1914 The Whalley Brothers War
--Bullant 18:04, 22 September 2011 (EST)
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[edit] The Whalley Brothers
The local Leader newspapers were established in 1888, the Preston and Northcote editions being identical except for the masthead. At the outbreak of the war, the papers were published by the Whalley brothers, (John Stott and Richard James Whalley) and local readers were uniquely fortunate that the proprietors were touring Europe when war was declared. The paper was able to print a number of on-the-spot reports while their rivals could only rehash material from the larger daily papers or issue their own somewhat uninformed editorials.
Local residents were fortunate in more ways than one. None of the neighbouring suburbs of Clifton Hill, Brunswick and Coburg or the inner districts of Collingwood or Fitzroy had a local newspaper of the war years that is preserved today in State Library of Victoria – oddly enough, all of them except Coburg had earlier local publications that had fallen by the wayside many years before the outbreak of the Great War.
By the time the news of the declaration of war reached Australia on August 5, 1914, the Leader had already carried several letters from the brothers describing their time in England, Scotland, Switzerland and northern Italy.
With regular air mail still well over a decade away, mail by sea took approximately six weeks to arrive and it wasn't until the edition of Saturday, September 12 1914 that there was any suggestion from the brothers of the crisis in Europe.
The acting editor of the Leader, from many thousands of miles away, seemed to find it somewhat remarkable that the first of their correspondence was sent from Switzerland and dated 27 July, but gave no hint of the oncoming hostilities or in fact any sighting of any military forces despite them travelling though the Alsace-Lorraine region of France.
[edit] La Dichiarzone di Guerra (Rome, 4 August, 1914
The first inkling of the horror about to strike came in a letter from Rome dated August 4, the eve of the declaration of war by Great Britain (Germany had in fact declared on Russia on May 1). The hotel where the brothers were staying accommodated around 50 English and American tourists who shared "a great deal of concern over rumours of war being as most are unable to understand Italian".
The Whalleys had before them a hastily published newspaper headlined
"La Dichiarzone di Guerra. Della Germainia alia Russja. L'Italia Proclama la sua Neutralita".
"Parigi - I giornal pubblicano il segmente telegramma de Pietroburgo. L’Ambasciatore di Germania, a nome del sua Governo. La rimesto alle 7.30 di sera la dichiarazione di Guerra al Ministro degli Esteri".
Perhaps as a reminder of the almost exclusive Anglo-Saxon background of the district, the Leader seemingly could not find anyone to translate the two paragraphs - with the aid of an Italian-English dictionary, a rough translation is ...
"The Declaration Of War. The Germans to the Russians. Italy proclaims its neutrality".
"Paris - a journal has published segments of a telegram to Petersburg. The Ambassador of Germany in the name of his Government presented at 7:30 in the evening his declaration of War to the Minister of Foreign Affairs".''
The Whalleys rather naively suggested "This seems to be something important and we are just going out to find someone who is not too excited to put some of it into English".
Germany actually declared war on Russia on August 1, some four days before Britain and her Allies became involved. Italy had been allied with Germany and Austria since 1882, but in 1902 secretly signed a pact with France, effectively ending the previous alliance. Italy declared war on Austria in May 1915 and against Germany some 15 months later.
The following week's letter (September 19) saw the brothers similarly out of touch
[edit] Rumours of War (Rome, 6 August 1914)
"... when you travel in a foreign land and only have the chance of seeing newspapers printed in a language you don't understand, you are naturally very ignorant of what is going on in the outside world.
Rumours of war have reached us but we have not taken them very seriously. After dinner tonight, the man in charge of our tour called us together and informed us that the situation was very grave; that in fact France and Germany were at war with one another, and we could not get back to London (as we had intended to do during the next fortnight) through either of these countries ...
... the Italian papers, I believe, are full of wild rumours that England has joined in, but of course, we hardly credit that, Fearing that similar rumours may be appearing in Australian papers and that you may be getting alarmed not knowing our whereabouts, I have decided to wire you letting you know we are safe in Italy, a neutral country ..."
The letter was compiled over several days and despite the lengthy discourse on paper, when it came to spending money on a telegraph message, the Whalleys were rather more frugal, later parts of the letter suggesting the message read "Safe. Italy, Whalley" and that it was doubtful that the telegarm would get any further than Malta.
[edit] Stranded in Rome (Rome, 8 - 10 August, 1914)
After describing some hitches with the British ambassador who advised the touring party to stay in Rome, the Whalleys were still there on August 8 …
"We have just experienced the first hitch in our tour. According to our programme, we should have gone on to Florence, but at a meeting of our touring party this morning, it was decided, after hearing what the British and American Ambassadors had to say, to remain in Rome for the time being. This of course is due to the war in the north of Europe. Very fortunately, we are in the south of Europe, in Italy, one of the few countries not engaged, or mixed up, in the war. Several of the women, and some of the men of our party seem to be panic-stricken, when, as far as I can see, there is not the least need for it ..."
Rome, 8 August "... though we are just across the Alps from France, Switzerland, Germany and Austria, we cannot hear much of what is going on in those countries. We might as well be at the South Pole so far as getting news is concerned. Have sent a cablegram to Northcote - "Safe, Italy". Sincerely hope you may get it, though the Consul has some doubt about its passing through Malta".
Rome, 9 August
"We are still in Rome and do not know not when we shall get out. The British ambassador advises us to remain here until arrangements are made for our transport back to England. The uncertainty is having a very depressing effect on some of our tourists. All the week the temperature has been blazing hot. European news is very scarce, we got an English paper today, and it was eight days old. Being unable to read the Italian papers or speak the language makes it very awkward".
Rome, 10 August
"We leave tomorrow for Venice, on route to England, and do not anticipate much difficulty in getting through. We are returning to Australia, as arranged, by the Medina".
On October 14 1914, the Leader published another two letters after the brothers had "escaped" from Rome and wound their way through Northern Italy, Switzerland, France and finally to London.
[edit] Stark Realities (Paris, 28 August, 1914)
Hotel Anglo-American, Paris, Sunday, August 28, 1914
"There were many to tell us on leaving Venice that we hadn’t a hope of getting through to Lucerne but we went nevertheless. As we travelled along the tracks of Northern Italy we met trains loaded with Italian soldiers making towards the Austrian frontier ... everybody had to have a passport made out by either the British or American ambassador. We travelled via Geneva so as to escape passing through any German territory. The first hitch was at Berne, the Swiss capital. Here we had to stop to get our passports 'vised' by the French ambassador, a formality that cost us 10 francs apiece ...
... when we told at the border town of Chiasso that we could go no further that day, we thought that it as just a kind way of telling us the Swiss lines were closed. But there was no need for alarm as there was a train starting for Lucerne at five the next morning and landing us there after a twelve hour journey.
Every bridge, every culvert, every tunnel along the whole route was guarded by soldiers which shows even the neutral Swiss are taking the war very seriously ... we found Lucerne full of stranded English and American tourists with "Repatriation Committees" working very hard to get them out. The hope was that "Government trains" would take us away but after waiting a week these seemed no nearer, so on Wednesday the last 16 of the original party including ourselves decided to go independently ...
... we got as far as Geneva on Thursday and left the next morning at 5:25 for what we thought would be the final stage of our journey to Paris. When we reached the border town of Bellgarde the need for our passports was seen as no one was allowed to pass from the Swiss to the French train without them, a posse of French soldiers with fixed bayonets seeing to that ...
... five train loads of soldiers with horses, and guns passed through Amberies while we were there. Further ahead we passed many train loads of soldiers on their way to the front. They all seemed in splendid spirits and the trains were decorated with flags, green branches and bunches of flowers ... it was all very gallant and thrilling, but the next picture we saw was of a very different sort ...
... it was of a whole train load of wounded soldiers - some stretched out with shattered legs and others with arm or head injured. In some parts of the train there were two tiers of the poor fellows, who I must say, looked very game and smiling ..."
The brothers finally made it to the safety of London and their last letter to The Leader appeared in the same edition ...
[edit] On British Soil 24 August, 1914
Kenilworth Hotel, Bloomesbury Street, London, 24 August 1914
"We are in London, on British soil once again and very glad of it. A mail of about 50 letters and five weeks of newspapers awaited us there and after the famine in Europe, the feast was greatly enjoyed ... we had the issues of the "Leader" to devour from end to end and were awfully tickled with the illustrations in that "letter from home" ... Our return passage is booked for the "Medina" leaving on 19 September..."
[edit] Back Home again
The Whalley brothers arrived back at Port Melbourne on October 31, travelling with the prominent Preston identities, Colonel William and Mrs Louisa Braithwaite. The Braithwaites had also toured Europe, but had returned to England a week before the war broke out, leaving Paris on July 29, the day Austro-Hungary declared war on Serbia. They were to lose their only son William junior at the front in 1918, and in an ironic twist, William senior died in England in 1922 when the couple returned to visit their son’s grave.
