The letters of Julian Grenfell, August 1914

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies

To listen to the audio clip, click play on the bar below the image on the right.

6 August 1914 – Royal Dragoons, Potchefstroom

My Darling Dad

Thank you very much for your letter.  You must be having an exciting time at home now, with the war!  We get very little news here; rumours arriving now of a sea fight going on off Flamborough Head.  I wonder if this letter will ever reach you?  We do not know in the least what they are going to do with us.  People seem to think today, now that the Turks have joined Germany, that we shall be sent to Egypt.  It is hateful being away in a corner here, at this time.  I suppose that the whole thing will be over in a very short time.  I only hope that they will move us quickly, and that we get somewhere in time for something!

It was very sad that all the English crews got beaten at Henley.  You must have had great fun with the Likky Man at Lords.  Did you go with K to see the Carpentier-Bell fight?

Goodbye, Daddy; and very best love.  I am quite flourishing here; but I wish we were in England.  It must be an extraordinary time to live through, at home now!

Julian

ps. I shall get a man to keep my 4 ponies in Jo’burg, if we move off suddenly.  Of course it is no good thinking of sending them home at present.

13 August 1914

My Dear Dad

I got your cable about not sending my ponies home, and stopped them at once.  I’m going to leave them with a Dutch farmer out here.  The worst of it is that I do not know if they will not commandeer all the horses in this country too!

I wonder if you have got more news at home than we have out here; because we are absolutely in the dark.  We heard of the German Navy crushed in the North Sea; 25,000 German casualties at Liege, and 30,000 at Malhausen.  But today all that is denied again.

We are waiting here, all packed up and ready to start.  They seem to think for England, in which case I shall see you; as they will have to keep us for a day or two till our horses get fit again, or till they give us a fresh lot.

No news here of any movement of troops from England;  I do not know why they are keeping us, from lack of transport, or until something happens at sea, or what.  But I hope, and really believe, that they will move in any day now.  I wonder if Poor Dennis and Dynamite & Schoolgirl have been taken yet?  Goodbye Daddy, and all love from Julian.

20 August 1914 – Royal Dragoons, Potchefstroom

My dear Dad

Thank you very much for your letter.  We are starting for Cape Town tomorrow, with orders to sail by the Dunluce Castle on the 25th; but where we are going nobody seems to know.  There is a lot of talk about German West Africa; but I don’t see that it would be much good to us to take that now; and it can’t do any harm to us out here.  I suppose that there is a chance of Egypt; but I think that most likely we shall go home, to be a sort of stuffing for the Second Army. Anyhow it is good news to get some orders, after a week of nothing at all.  But everything is so uncertain that we are expecting to get the “Stand To” again at any moment.  I’m leaving my ponies out here, at a farm, when I hope that they will not be commandeered.

I’m so glad that you’ve done great things with the Panshanger Shorthorns.  It is wonderful, for so short a time.

Goodbye, Daddy.  Here’s hoping to see you in a month!

All love from Julian.