THE FORMER 4th ARMY SCHOOL FOR OFFFICERS AT FLIXECOURT

THE FORMER 4^th ARMY SCHOOL FOR OFFFICERS AT FLIXECOURT

This is a photograph taken in May 1992 of the building, which housed the 4^th Army School for Officers in 1916. As will be seen from the photograph, this historic building and its immediate area seemed to have been abandoned at that time. The entrance doors at the rear of the premises were open and access to the empty and elegant interior rooms by vandals sadly seemed already to be taking place.

On 23^rd April 1916, Siegfried Sassoon was sent here on a month’s course of instruction. The recent death of 2^nd Lt. David Thomas was still haunting him. But there was a leisurely course of instruction in much comfort to take his mind away from that and the forthcoming offensive which everyone knew could not be long delayed.

One of the bloodthirsty lectures in which it was alleged that the bayonet and bullet are to be regarded like brother and sister, and which is remembered by many who had attended at the School, was the one given by " a great brawny Highland Major"- Major Campbell-on the use of the bayonet. . Very shortly after hearing the lecture and shocked by the horror of Major Campbell’s enthusiasm in giving it, Sassoon wrote his poem "The Kiss"

Edmund Blunden, writer and poet (to become a close friend of Sassoon after they met in 1919), also attended one of Major Campbell’s lectures but later on during the war.

As a boy, Sassoon had attended Marlborough College in Wiltshire. (Charles Hamilton Sorley was another Old Marlburian). Whilst at the 4^th Army School, Sassoon made friends with another former pupil from that school – Captain Marcus Herbert Goodall. (In Memoirs of An Infantry Officer, Sassoon calls him "Allgood".). Goodall was an officer in the 1/5^th York and Lancaster Regiment and following wounding in action near Thiepval (Somme) on 14^th July 1916, he was taken to the Casualty Clearing Station at Puchevillers where sadly he died. He is one of nearly 1800 men buried at the nearby CWGC cemetery. Sassoon’s tribute to his friend resulted in the unpublished poem Elegy:For Marcus Goodall.

Having said farewell to Marcus Goodall and wondering if they would ever meet again, Sassoon arrived back at Bois Francais on 23^rd May. A few days later he was to win the Military Cross in the abortive raid on Kiel Trench.

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