A German Tommy Ken Anderson unravels the story of how a young Australian of German descent had to change his name to fight for the British in the First World War, and was subsequently decorated for bravery n 14 October 1918, east of Ledgehem*, Belgium, at 0.53 am, Second Lieutenant Walter Lancelot Merritt MC stepped into no-man’s-land to lead members of the 86th Brigade in an advance on German lines. He was holding aloft a large red flag and was accompanied by a small group of soldiers. The flag’s purpose was to indicate the centre of the advance. To troops on both flanks and those in following waves the young officer was a mobile landmark, so long as he survived. Whether he volunteered for the task – and his undoubted courage makes this likely – or it was a matter of duty as brigade intelligence officer, we do not know. Following the British artillery barrage as it stepped farther into enemy lines the party reached the first objective well ahead of the
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rest of the brigade, whose members were having difficulty in getting through Ledgehem owing to a dense fog. This put Merritt and his men in a tight spot. They found themselves practically surrounded by the enemy and were soon heavily engaged at close range, from machine-gun and trench-mortar fire. Somehow they managed to fight back, capturing 28 prisoners, while still waiting for the rest of the battalion to catch up. A British officer was a distinctive target in his ‘hunting outfit’. An officer who further identified himself by carrying a large red flag provided a compelling target and it was almost inevitable that Merritt was hit. A bullet fired at close range smashed into his right leg, fracturing it. Despite this he kept the flag flying, ensuring the following troops maintained the line, breaking through a broad band of barbed wire
that had been another reason for the temporary delay in the advance and continuing on for the rest of the day, taking position after position, capturing guns and more prisoners. For his part in the victory Merritt was awarded a Bar to his MC. The brigade intelligence report records the bare details of the incident that ended his war: ‘T.2/Lieut. MERRITT. Bde I.O. wounded’.
A hero’s confession What makes his story unique among the many acts of bravery coming out of the First World War is that this gallant young man was not, as he claimed to be, the son of an Englishman; his father was a German-born labourer whose parents had migrated to Australia. Merritt’s birth name was Walter Leslie Schwarz. He grew up in the provincial town of Toowoomba,
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Military History Queensland. While undergoing treatment in post-war England for the loss of a leg, he confessed in a petition to King George saying he had deserted from the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in 1915 because he feared his German ancestry (his mother was also of German stock) would prevent him being sent into battle. The mystery has remained to this day – a conspiracy of silence overshadowed by the very real facts of his heroism: how did Schwarz manage to maintain his cover as Merritt for six long years under the most trying circumstances imaginable? In theory, a slip of the tongue, an action that would betray his origins or previous military experience would have at best had him posted to the non-combatants battalion in which British Army veterans, some of them decorated men, along with others with German names, were languishing. At worst, as a British soldier he could have been tried as a deserter and shot. The only conclusion to be drawn from his subsequent behavior is that he felt secure in his role as Merritt.
Hostile reception Gunner Schwarz arrived in England with the Australian Imperial Force 55th Siege Artillery sometime in August 1915. Many Australian soldiers had relatives in Britain and one in four was British-born. On leave, relatives and friends welcomed them into their homes. Schwarz’s nearest kin were closer to Berlin than London. He was to all intents and purposes alone, a friend to none but his comrades, and some of them were openly hostile regarding his German origins. When he approached officers and asked whether the rumours he was not to join the fighting were true, they did not deny them. In his petition to King George he writes that rebuff caused him to put ‘plans already made into execution’. The passive voice sentence is one of the few hints that he had made contact with supporters.
Identity change On 23 October 1915 he walked out of the artillery siege brigade and made his way to London. Two days later he arrived at the Sportsman’s Battalion recruiting depot in Scotland Yard, w w w. d i s c o v e r y o u r h i s t o r y. n e t
collection of his private papers. There was nothing in them of a personal or otherwise nature that took his story further than the immediate post-war period – a few press cuttings that told of his deeds as Merritt, and retirement in later years from the Shell Oil Company. But there was an illuminated scroll, showing Schwarz was a Freemason.
Brothers in arms
WALTER LESLIE Schwarz as a pre-war militia cadet officer with his mother, Augusta Wilhelmine. Australian War Memorial
Whitehall, wearing civilian clothes and giving his name as Walter Lancelot Merritt. Acquiring civilian clothes in military uniform was an offence at the time for obvious reasons. Somebody had done the shopping for him. He said his address was 23 Warrender Road, Holborn. This was a real address but the tenant or owner of the property was never asked if he had given shelter to a deserter. Schwarz also swore on his enlistment papers that he had no previous service in any branch of His Majesty’s forces. In fact, he had risen to the rank of sergeant major in the semi-autonomous Australian Army. .
By 1915, Freemasonry was in its heyday in Britain. London had become the world’s major centre for the secret society. There were an estimated 1,500 Masonic lodges in the empire’s capital, more than any other city in the world. One writer depicts masonry in Britain at this time as a wide-ranging network of 600,000 members who in Freemasonry terms were under an obligation to bring succour to a distressed Brother Mason. This then I conjecture is the explanation for Schwarz’s survival as Merritt. Alone in London he had only to make contact with one sympathetic fellow Mason … Of course, the brotherhood could not or would not confirm members – some at high levels in the army and political circles – had helped Schwarz. But of all the possibilities that suggest themselves as the force behind Schwarz’s unique story this remains the most obvious. I
A king’s pardon Once in camp he did not bother to hide his previous training and was swiftly promoted. Later, when he needed references to attend an officer cadet school, two men, a school headmaster and a councillor, stepped in, testifying they had known Walter Merritt for the previous four years. Merritt had not existed as a persona for that long. When his petition was presented to the King and when it then passed through various hands, including the War Office and Australian officials, no one appears to have raised the slightest query as to its whole truth in the haste to have the King pardon him. This does not detract from his brave deeds and soldierly virtue. But it does show the extent of influence of those who stood by him. While conjecturing on who they might be a distant relative of Schwarz sent me a parcel that contained a small
*The Ledgehem spelling of Ledeghem, or modernday Ledegem, was taken from Schwarz’s petition to the King and appears to be a common misspelling from the time of the First World War.
KEN ANDERSON’S media career has spanned more than 40 years. His roles have included foreign correspondent and investigative journalist, and he was a founding editor of Independent Radio News (IRN) in Britain. He lives in New South Wales, Australia.
A German Tommy: The Secret of a War Hero, by Ken Anderson, has been recently published by Pen and Sword. Discover Your History readers can buy it for the special price of £15.99 with FREE UK postage by using the code 282912. Call 01226 734222 or visit www.penand-sword.co.uk and enter the code.
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