his platoon to safety when they came under attack.
The heroism continued with the last VC being awarded just a week before the Armistice in november 1918, in the action that claimed the life of poet Wilfred Owen.
Warehouse clerk James Kirk, who signed up at the start of the war, was a 21-year-old lieutenant alongside owen as they attempted a dangerous assault across the Oise Canal, in northern France.
Owen was shot dead and as his comrades came under murderous fire, Kirk jumped onto a makeshift raft with a machine gun, paddled into the middle of the canal and blazed away at the German lines from 10 yards away.
He continued firing until he ran out of ammunition providing cover for a bridge building unit. He was eventually wounded in the head and arm and died later that day.
His citation in the London Gazette stated: “The supreme contempt of danger and magnificent self-sacrifice displayed by this gallant officer prevented many casualties and enabled two platoons to cross the bridge before it was destroyed.”
Whatever fate befalls Matthew Crawley and the rest of the Downton cast over the seven episodes of the new series it will have echoes of the thousands of fallen heroes from the Manchester Regiment.
Outnumbered and overwhelmed, his 16th Battalion fought to save the strategic Manchester hill, overlooking St Quentin, in northern France. It was a near impossible task but the 29-year-old music teacher, rallied his men with the epic cry, “here we fight and here we die.”
A huge bombardment laid waste to the defences and out of the mist and artillery fog thousands of German stormtroopers punched through the lines and hand-to-hand fighting broke out.
Elstob, a commanding 6ft figure, raced to one trench under sniper fire, raised his revolver and accounted for an entire enemy bombing party.
He was wounded three times, blown off his feet by an explosion but carried on encouraging his troops.
Finally confronted by German officers he refused to surrender, saying: “never!” before being shot dead.
More than 500 men lost their lives but the delay helped the rest of the line repulse the offensive.
A German officer wrote after taking the hill: “Their position was hopeless but it was important for them to gain time. The seven officers who were holding out there, having refused repeated demands for their surrender, had to be killed one by one with grenades. Honour their memory!”
Elstob was awarded a posthumous VC.
Crawley signing up for it’s version of the Manchesters is entirely consistent as many middle class men joined up with their friends. One of the regiment’s battalions comprised mainly stockbrokers, solicitors, accountants, teachers and office staff.
Historian and author John hartley hopes the First World War storylines in Downton will inspire viewers to appreciate the real story of the Manchesters.
“It would be great if it encouraged people to look at the history because we can learn so much from it,” said John, who wrote the Sixth Battalion the Manchester Regiment In the Great War, and whose grandfather fought in the regiment.
“It is a short period of time when war and British society changed dramatically from Victorian times to what we have now. People stopped having servants. I’ve just looked at the 1911 Census and a lot of the middle classes had servants back then.
Even salesmen or insurance agents, who you would not normally associate with having staff, had a live-in housemaid.
“Society was in upheaval with women getting the vote. The way wars were fought also changed with aircraft and the first real weapons of mass destruction introduced. It is such a rich period of history and is acutely relevant to the events portrayed at Downton.”
Downton itself is not spared the impact of war as it is transformed into a convalescence hospital for officers.
The Earl of Grantham, played by Hugh Bonneville, is in the Army but still at Downton as the new series unfolds next month.
Crawley’s role on the Somme could have come straight from regimental records as battalions of the Manchesters were lined up on the frontline for the bloodbath Battle of the Somme on July 1, 1916. Around 57,000 Allied troops were casualties on the first day, with almost 20,000 dead.
“The Manchesters were part of a brigade that took Montauban and they were one of the few that achieved their objectives on the opening day,” said Roy Sellstrom, who served as a regular soldier for 22 years and set up the manchesters.org information forum.
“Someone like Crawley would have joined his local regiment and, as the character is a Manchester solicitor, that makes sense. He would have been thrown in at the deep end. Basic training with the other ranks was often in municipal parks commandeered to drill troops.
“Then it would be training under the regular Army but within six weeks they could be on their way to france. He would not have been spared anything and, of course, it was his job to lead his men into battles.”
The Manchesters clocked up VCs through the period tackled by Downton with Colour Sergeant Major George evans volunteering to take a message across 700 yards of open ground even though five runners had already been killed attempting the task. Using shell-holes for cover he zig-zagged his way under fire and, despite being wounded, made it there and back.
In 1917, Sergeant Harry Coverdale, 29, won a VC for disposing of three enemy snipers and then rushed two machine gun nests and led his platoon to safety when they came under attack.
The heroism continued with the last VC being awarded just a week before the Armistice in november 1918, in the action that claimed the life of poet Wilfred Owen.
Warehouse clerk James Kirk, who signed up at the start of the war, was a 21-year-old lieutenant alongside owen as they attempted a dangerous assault across the Oise Canal, in northern France.
Owen was shot dead and as his comrades came under murderous fire, Kirk jumped onto a makeshift raft with a machine gun, paddled into the middle of the canal and blazed away at the German lines from 10 yards away.
He continued firing until he ran out of ammunition providing cover for a bridge building unit. He was eventually wounded in the head and arm and died later that day.
His citation in the London Gazette stated: “The supreme contempt of danger and magnificent self-sacrifice displayed by this gallant officer prevented many casualties and enabled two platoons to cross the bridge before it was destroyed.”
Whatever fate befalls Matthew Crawley and the rest of the Downton cast over the seven episodes of the new series it will have echoes of the thousands of fallen heroes from the Manchester Regiment.
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