Soldiers of The Great War: Jewish Military Service in WW I, as Reported in The Jewish Chronicle – “A Jewish Soldier at Mons”, and, “Jewish Wounded in London Hospital”, September 11, 1914 (Gunner Victor Freedman, Private Isaac Levy, and Alfred Springer)

The Chronicle not uncommonly published full letters, or extracts of letters, from servicemen, describing their observations and experiences.  Here is a letter from a Jewish soldier – Private Levy, from Leeds – describing his actions during the retreat of the British Army from Mons.

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A Jewish Soldier at Mons
GALLANTRY IN THE FIELD

The Jewish Chronicle
September 11, 1914

     A letter has been received from Private Levy, of Leeds, who has been serving as a private in the Royal Munster Fusiliers, and who has been invalided from the front.

“I have been sent home from the front very poorly,” he says.  “The fighting was all round Mons.  We were sent up to the firing line to try and save a battery.  When we got there we found that they were nearly all killed or wounded.  Our Irish lads opened fire on the dirty Germans, and you should have seen them fall.  It was like a game of skittles.  But as soon as you knocked them down up came another thousand or so.  We could not make out where they came from.  So all of a sudden our officer gave us the order to charge.  We fixed bayonets and went like fire through them.  You should have seen them run.  We had two companies of ours there against about 3,000 of theirs, and I tell you it was warm.  I was not sorry when night time came, but that was not all.  You see we had no horses to get those guns away, and our chaps would not leave them.  We dragged them ourselves to a place of safety.  As the firing line was  at full swing we had with us an officer of the Hussars.  I think he was next to me, and he had his hand nearly blown off by one of the German shells.  So I and two more fellows picked him up and took him to a place of safety, where he got his wound cared for.  I heard afterwards that he had been sent home, poor fellow.”

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But, this is not the end of the story of Private Levy’s story.

Within the same issue of the Chronicle, an account of his experiences appears with additional detail, described in the context of a visit by the Chief Rabbi, and Reverend S. Levy, to wounded Jewish soldiers at the London Hospital. 

Other Jewish soldiers are mentioned in the article.  They are:

Gunner Victor Freedman, from Edinburgh, of the 52nd Battery, Royal Field Artillery

Private Levy himself – first name revealed as Isaac – who is reported as having been from Rounday Road, in Leeds.

Alfred Springer, Motor Transport, Army Service Corps.

There are no records for these three men in the database of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and they are not mentioned as fatalities in the British Jewry Book of Honour, so it appears that fortunately, they survived the war.

In its discussion of Jews serving in the military, the article alludes to the fact that Private Levy was, “…not the only Jew in the “Munsters”.  The Irish lads have two other Hebrew comrades, who bear, however, the unlikely names of Sergeant Jacks and Private Gallagher.  Strange, but true.”  This topic – the enlistment of some Jewish soldiers under ostensibly non-stereotypically “Jewish-sounding”-names – would be addressed by both The Jewish Chronicle and the American Jewish Exponent, and other Jewish newspapers and periodicals, in editorials, commentaries, and articles, through the remainder of the War. 

And, after.

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JEWISH WOUNDED IN THE LONDON HOSPITAL
PERSONAL NARRATIVE

The Jewish Chronicle
September 11, 1914

The Chief Rabbi, accompanied by the Rev. S. Levy, the Visiting Minister, paid a visit on Monday to the wounded soldiers in the London Hospital, and talked with several of the men on their experiences at the front.  The Jewish soldiers in particular were very grateful for this mark of attention paid to them.  Two Jewish soldiers in the hospital are: –

Victor Freedman, 32, Albion Road, Edinburgh, Gunner, 52nd Battery, R.F.A.  Bullet wound in right arm; wounded between Cambrai and Le Cateau; going to convalesce at Lord Lucas, Luton, Bedford.  Anxious to go back to the front after convalescence instead of being kept for home defence.

Isaac Levy, 9, Badminton Street, Roundhay Road, Leeds, Private, Royal Munster Fusiliers.  Invalided, Mons.

The Chief Rabbi paid a further visit to the London Hospital on Tuesday, and together with the Rev. S. Levy conducted an Intercession Service in each of the Hebrew Wards.

A number of Jewish soldiers, writes a representative of the JEWISH CHRONICLE, are known to have been in the London Hospital with the rest of the invalided troops who are being cared for in that wonderful institution.  One of them was Gunner Freedman, of the 52nd Battery, R.F.A., who got a bullet in his arm in the fighting between Cambrai and Le Cateau.  He is now convalescing at Luton, Beds.  Another is Alfred Springer, Motor Transport A.S.C., who was injured whilst engaged in capturing a motor lorry from the enemy at Cambrai.  A third is Isaac Levy, of the Royal Munster Fusiliers.  Levy, too, is recuperating well.  He was taken ill one evening it seems, but continued marching with his regiment – that interminable round of marching, tempered with fighting, which brought the Allies to the environs of Paris, but has now, thank goodness, begun in the opposite direction.  Levy marched about six miles, but his condition grew worse, and he lay down in the road until a hospital wagon picked him up.  It was five and a half hours before this happened.  But that is only a very little incident in an heroic campaign.  The medical description of the illness is “gastritis,” or, as the soldier put it to a JEWISH CHRONICLE representative, “I was nearly poisoned.”

Private Levy, whose progress as an athlete made him one of the favourites of the regiment, is not the only Jew in the “Munsters”.  The Irish lads have two other Hebrew comrades, who bear, however, the unlikely names of Sergeant Jacks and Private Gallagher.  Strange, but true.

Private Levy left them at the front, “hearty and well.”  Indeed, it was Sergt. Jacks, an old chum, who originally put it into Levy’s head to enlist, 10 ½ years ago.  Levy was over in Ireland, and as three years in the Army seemed to him a bit of a holiday and the prospects of seeing foreign lands counted for something, the Jew joined the Irishmen.  He has been to Gibraltar and India, and 6 ½ years ago he returned to civil life and tailoring at Leeds.  Then, as a reservist, he was called back to the colours, was taken by steamer to Havre, and thence to Mons, where he was soon in action.

“It started on the Sunday morning,” he told our representative, “and it lasted on and off till the following Wednesday morning.  Food was rather scares and so was sleep, for we only slept about two hours a night.”

Did you come across any Jewish soldiers in the other British regiments?

“We had not time to see anybody.  It was all fighting and marching.  The marching was tremendous.  We did fifteen miles some days; another day we would do twenty-five.

“I was right up at the firing line; and though I did not get home with the bayonet, I managed to pop off a good many Germans with the rifle.  You could not help it, they came in clusters.

“At one time our regiment was cut off, and Germans came down on us very quickly, but we made a fight of it.  A battery of artillery was surrounded by the enemy.  The horses were killed and the men all accounted for, barring about three or four.  Our boys wanted to take the guns with us and would not leave them at the mercy of the Germans.  So we dragged them ourselves to a place of safety.  It took several hours.  It was a drag, about ten miles, I should think.

“At one time an officer of Hussars joined us in the firing line.  He was next to me.  He had his arm shattered by a German shell, so I and two others picked him up, put him on a stray horse, and took him to a hospital wagon.  We afterwards heard that he had been sent home.”

Private Levy did not witness any atrocities, but he says that he was told of them by the women and children in every town he came to.  The German infantry he dismisses contemptuously as “absolutely tommy-rot – no good at all.”  But the artillery he describes as good, adding, after a moment, “well, there’s so many of them.”  As for the German cavalry, they are “not up to striking pitch – not so clever as ours.”

Like every other man back from the Front, Private Levy is confident that the German troops object very strongly to cold steel.  When they see it, they “rush about the field like wild maniacs, and hold up their hands.”

The Munsters seem to have suffered extremely severely, according to Private Levy’s account.  The roll-call, he says, showed that out of 1,116 men, only 240 were left; while of 33 officers 19 were wounded and missing – all in 4 days fighting.

However, the spirit of the British troops are as buoyant as ever.

“I dare say we’ll have to go back and fight,” said Private Levy.  “We’ll have another go before it is over.  But,” he added, folding his arms, and with a look of absolute certainty on his face, “they can’t stand long.  We have started driving them back.  One big fight and we’ll finish it.  Well, it might go on till Christmas – but that’s the longest.  Everybody thinks so, officers and all.  The Germans are a body of tired and hungry men, and only too pleased to get captured” – with which cheery assurance our representative took farewell of the soldier.