The Somme, such a sweet region in the north of France, was, more than a hundred years ago,

 The Somme, such a sweet region in the north of France, was, more than a hundred years ago, a hell of fire, blood and steel for an entire generation of young men who fought here in the deadliest battles of the great war and who, in the barbed wire, under the shells and the bullets, were swept away by the brutality, the savagery of the war which drowned them in darkness, in the madness of a world which sank into despair and which pushed so many men in the prime of their lives killing each other in the mud in absolute rage and side by side, bayonets forward, in the whistling of shrapnel, in the chaos, threw themselves on each other and gave each other death in the shock of guns which rained lead and blood of young boys who gave their all in the name of peace and freedom who were won by so many sacrifices through battles in which courage was seen , the compassion, the camaraderie which brought together these heroes and who, with loyalty and honor, with bravery, did their duty until their last breath. Today, forever young, thousands of these young men rest in peace in the silent fields of the Somme dotted with poppies, bathed in light and stand side by side in the eternal shroud of sacred grounds on which the future of humanity was played out, in the now disappeared trenches on which stand, rows in rows the immortal graves of exceptional men who gave their today for our tomorrow and over whom I will always watch with care and gratitude to honor their memory so that their names live forever.

Today, it is with the utmost respect and with the deepest gratitude that I would like to honor the memory of one of these young men, of one of my boys of the Somme who, for England and France, for all of us, gave his life.I would like to pay a very respectful tribute to Lieutenant, The Honourable Edward Wyndham Tennant who fought in the 4th Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, and who was killed in action 107 years ago, on September 22, 1916 at the age of 19 during the battle of the Somme.

Edward Wyndham Tennant,who was very affectionately called "Bim", was born on July 1, 1897,and was the son and heir of Edward Priaux Tennant (1859-1920), Liberal Member of Parliament for Salisbury from 1906 and created Lord Glenconner in 1911. His mother was Pamela Genevieve Adelaide Tennant, (née Wyndham,1871-1928),daughter of the Honourable Percy Scawen Wyndham, and his aunt, his father's sister, was Margot Asquith, second wife of the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, father of Raymond Asquith,Grenadier Guards, killed in action on September 15, 1916. He had two sisters, Clarissa Madeline Georgiana Felicite Tennant (1896-1960), Hester Tennant, and three brothers, Christopher Gray Tennant (1899-1983), David Pax Francis Tennant (1902-1968) and Stephen James Napier Tennant (1906-1987).From 1906 the Tennants lived at Wilsford Manor near Amesbury.

Born at Stockton House, in Wiltshire, Edward spent four years at West Downs where he was a keen cricketer, playing in the school's 2nd XI in 1909 and 1st XI in 1910, and he also shot for the school. He also edited and wrote poetry for the school magazine. He came to Winchester Colllege in September 1911 and was in F House, Hawkins'. He showed considerable literary ability at Winchester. He did not enjoy his time at school, but he did make many friends, asking them home for the holidays. He also enjoyed riding his motorcycle, with a placard attached to the back saying "Apologies for the dust".

He left Winchester in 1914, a year early, intending to go to Germany to learn the language in preparation for joining the Diplomatic Service. However, on the outbreak of war he immediately joined the army, although he was still just 17 years old.

On August 15,1914, Edward was gazetted to the Grenadier Guards and spent a year training in London, involving long marches which toughened him up (his nickname in the Battalion was the "Boy Wonder"). Early in 1915 he went down with jaundice but soon recovered. In May 1915 he moved to Bovingdon Green Camp in Marlow though he was unwell in July, which necessitated two weeks sick leave. On his return to duty he was assigned to the 4th Battalion, formed at Marlow in 1915. One of the other subalterns was Harold Macmillan who wrote about that summer in his autobiography Winds of Change 1914-1939: "Among the leading spirits was a young man of singular charm and attraction, Edward Tennant ("Bimbo" to all). Born of talented parents, he seemed to illustrate in his person all the Elizabethan ardour that still gave some enchantment and excitement to war. His life was not destined to be long; but he has left to all those who knew him a lasting memory". Of the many volumes written about the young men of those days, none is more moving than Lady Glenconner’s tribute to her son.

By August 1915 he was in charge of a unit of signallers, and was sent to the front with his battalion. His battalion saw action for the first time at the end of September, at Loos.A sensitive young man with a deeply rooted faith he wrote before the battle: "I have the feeling of immortality, very strongly, I think of death with a light heart and as a friend whom there is no need to fear". The attack began on September 25 and although Edward was not involved, the 4th Grenadiers were called forwards on 27th when they were warned they would be attacking Hill 70. The attack was carried out in heavy shell fire and succeeded in its objective. As second-in-command he had been held back in case of heavy losses. His company commander had however been shot through the arm and Edward was called upon to temporarily stand in for him. He was replaced by Lieutenant Osbert Sitwell who wrote about him at length in his autobiography, Volume 4, Laughter in the Next Room published by Macmillan in 1949.

The battalion had suffered some 340 casualties at Loos and the sight of corpses piled between the two front lines inspired one of Edward's poems, entitled "The Mad Soldier" written in June 1916:

I dropp’d here three weeks ago, yes,I know,

And it’s bitter cold at night, since the fight,

I could tell you if I chose,no one knows

Excep’ me and four or five, what ain’t alive.

I can see them all asleep, three men deep,

And they’re nowhere near a fire,but our wire

Has ’em fast as fast can be. Can’t you see

When the flare goes up? Ssh! boys; what’s that noise?

Do you know what these rats eat? Body-meat!.

After you’ve been down a week, an’ your cheek

Gets as pale as life, and night seems as white

As the day, only the rats and their brats

Seem more hungry when the day’s gone away,

An’ they look big as bulls, an’ they pulls

Till you almost sort o’ shout,but the drought

What you hadn’t felt before makes you sore.

And at times you even think of a drink.

There’s a leg across my thighs,if my eyes

Weren’t too sore, I’d like to see who it be,

Wonder if I’d know the bloke if I woke?

Woke? By damn, I’m not asleep,there’s a heap

Of us wond’ring why the hell we’re not well .

Leastways I am,since I came it’s the same

With the others,they don’t know what I do,

Or they wouldn’t gape and grin.It’s a sin

To say that Hell is hot,’cause it’s not:

Mind you, I know very well we’re in hell.

In a twisted hump we lie,heaping high,

Yes! an’ higher every day.Oh I say

This chap’s heavy on my thighs,damn his eyes.

In October,Edward was in hospital, not wounded, but probably suffering from some form of shell-shock and in late November went home on leave. He was back in France by 11 December and in the middle of March 1916 had arrived in the shattered town of Ypres. He wrote home describing the desolation of the scene: "After lunch Osbert and I went for a walk through the town. I have never seen such an abomination of desolation,not a single whole roof in the town; shell holes thirty feet in diameter and fifteen feet deep, full of green water; twisted iron staircases standing alone in the ruins of a house; everything knocked down except the tottering top storey bathroom which stands on a pyramid of débris".

From mid-June and for much of July the 4th Grenadiers alternated between the trenches of Ypres Canal Bank or the rest camp at Poperinghe. Tennant's birthday was also the first day of the Battle of the Somme but his unit was far away from it and life seems to have been fairly quiet. He performed frequently in battalion concerts and made several trips on his motorcycle to Calais for lunch with friends. A book of poems Worple Flit and Other Poems was published in September 1916 and Wheels, an Anthology of Verse, was published posthumously by Blackwell the following year.

On 9 September 1916 his Battalion relieved troops in the front line at Guillemont where they were subjected to heavy shell-fire and sniping. In three days the battalion had suffered 17 killed, 77 wounded and 5 men missing. That night they advanced to Carnoy and then to Trones Wood.

15 September 1916, the opening day of the Battle of Flers-Courcelette was an expensive day for Winchester. Eleven Wykehamists were killed or mortally wounded on the Somme that day, including Captain Arthur Innes Adam (1/1st Cambridgeshire Regiment); Lieutenant Raymond Asquith (3rd Grenadier Guards); Lieutenant-Colonel Eric William Benson (9th King's Royal Rifle Corps); Major Charles Blair-Wilson (42nd Canadian Infantry); Lieutenant George Macpherson (a tank commander in the Heavy Section of the Machine Gun Corps); Lieutenant Warine Frederick Martindale (1st Scots Guards); Captain Desmond Clere Parsons (2nd Irish Guards); Lance Corporal 73832 Henry Mark Ruddock (28th Canadian Infantry); Second Lieutenant Evelyn Godfrey Worsley (3rd Grenadier Guards); Second Lieutenant Geoffrey Wilfrid Penfold Wyatt (1st East Kent Regiment); and Lieutenant Raymond Gilbert Hooker Yeatherd (2nd Dragoon Guards).

Edward wrote home to his mother describing the experience, how difficult he found it and how thankful he was to be alive at the end of it. His company remained in the line near Combles, south east of Guillemont, on the night of 21/22 September, and while he was out sniping, he was killed. His Commanding Officer wrote to his parents: "Bim was sniping when he was killed instantaneously by a German sniper."

Two days before his death, Edward wrote a final loving letter to his mother as follows:

"Tonight we go up to the trenches we were in, and tomorrow or the next day we go over the top.I am full of hope and trust, and I pray that I may be worthy of my fighting ancestors.I have never been prouder of anything, except your love for me, than I am of being a Grenadier.I feel rather like saying "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me", but the triumphant finish nevertheless not what I will but what "Thou Wiliest" steels my heart and sends me into this battle with a heart of triple bronze.I always carry four photos of you when we go into action, one is in my pocket-book, two in that little leather book, and one round my neck, and I have kept my little medal of the Blessed Virgin. Your love for me and my love for you, have made my whole life one of the happiest there has ever been".

A few days after Edward's death, his mother received numerous condolences from soldiers who had served under him as well as his superiors. All were very poignant but none captured the dazzling persona of "Bim" Tennant better than the one from a Private, who wrote:

"When things were at their worst,He would pass up and down the trench cheering the men,and it was a treat to see his face always smiling,When danger was greatest, his smile was loveliest".

Edward's mother was so moved by these words that she had them inscribed on the memorial erected to her son in Salisbury Cathedral.

Edward's poem "Home Thoughts from Laventie" was published in The Times on 29 September and on 10 October a memorial service was held at St Margaret's Church, Westminster, the time arranged specifically so Members of Parliament could attend. A Memoir was written by his mother (who became Viscountess Grey of Falloden after her husband's death in 1920) entitled Edward Wyndham Tennant: A Memoir by his mother with Portraits in Photogravure.

The two most beautiful and poignant poems that Edward wrote in the trenches were "Home Thoughts From Laventie" and "Re-Incarnation" which were written under fire as follows:

Home Thoughts From Laventie

Green gardens in Laventie!

Soldiers only know the street

Where the mud is churned and splashed about

By battle-wending feet;

And yet beside one stricken house there is a glimpse of grass.

Look for it when you pass

Beyond the Church whose pitted spire

Seems balanced on a strand

Of swaying stone and tottering brick.

Two roofless ruins stand

And here behind the wreckage where the back wall should have been

We found a garden green.

The grass was never trodden on,

The little path of gravel

Was overgrown with celandine;

No other folk did travel

Along its weedy surface, but the nimble-footed mouse

Running from house to house.

So all among the vivid blades

Of soft and tender grass

We lay, nor heard the limber wheels

That pass and ever pass,

In noisy continuity, until their stony rattle

Seems in itself a battle.

At length we rose up from this ease

Of tranquil happy mind

And searched the garden’s little length

A fresh pleasuance to find;

And there, some yellow daffodils and jasmine hanging high

Did rest the tired eye.

The fairest and most fragrant

of the many sweets we found

Was a little of Daphne flower

Upon a grassy mound;

And so thick were the blossoms set and so divine the scent

That we were all content.

Hungry for Spring I bent my head;

the perfume fanned my face

And all my soul was dancing

In that lovely little place.

Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns,

Away…upon the Downs.

I saw green banks of daffodil,

Slim poplars in the breeze,

Great tan-brown hares in gusty March,

A courting on the leas;

And meadows with their glittering streams and silver scurrying dace

Home,what a perfect place. 

Re-Incarnation

I too remember distant golden days

When even my soul was young; I see the sand

Whirl in a blinding pillar towards the band

Of orange sky-line ’neath a turquoise blaze.

Some burnt-out sky spread o’er a glistening land

And slim brown jargoning men in blue and gold

I know it all so well, I understand

The ecstasy of worship ages-old.

Hear the first truth; The great far-seeing soul

Is ever in the humblest husk; I see

How each succeeding section takes its toll

In fading cycles of old memory,

And each new life the life shall control

Until perfection reach Eternity. 

Today, Lieutenant, The Honourable Edward Wyndham Tennant rests in peace alongside his men, friends and brothers in arms at Guillemont Road Cemetery, Somme, and his grave bears the following inscription: "Killed in action in his twentieth year."

Edward, so young but already so brave, it was by following your heart and your conscience that you answered the call and did your duty with honor on the battlefields of the great war which inspired your soul to write your life in the trenches under artillery fire which never made your hand or your pen tremble in the darkest hours which made the world sink into an abyss of madness in which thousands of young men lived and died but behind the parapets, gathered in the strongest camaraderie, they remained what they were, men of value driven by their convictions who knew how to keep their humanity and who, even in the face of their enemies who fought in the same terrible suffering, showed compassion, an emotion that the war tried to break by all means by raining despair in storms of fire and steel which returned, plowed again and again the grounds of northern France in avalanches of shells which crushed, mutilated all who attempted to cross the no man's land on which were shown all the bestiality of an abominable war which marked the beginning of the bloodiest century in history which, in the Somme, reached its paroxysm by sending, again and again , waves of men being decimated for often paltry gains and who often had no other choice than to follow the crazy and murderous orders given by generals who did not see what their men were enduring but nevertheless, like lions, they obeyed without asking why because the causes for which they fought were more important than anything.They did not fight to bring death to the enemy ranks and side by side, in brotherhood, they gave their today for their loved ones and for their comrades, to allow others to live thanks to their courage and their sacrifices, to see the light of hope rise on a better world, so that peace triumphs over this cloak of darkness which set the fields of the Somme ablaze which were the scenes of courageous attacks carried out with heroism by ordinary men who accomplished the exceptional shoulder to shoulder marching without retreating in the face of enemy machine guns which spit death at a rate never seen before and who, like monsters, painted the wheat fields blood red but, despite this nightmare, despite the fury and the screams all around them, brothers and friends, fathers and sons moved forward together bayonets forward staggering in putrid quagmires, sinking into a mud stained with flesh and bones on which rotted what were once uniforms. With 25 kilos on their backs, rifles in hands, they advanced over the dead bodies of friends and enemies but also of horses, innocent victims who, alongside their masters, did their duty to the end. It was in this world that thousands of men sacrificed everything they had but who went over the top with faith and pride, with in their hearts the love of their country which they made proud in these decisive moments which sealed so many destinies and who, in the poppies, found rest and eternal peace to rise behind their white tombs bathed in eternal light on which the story of their lives but also their courage, their actions and their sacrifices are remembered and honored respectfully.They were British, French, Australian, Canadian, German but above all, they were men, sons, husbands, brothers who had a story, a life that deserves and must be told so that their memory lives and with gratitude and care, I will always watch over them so that their memory remains intact, so that now and for future generations, the names of these heroes can live forever.Thank you so much Edward, for everything you and all your comrades did for us and for my country whose love, respect and infinite gratitude will belong to you forever.Lest we forget.

I would like very warmly and very respectfully to thank "Winchester College At War" as well as Mr Jonathan Whitney and the "Old West Downs Society" for their invaluable help without which I would not have been able to write this tribute.