Officers' Servants
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by
Stork
In the 17th day, two of the 2nd Lieuts go off for training, and after their name it says "+ servant." Their rank is only 2nd Lieut, so I can't imagine that the Army provided them with a personal servant. A while ago in a diary I saw that a high-ranking officer had a batman, which my dictionary defines as 'an orderly assigned to serve a British military officer.' Do soldiers bring one of their house servants from England to tag along after them while they're at war to wash their clothes and cook their meals? Maybe they hire a local resident to be their servant?
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LinsladeLad
I think I'm correct in saying that all commissioned officers, even 2nd Lieuts, had a batman. If you think about it from the perspective of the range of duties required from the average platoon commander (which is what the majority of infantry 2nd Lieuts were) they were occupied for the majority of the 24 hours in any given day - especially at the front. The batman would take care of a lot of the officers personal administration, cooking, cleaning, etc.thus enabling him to concentrate on the needs of the men under his command.
In the military parlance of the time the terms servant and batman are interchangeable.Posted
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Servants ww1 - Normally, officers would have a batman, or, sometimes a batman between 2 officers. Unless the person was high up enough to "recruit" his own people, they normally could not bring their own servants, and certainly not on to, or near the battlefield. However, the Colonel of a battalion probably could do that - especially as many battalions in WWI were raised by these people, who were typically also very wealthy.
https://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130110213158AA1EyJo
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cyngast
moderator
All commissioned officers were assigned a batman or servant, even the lowly 2nd Lt., at least early on in the war. There is some more information about the role of the batman, including several anecdotes about or from various batmen, here: http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/107807-looking-for-information-on-the-role-of-a-batman/ The post from Ron Clifton (near the end) includes the relevant sections from War Establishments 1914. In looking around for information, I've seen there seems to be a myth that the term batman wasn't used until after World War 1.
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Stork
Great- thanks for the info.
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David_Underdown
moderator
It's possible that sometimes an officer and man who had been his servant at home joined up together and selected the man as his servant, but you couldn't bring in civilian servants as such.
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