Sam's Story.
Warrant Officer Class 2 Sam Robbins Army Service Corps
The Man Sam Robbins was born in the village of Tiffield, Northamptonshire in 1893, son of Charles Robbins. Little is known of his early life except that in 1914 he was single, his occupation was Tinsmith Improver and that on 19th August 1914 aged 20, two weeks after the outbreak of The Great War he enlisted into the Army Service Corps at Rugby, Warwickshire. His service number was T3-030313 and he initially attested for a three year period with the Colours as a Private. He was described as 5’ 4” tall weighing 118lbs. His chest measurement was 36½” with an expansion range of 2” and his complexion described as fresh. He had blue eyes, light brown hair and his religion was given as Church of England. He was posted to 115 Company ASC as a Driver on 28th August and clearly had skills required for the Army as he was promoted to Lance Corporal on 12th October, Acting Corporal on 27th and Acting Sergeant on 2nd December. He served in the United Kingdom until 16th January 1916 when he proceeded on active service to the Balkans. He was then promoted to Sergeant on 2nd May 1916 and appointed Acting Company Sergeant Major on 13th June.
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Following the end of hostilities and on 25th December 1918 he was promoted to Company Sergeant Major and appointed Warrant Officer Class II the same date. Sam was discharged from 114 Company Royal Army Service Corps Motorised Transport section and transferred to the Z Class Reserve on 20th June 1919, having served a total of 4 years 306 days with The Colours. He returned to his home address of Rose Cottage, Tiffield, Northamptonshire and was a member of the BSA Sick Club in Rugby.
The Story This group of medals were acquired in 1977 from an antique shop in Park Street, Leamington Spa for the princely sum of £4.00! The owner of the shop being a colleague of the author’s Grandfather they both having worked at Automotive Products in the town some years previously. The group was made up of an unnamed or erased 1914-1915 Star, 1914-1918 British War & Victory Medals, the latter two in the wrong order. They were named to T3-0303013 A.W.O.CL.2. S.ROBBINS. A.S.C. This was truly the first ever ‘group’ of medals acquired by the author and were used in a display at his school for a production of Oh What A Lovely War during 1977. They sat within the author’s increasing medal collection for the next 32 years, no research was attempted, they were not mounted, often considered for sale and left un-cleaned exactly as they had been acquired during Her Majesty’s Silver Jubilee year, the 1914-15 Star still retaining the sticky mark on the ribbon where the price label had been put! Following the author’s subscription to ancestry.com in April 2009, a cursory search for his medal index card was made on Wednesday 20th May 2009, after some trawling the card was located and confirmed that Sam Robbins had only been entitled to the British War and Victory Medals, this immediately explained the ‘self award’ of the unnamed 1914-15 Star. However a further trawl of the research site revealed that there were six pages of his original Army records existing and these were available to view and download. This of course meant that a date of birth could be established and then census records obtained giving a little more family background, although the latter proved to be negative at this time.
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The information that was downloaded enabled the above brief biography to be completed and although incomplete it does expand a little on thelife of a man whose hard earned and fought for awards have lain dormant and untouched for so long. They were eventually cleaned and re-mounted early September 2009.
The Balkans Campaign in World War 1
The prime cause of World War I being the hostility between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, it is hardly surprising that some of the earliest fighting took place between Serbia and its powerful neighbour to the north: Austria-Hungary. Serbia held out against Austria-Hungary for more than a year before it was conquered in late 1915. Allied diplomacy was able to bring Romania into the war in 1916 but this proved disastrous for the Romanians. Shortly after they joined the war, a combined German, Austrian, Bulgarian and Ottoman offensive conquered two-thirds of their country in a rapid campaign which ended in December 1916. However, the Romanian and Russian armies managed to stabilize the front and hold on to Moldavia. In 1917, Greece entered the war on the Allied side, and in 1918, the multi-national Army of the Orient, based in northern Greece, finally launched an offensive which drove Bulgaria to seek peace, recaptured Serbia and finally halted only at the border of Hungary in November 1918.
Serbian Campaign
The Serbian Army was able to fight off the larger army of Austria-Hungary thanks, in large part, to the fact that the Austro-Hungarians had to focus their attention on fighting off the huge Russian Army. In 1915 the Austro-Hungarians brought more soldiers to the front and, with diplomacy, brought in Bulgaria as an ally. Serbian forces were attacked from both the north and the east and were forced to retreat. The retreat was skillfully carried out and the Serbian Army remained operational, even though it was now based in Greece.
Romanian Campaign Romania before the war was an ally of Austria-Hungary but, like Italy, refused to join the war when it started. The Romanian government finally chose to side with the Allies in August 1916, the main reason being Transylvania. The war started as a total disaster for Romania. Before the year was out, the Germans, Austrians, Bulgarians and Ottomans had conquered Wallachia and Dobruja – and captured more than half of its army as POWs. In 1917, re-trained (mainly by a French expeditionary corps under the command of General Henri Berthelot) and re-supplied, the Romanian Army, together with a disintegrating Russian Army, were successful in containing the German advance into Moldavia. In May 1918, after the German advance in Ukraine and Russia signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Romania, surrounded by the Central Powers forces, had no other choice but to sue for peace (see Treaty of Bucharest, 1918). After the successful offensive on the Thessaloniki front which knocked Bulgaria out of the war, Romania re-entered the war on November 10, 1918.
Bulgarian Campaign In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars Bulgarian opinion turned against Russia and the western powers, whom the Bulgarians felt had done nothing to help them. The government aligned Bulgaria with Germany and Austria-Hungary, even though this meant also becoming an ally of the Ottomans, Bulgaria's traditional enemy. But Bulgaria now had no claims against the Ottomans, whereas Serbia, Greece and Romania (allies of Britain and France) were all in possession of lands perceived as Bulgarian. Bulgaria, recuperating from the Balkan Wars, sat out the first year of World War I, but when Germany promised to restore the boundaries of the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria, which had the largest army in the Balkans, declared war on Serbia in October 1915. Britain, France and Italy then declared war on Bulgaria. Although Bulgaria, in alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, won military victories against Serbia and Romania, occupying much of Macedonia (taking Skopje in October), advancing into Greek Macedonia, and taking Dobruja from the Romanians in September 1916, the war soon became unpopular with the majority of Bulgarian people, who suffered enormous economic hardship. The Russian Revolution of February 1917 had a great effect in Bulgaria, spreading antiwar and anti-monarchist sentiment among the troops and in the cities. In September 1918 the Serbs, British, French, Italians and Greeks broke through on the Macedonian front, triggering revolts among the Bulgarian troops. Tsar Ferdinand was forced to sue for peace. In order to head off the revolutionaries, Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his son Boris III. The revolutionaries were suppressed and the army disbanded. Under the Treaty of Neuilly (November 1919), Bulgaria lost its Aegean coastline in favour of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (transferred later by them to Greece) and nearly all of its Macedonian territory to the new state of Yugoslavia, and had to give Dobruja back to the Romanians (see also Dobruja, Western Outlands, Western Thrace).
Macedonian Front
In 1915 the Austrians gained military support from Germany and, with diplomacy, brought in Bulgaria as an ally. Serbian forces were attacked from both north and south and were forced to retreat. The retreat was skillfully carried out and the Serbian army remained operational, even though it was now based in Greece. The front stabilised roughly around the Greek border, through the intervention of a Franco-British-Italian force which had landed in Salonica. The German generals had not let the Bulgarian army advance towards Salonika, because they hoped they could persuade the Greeks to join the Central powers. Three years later (1918) this mistake was already irreparable. In 1918, after a prolonged build-up, the Allies, under the energetic French General Franchet d'Esperey leading a combined French, Serbian, Greek and British army, attacked out of Greece. His initial victories convinced the Bulgarian government to sue for peace. He then attacked north and defeated the German and Austrian forces that tried to halt his offensive. By October 1918 his army had recaptured all of Serbia and was preparing to invade Hungary proper. It is noteworthy to mention the heroics of Hungarian General Ģeyson Apgar who led his unit with distinct bravery. The offensive halted only because the Hungarian leadership offered to surrender in November 1918.
Results While the Allies hoped that the addition of Greece and Romania to their side would increase their strength against the Central Powers, in fact, both the Greeks and the Romanians cost the Allies extra, in terms of men and materials that had to be supplied in order to save them from destruction by the Bulgarian, German and Austrian armies. The Russians had to pour extra divisions and supplies to keep the Romanian army from being utterly destroyed. According to John Keegan, the Russian Chief of Staff, General Alekseev was very dismissive of the Romanian army and argued that they would drain, rather than add to the Russian reserves. Alekseev was proved correct in his analysis. The French and British kept six divisions each on the Greek frontier from 1916 till the end of 1918. Originally, the French and British went to Greece to help Serbia, but with Serbia's conquest in the fall of 1915, their continued presence was pointless. For nearly three years, these divisions accomplished essentially nothing and only tied down half of the Bulgarian army, which wasn't going to go far from Bulgaria in any event. In fact, Keegan argues that "the installation of a violently nationalist and anti-Turkish government in Athens, led to Greek mobilization in the cause of the "Great Idea" - the recovery of the Greek empire in the east - which would complicate the Allied effort to resettle the peace of Europe for years after the war ended”.
The Balkans Campaign in World War 1
The prime cause of World War I being the hostility between Serbia and Austria-Hungary, it is hardly surprising that some of the earliest fighting took place between Serbia and its powerful neighbour to the north: Austria-Hungary. Serbia held out against Austria-Hungary for more than a year before it was conquered in late 1915. Allied diplomacy was able to bring Romania into the war in 1916 but this proved disastrous for the Romanians. Shortly after they joined the war, a combined German, Austrian, Bulgarian and Ottoman offensive conquered two-thirds of their country in a rapid campaign which ended in December 1916. However, the Romanian and Russian armies managed to stabilize the front and hold on to Moldavia. In 1917, Greece entered the war on the Allied side, and in 1918, the multi-national Army of the Orient, based in northern Greece, finally launched an offensive which drove Bulgaria to seek peace, recaptured Serbia and finally halted only at the border of Hungary in November 1918.
Serbian Campaign
The Serbian Army was able to fight off the larger army of Austria-Hungary thanks, in large part, to the fact that the Austro-Hungarians had to focus their attention on fighting off the huge Russian Army. In 1915 the Austro-Hungarians brought more soldiers to the front and, with diplomacy, brought in Bulgaria as an ally. Serbian forces were attacked from both the north and the east and were forced to retreat. The retreat was skillfully carried out and the Serbian Army remained operational, even though it was now based in Greece.
Romanian Campaign Romania before the war was an ally of Austria-Hungary but, like Italy, refused to join the war when it started. The Romanian government finally chose to side with the Allies in August 1916, the main reason being Transylvania. The war started as a total disaster for Romania. Before the year was out, the Germans, Austrians, Bulgarians and Ottomans had conquered Wallachia and Dobruja – and captured more than half of its army as POWs. In 1917, re-trained (mainly by a French expeditionary corps under the command of General Henri Berthelot) and re-supplied, the Romanian Army, together with a disintegrating Russian Army, were successful in containing the German advance into Moldavia. In May 1918, after the German advance in Ukraine and Russia signing the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Romania, surrounded by the Central Powers forces, had no other choice but to sue for peace (see Treaty of Bucharest, 1918). After the successful offensive on the Thessaloniki front which knocked Bulgaria out of the war, Romania re-entered the war on November 10, 1918.
Bulgarian Campaign In the aftermath of the Balkan Wars Bulgarian opinion turned against Russia and the western powers, whom the Bulgarians felt had done nothing to help them. The government aligned Bulgaria with Germany and Austria-Hungary, even though this meant also becoming an ally of the Ottomans, Bulgaria's traditional enemy. But Bulgaria now had no claims against the Ottomans, whereas Serbia, Greece and Romania (allies of Britain and France) were all in possession of lands perceived as Bulgarian. Bulgaria, recuperating from the Balkan Wars, sat out the first year of World War I, but when Germany promised to restore the boundaries of the Treaty of San Stefano, Bulgaria, which had the largest army in the Balkans, declared war on Serbia in October 1915. Britain, France and Italy then declared war on Bulgaria. Although Bulgaria, in alliance with Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans, won military victories against Serbia and Romania, occupying much of Macedonia (taking Skopje in October), advancing into Greek Macedonia, and taking Dobruja from the Romanians in September 1916, the war soon became unpopular with the majority of Bulgarian people, who suffered enormous economic hardship. The Russian Revolution of February 1917 had a great effect in Bulgaria, spreading antiwar and anti-monarchist sentiment among the troops and in the cities. In September 1918 the Serbs, British, French, Italians and Greeks broke through on the Macedonian front, triggering revolts among the Bulgarian troops. Tsar Ferdinand was forced to sue for peace. In order to head off the revolutionaries, Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his son Boris III. The revolutionaries were suppressed and the army disbanded. Under the Treaty of Neuilly (November 1919), Bulgaria lost its Aegean coastline in favour of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers (transferred later by them to Greece) and nearly all of its Macedonian territory to the new state of Yugoslavia, and had to give Dobruja back to the Romanians (see also Dobruja, Western Outlands, Western Thrace).
Macedonian Front
In 1915 the Austrians gained military support from Germany and, with diplomacy, brought in Bulgaria as an ally. Serbian forces were attacked from both north and south and were forced to retreat. The retreat was skillfully carried out and the Serbian army remained operational, even though it was now based in Greece. The front stabilised roughly around the Greek border, through the intervention of a Franco-British-Italian force which had landed in Salonica. The German generals had not let the Bulgarian army advance towards Salonika, because they hoped they could persuade the Greeks to join the Central powers. Three years later (1918) this mistake was already irreparable. In 1918, after a prolonged build-up, the Allies, under the energetic French General Franchet d'Esperey leading a combined French, Serbian, Greek and British army, attacked out of Greece. His initial victories convinced the Bulgarian government to sue for peace. He then attacked north and defeated the German and Austrian forces that tried to halt his offensive. By October 1918 his army had recaptured all of Serbia and was preparing to invade Hungary proper. It is noteworthy to mention the heroics of Hungarian General Ģeyson Apgar who led his unit with distinct bravery. The offensive halted only because the Hungarian leadership offered to surrender in November 1918.
Results While the Allies hoped that the addition of Greece and Romania to their side would increase their strength against the Central Powers, in fact, both the Greeks and the Romanians cost the Allies extra, in terms of men and materials that had to be supplied in order to save them from destruction by the Bulgarian, German and Austrian armies. The Russians had to pour extra divisions and supplies to keep the Romanian army from being utterly destroyed. According to John Keegan, the Russian Chief of Staff, General Alekseev was very dismissive of the Romanian army and argued that they would drain, rather than add to the Russian reserves. Alekseev was proved correct in his analysis. The French and British kept six divisions each on the Greek frontier from 1916 till the end of 1918. Originally, the French and British went to Greece to help Serbia, but with Serbia's conquest in the fall of 1915, their continued presence was pointless. For nearly three years, these divisions accomplished essentially nothing and only tied down half of the Bulgarian army, which wasn't going to go far from Bulgaria in any event. In fact, Keegan argues that "the installation of a violently nationalist and anti-Turkish government in Athens, led to Greek mobilization in the cause of the "Great Idea" - the recovery of the Greek empire in the east - which would complicate the Allied effort to resettle the peace of Europe for years after the war ended”.
Medal Details:
- 1914-18 British War Medal: T3-030313 W.O.CL.2. S.ROBBINS. A.S.C.
- Victory Medal: T3-030313 W.O.CL.2. S.ROBBINS. A.S.C.
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This page last updated 22 Feb 16