Richard Samuels 1884 - 1929

Richard Samuels was born on the 30th of October 1884 in Richmond, Surrey, the 8th child of Henry and Mary Ann Samuels (nee Hughes) with Richard being baptised on the 18th of January at St. Mary Magdalene, Richmond.

In the 1891 census Richard, now aged 7, was living with his family at 17 Lancaster Cottages, Richmond, Surrey. In October 1896, Richard's father Henry died aged 55, and was buried on the 24th of October, 6 days before Richard's 12th Birthday.

By the 1901 census, Richard now aged 16, and his family had moved home and were now living at 23 Alton Road, Richmond.

On the 14th of February 1906, Richard aged 21, married Annie Coleman, in Richmond, Surrey. In the 1911 census, Richard with his wife Annie were living at 10 Worple Way, Richmond, with children May aged 5, Annie, 4, Florence, 3 and Rosina aged 2. Richard and Annie had a further 3 children all son's, Richard born 1911, Percy, 1913 and Thomas born in 1916. Sadly eldest child May Ethel Samuels died aged 7 in 1913. Richard gave his occupation in the 1911 census as a window cleaner.

World War One Service

With the outbreak of war in August 1914, Richard as a married man with children wasn't obliged to enlist immediately. Richard continued working as a window cleaner and was employed by Swift Window Cleaning Company, White Hart Lane, Barnes, Surrey.

Richard was called up on the 3rd of June 1916, attesting into the Durham Light Infantry. On the 23rd of June, Richard was classified as Class B, part 1, after a medical examination at the depot of the Royal Fusiliers, in Hounslow, Middlesex.With Richard being classified as Class B, part 1, this meant that Richard was fit for service abroad but not for general service, and serving only in a Garrison or Provisional Unit, not in a front line unit. Richard's age was 31 years and 9 months, his height was 5 foot 5 inches and his chest measured at 37 inches. His rank was Private and his was given Regimental No. 5336.

The Durham Light Infantry Badge

Private Richard Samuels was posted to the 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, which was based at Catterick,Yorkshire in July 1916, and Richard begun his training there on the 3rd of July and was issued a new regimental number 201694. The 2/5th Battalion was attached to the 189th Brigade until orders were received to go overseas in October 1916.

Mediterranean Expeditionary Force

The 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry Regiment was posted to Salonika (now Thessaloniki), in Greece, as a Garrison Battalion, The men including Private Richard Samuels, left Catterick on the 31st of October, the day after Richards 33rd Birthday, and travelled to Southampton. Embarking on the 6th of November 1916, the men sailed to Le Havre, France, disembarking the next day. The Battalion then travelled to Marseille, on the south east coast of France, where on the 10th of November, the men again embarked, this time sailing to Salonika, arriving on the 17th of November 1916.

The Balkans had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire for 200 years, and by the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century there was much unrest among the natives of the various countries that Constantinople ruled over. Many countries including Greece gained independence during the First Balkan War (October 1912 - May 1913), although Bulgaria was dissatisfied with its share of the spoils and attacked its former allies Greece and Serbia, starting the Second Balkan War (June 1913 - August 1913). The war caused a break-up of the Russo-Bulgarian alliance, leaving Serbia as the only ally of Russia in this critical region. Serbia's successes in the First and Second Balkan Wars, fuelled both Serbian ambitions over Austro-Hungarian ruled territories and Austro-Hungarian fears of Serbian ambitions.

On the 28th of June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated members of the Serbian military, leading Austria-Hungary to issue an démarche to Serbia, known as the July Ultimatum. The July crisis of 1914 saw Europe's major powers in a diplomatic crisis and one month after Franz Ferdinand's assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, thus initiating the First World War.

Salonika was the great and flourishing port of Macedonia, holding a strategic place since the times of the Byzantine Empire. It was a prize to be captured and everyone wanted it. In September 1915, Britain and France accepted the invitation from the Greek prime minister, Eleutherios Venizelos, to land Allied troops at Salonika, and as there was a direct railway link between Salonika and Belgrade, this became the best route to send Allied aid to Serbia.

On the 5th of October 1915, a combined Franco-British force of some two large brigades was landed at Salonika at the request of the Greek Prime Minister. The objective was to help the Serbs in their fight against Bulgarian aggression. However the expedition arrived too late, the Serbs having been beaten before they landed. It was decided to keep the force in place for future operations, even against Greek opposition. The Greek Chief of the General Staff in Athens had told them “You will be driven into the sea, and you will not have time even to cry for mercy”. Some Greek factions, including King Constantine, were pro-German. The outcome of the Gallipoli campaign at this time, was in the balance and most shipping in the area was involved there, so they really had no choice but to dig in.

During the early months of 1916 the British Salonika Force laid large amounts of barbed wire, creating defensive positions about eight miles north of the city connecting with the Vardar marshes to the west, and the lake defences of Langaza and Beshik to the east, and so to the Gulf of Orfano and the Aegean Sea. This area was known as the ‘Birdcage’ on account of the quantity of wire used. The Bulgarians and Austrians also fortified the heights of the hills surrounding Salonika during the same time which had dire consequences later on.

Map of the Balkans

The Gardeners of Salonika

By the time of the arrival of Private Richard Samuels with the 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry Regiment in November 1916, Allied offensive operations had started with some success. The 2/5th Battalion was assigned to the British XVI Corps, later called The British Salonika Force, under the Command of Lieutenant General George Milne.

The campaign developed into a battle for position with trenches and emplacements with limited actions to capture Bulgarian and Turkish positions in a river valley that was infested with mosquitoes, although 1917 saw little activity on the British part of the front in Macedonia, due in part to complex political changes in Greece throughout the year. It was the force’s early reluctance to break out from Salonika that generated scorn. Faced by a joint Bulgarian, German and Austro-Hungarian enemy, the Allied armies were perceived as doing little more than digging trenches. “Let them be known as the Gardeners of Salonika,” Georges Clemenceau, France’s wartime leader, jeered.

In March 1917 the 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry Regimental transferred to the 228th Infantry Brigade. The 228th was an independent Brigade although it was always associated with the 28th Division. It was formed of garrison battalions, which were not normally expected to serve in the front line due to the men's age or low medical category^. One staff officer wrote: 'Physically the brigade was in a terrible state. They were splendid crocks ... Some were almost blind, some almost deaf, and the 22nd Rifle Brigade ... had more than sixty men over sixty years old'. Because of its slow rate of marching, the 228th became known as the 'Too Too Late Brigade'.

Private Richard Samuels continued his service in the British Salonika Force as a non-combatant, performing garrison duties until the 9th of September 1917 when he was reclassified as category 'A'. This now meant that Private Richard Samuels was now considered fit to serve in a front line fighting capacity.

Winter arrived in the Balkans and the fighting petered out as the landscape became a quagmire of mud. To move a Heavy gun a mile or two, would take days rather than a matter of hours. For the men in the trenches, the winter didn't bring a respite, as the weather created additional work keeping the trenches from collapsing and the roads open. The weather usually got a lot worse after Christmas, and the first three months of the new year, were very unpleasant and prevented any operations of importance.

Macedonian Front 1918

At the beginning of 1918, the front line in Macedonia was static due to the winter lull, with only local actions conducted and the Allied forces were preparing for a final push to end the war in the Balkans. The most ambitous route to attack was the Vardar valley, but this dismissed as the most obvious, which the enemy would be expecting, since this was the main north-south road and rail artery of the Macedonian front.

The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in the Macedonian front, French General Franchet d’Esperey, ordered that the French and Serbian armies attack would come through the mountainous terrain between the Vardar and Cerna Rivers, with the British and Greek armies attacking around Lake Dorian.

With the German Spring Offensive on Western Front having some success, important assets were diverted away from Salonika and permission to attack was not granted until September 1918. On the 14th of September an artillery bombardment on enemy positions at Dobro Pole (present day Republic of Macedonia) begun, and the next day the French and Serbian armies attacked and captured their objectives.

Battle of Dorian 1918

The British and Greeks attacked on the 18th of September, with the aim of capturing Bulgarian positions in the hills above Lake Dorian. The terrain around the area was rough, the fortifications being surrounded with three miles of scrub and rocks. Part of the defences were the dangerous Pip Ridge and the Grand Couronné.

The attack proved to be disastrous for the British army, they had to frontally assault 'Pip Ridge' which was a 2000 foot high heavily defended mountain ridge with fortresses built on some of the higher mountains, notably Grand Couronne. After the two days of fighting the attack had failed, and the British were back at their starting positions, having sustained heavy casualties. The 65th Brigade had lost 65% of its men, with the 7th Battalion South Wales Borderers pulling back with only one Officer and fifty-five men from the whole battalion.

The British XVI Corps, including the 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry Regiment, attacked north of Lake Dorian on the 18th of September, with the Greek Cretan Division. The attacks also failed and the British XVI Corps didn't fight on the 19th of September, due to casualties suffered the day before.

When the British and Greeks attacks were abandoned, the British alone had taken 3,871 men killed, wounded or missing. This was comparable with some of the actions on the Western Front in France and Flanders, and almost double the losses the French and Serbs had taken in their successful assaults.

Several days after the battle, the British realized the Bulgarian fortifications were quiet. The Greek and British armies advanced only to find the Bulgarian positions abandoned. The Serbian and French armies had defeated part of the Bulgarian army in the Vardar valley and were advancing towards Doiran. Although a breakthrough was achieved at Dobro Pole and the Allied forces continued their advance, the Bulgarian army was not routed and managed an orderly retreat

This prompted the command of Army Group Scholtz to order the Bulgarian First Army to retreat so that it would not be cut off from the rear. The British were weary and pursued slowly, and Bulgarian rear guards fought well enough to allow the rest of their troops to get away. The British Royal Air Force attacked the retreating Bulgarian columns inflicting some casualties.

On the 29th of September 1918, Skopje (now the Capital city of the Republic of Macedonia) fell, although a strong combined force of Bulgarian and German regiments were ordered to try to retake it the next day. A mass of retreating and deserted Bulgarian soldiers had mutinied and converged on the railway centre of Radomir in Bulgaria, just 30 miles from the capital city of Sofia, and on the 27th of September leaders of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union took control of the mutinous troops and proclaimed the overthrow of the monarchy and a new Bulgarian republic. About 4,000–5,000 rebellious troops threatened Sofia the next day. Under those chaotic circumstances a Bulgarian delegation arrived in Salonika to ask for an armistice.

On the 29th of September, the Bulgarians were granted the Armistice of Thessaloniki by General d'Esperey, ending their war. The Salonika front was brought to an end at noon on the 30th of September 1918 when the ceasefire came into effect. Allied forces continued to advance across Bulgaria towards the Turkish frontier, until the Ottoman Turks also signed the Armistice of Mudros on 31 October.

On the 27th of September 1918, Private Richard Samuels, serving 'In the Field' with the 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry Regiment, was admitted to a Field Ambulance suffering with Influenza.(Richard's Pension Records show that he contracted Malaria about September 1918) He was then moved to a casualty clearing station, before finally being sent to the 60th General Hospital in Salonika. On the 12th of October, Private Richard Samuels was again moved this time to the 80th General Hospital, and stayed here until the 20th of October, when he was discharged to the Infantry Base Depot in Salonika.

The Salonika campaign was characterised by the high incidence of disease (especially malaria), which resulted in nearly 481,000 non-battle casualties which sapped the strength and morale of an already poorly supplied army. In addition, many men had no home leave for three years. The army in the Balkans was unfairly and inaccurately criticised at the time as a pointless waste of men and material with the troops there having an easy time. The fact that the campaign was brought to a successful conclusion with the decisive defeat of Bulgaria, liberation of Serbia and strategic exposure of Austria and Turkey perhaps contradicts this view. Nevertheless, the Balkan Front in the Great War was truly one of the forgotten ones.

Following the armistice with the Ottoman empire, Britain sent troops from Macedonia to secure Constantinople (Now Istanbul) and the Bosphorus Straits. In addition, troops were sent eastwards to Turkish ports on the Black Sea and into Caucasus region of Russia to influence the outcome of the struggle against the Bolsheviks. Units of the Indian Army provided part of the garrison in Turkey.

Bulgaria 1919

Private Richard Samuels was posted back to the 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, In the Field, on the 29th of December 1918 and by this time the 2/5th Battalion were in Bulgaria on occupation duties. They stayed here until orders were given that they were leaving the 228th Brigade and being posted to the Army of The Black Sea in South Russia.

The 2/5th Battalion Durham Light Infantry Regiment embarked at the port of Varna, Bulgaria, on the 8th of February 1919, and sailed across the Black Sea to Batoum in South Russia (Now Batumi, Republic of Georgia).

South Russia 1919

The British interest in the Caucasus during wartime had been dominated by a pressing need to deny the region's enormous oil resources to the Central Powers. Although the attraction of controlling the most productive oil field outside of North America remained a significant factor in British Foreign policy-making after the armistice, the immediate rationale for the presence of British troops in South Russia, was to keep order and provide limited support to the pro-Tsarist, anti-Bolshevik governments in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Capital of the Republic of Georgia), Baku, Azerbaijan and Askabad, Transcapia (now Ashgabat, Capital of Turkmenistan). On the 13th of November 1918 the War Office strongly emphasised the importance of establishing British supremacy in the region and the British Cabinet approved the occupation of the Batoum-Tiflis-Baku in order to reinforce the troops in the Caucasus. The British army in southern Russia was war weary and spread to thin over a large area to be effective and by April 1919 they were withdrawn.

(Click to enlarge)

Private Richard Samuels and the 2/5th Durham Light Infantry Regiment didn't see any fighting whilst in South Russia and on the 21st of March 1919, Richard was admitted to the 82nd Field Ambulance suffering with Otitis Media (Infection of the Middle Ear). On the 23rd of March, Private Richard Samuels was admitted to the 27th Casualty Clearing Station in Batoum. On the 9th of April 1919, Richard was posted back to Salonika on the 'Y' Scheme, which was a scheme set up to post men, who were suffering from malaria, to a healthier front.

Richard arrived back in Salonika on the 15th of April and was admitted to the 43rd General Hospital still suffering from the infection of his middle ear.On the 17th of April, Richard was discharged to the No.4 Convalescent Depot in Salonika, where on the 21st of April 1919, Private Richard Samuels was reclassified after a medical examination to Class E. Class E meant that Richard was now medically unfit to serve and would be unlikely to regain fitness back to his previous classification within 6 months.

Blighty 1919

On the 23rd of April 1919, Private Richard Samuels was discharged from the No.4 Convalescent Depot and was posted to the Infantry Base Depot at Salonika. On the 2nd of May 1919, Richard was posted back to Britain on the 'Y' scheme, where on the 17th of May, Richard was posted to the Durham Light Infantry Depot.

On the 12th of August 1919 Private Richard Samuels was declared a Deserter. Richard was missing from the army until he was arrested by the civil authorities on the 5th of June 1920, and was held by the Army in the Guard Room at the Durham Light Infantry Regiments depot, from the 6th of June until the 5th of July 1920.

District Court Martial 1920

201694, Private Richard Samuels was tried by District Court Martial on the 6th of July 1920, charged with Deserting His Majesty's Services between the 12th of August 1919 until the 5th of June 1920. The Court found Richard guilty of the charge and he was sentenced to 28 days detention. The sentencing was confirmed on the 9th of July 1920 by the General Officer Commanding of the British Army Northern Command.

On the 12th of July Richard was sent to the detention barracks at York Castle. Richard completed his sentence and was remitted 4 days for good conduct. On the 29th of July, Private Richard Samuels was posted back to duty with the 3rd Battalion Special Reserve Durham Light Infantry.

On the 30th of July 1920, Richard had a medical examination at hospital in Newcastle on Tyne and was given army form Z22 which gave Richard the chance to claim for any disability arising from his service.

It was stated by the doctor in Richards army records that he complained of attacks of ague (fever) and had been in a malaria hospital for 14 weeks in 1919. Richards last attack was six weeks before the medical examination and the attack was accompanied by shivering lasting half an hour, pain in the left side and he vomited two or three times. Richard was found to not have cachexia (wasting syndrome) no enlargement of the lungs or spleen and no disease of the heart or lungs, appetite fever was found to be normal in these respects. Malaria was found to be attributable to his war service. The doctor wanted Richard to be examined again 6 months later and declared that Richard was under 20% disability.

On the 2nd of September 1920, Richard aged 35, was discharged by the army into Class Z Army Reserve and was liable to be recalled in the event of a national emergency. He gave his address as No. 9 Queens Terrace, Isleworth, Middlesex.

Richard had served for a total of 4 years and 92 days, including time spent as a deserter. Due to his conviction for desertion Richard forfeited 4 years and 1 days service, with his service reckoning from the 29th of July 1920. This gave Richard a total of 91 days towards his army pension. Richard also forfeited any medals he was entitled to.

Richards was awarded a pension of 5 shillings and 6 pence for himself and 4 shillings and 10 pence for his wife and children. This was a final award granted for his level of disability (under 20%) and this commenced from the 3rd of September 1920 for a total of 26 weeks.

On the 30th of June 1922, Richard received his medals that had previously been forfeited. Richard was entitled to the British War and Victory Medals. Richard died aged 44 between January and March 1929 with his death registered in Brentford, Middlesex.

Richard Samuels is my 1st Cousin 4x removed from my Nan's Samuels family.

Lest We Forget

Lee Thomas

November 2013