THE LOST LIEUTENANT
Russo-Japanese War, Manchuria, 1905
Lieutenant George Roland Graham, 112th Native Infantry, Indian Army
St. Mary the Virgin, Cossington, Somerset
The Man (and woman)
If, now, in 2016, a woman in her sixties was to announce that she was going to travel through Northern China, alone, with no definite route, there would be consternation in her family, understandable concerns about safety and health. Interesting, therefore, to speculate on how Helen Sophia Graham's family reacted to her decision to do just that over a century ago, in 1905. Manchuria, as North-East China is known, had just then emerged from a bloody war, and a few years earlier had been a stronghold of the Boxer Rebellion, but Helen would have argued that she had a good reason; she had, literally, lost a son.
Overall it is fair to say that up to that point Helen had suffered a degree of grief in her life. The daughter of Henry Pyne, a London barrister, she had married, in 1865, Edward Grenfell, a Rugby schoolmaster. Two years later their infant first child, Edward, died. Two more sons were born in quick succession (Arthur Pascoe and Harold Granville), but in 1870 Edward himself died, and Helen returned to her parents. In 1878 she remarried, to Allen Dowdeswell Graham, a wealthy ex-clergyman who had resigned Holy Orders, and they had 4 children: Helen Miller (born 1880); Irene Marguerite (1882); George Roland (1884); and Robert Douglas (1887). In 1897 Irene died, and in 1905 news arrived that Roland had gone missing in Manchuria, where the Russians were at war with the Japanese. By July of the same year Allen was dead, and Helen was left in Somerset with daughter Helen. Of her three other children, Arthur was in India working in forestry, and Harold and Robert were in the Royal Navy. It was at this point that Helen decided to go searching for her missing son.
But why was Roland Graham, an Indian Army officer, a Lieutenant with the 119th Native Infantry ostensibly in China on a language course, attempting to reach a Japanese army in Manchuria which was fighting a war in which Britain was not involved?
The Background
Manchuria was officially Chinese territory, with Chinese administration, but since the defeat of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 Chinese power had been weakened greatly, and the Russians were tending to please themselves in the region, focusing on developing Port Arthur, at the end of the Liaodong Peninsula, as a major harbour for their Pacific Fleet (Vladivostok, further north, was always iced-up in winter). By 1904 the fleet was established in Port Arthur (now Dalian), and the Russians had begun construction on a railway line to link the port with the Eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Chinese were against the railway, but could do nothing to stop it. The Japanese were opposed to Russian expansion in an area in which they had significant strategic interest, and they could do something.
The main Japanese concern involved the integrity of Korea, which although nominally independent was under Japanese control, and which lies to the east of the Liaodong peninsula, and to the south of Manchuria. They were concerned about the threat of Russian encroachment into Korean territory were Russia to become entrenched in Manchuria, and they were worried that Russian control of Manchuria would prevent future linking of the Korean railways with the Chinese system.
After a year of fruitless negotiations the Japanese launched a pre-emptive strike on Port Arthur, damaging badly a number of battleships, and bottling the fleet up in the harbour. Meanwhile a Japanese army landed in Korea and marched into Manchuria, so that by the end of the year they were preparing to attack the main Russian forces in Mukden (now Shenyang).
Britain's involvement?
The explanation of Lieutenant Graham's disappearance may lie in the way in which Britain was drawn into involvement in a conflict in which it was, strictly, neutral. If Britain were to maintain its naval supremacy in the region, it did not want the Russians to have access to an all-year round port; it therefore favoured Japan in the argument, but did not wish to become involved militarily. However, the situation was complicated by the possibility of German involvement from the German Eastern Navy base further south at Tsingtao (now Qingdao), involvement which would probably be on the Russian side. To dissuade such German involvement the British signed an alliance treaty with Japan which stated that Britain would stay out of the war unless another nation allied itself with Russia, in which case Britain would ally itself militarily with Japan. Part of that alliance treaty meant that Britain and Japan shared intelligence about the Russians, and I suspect that this is where Roland Graham comes in.
The Indian Army had a listening station in China, monitoring wireless and telegram communications, so it seems reasonable to assume that Roland had been posted there, rather than sent on some nebulous language course. It is certainly plausible that he was attempting to convey information to the Japanese forces in the field, as he was last seen on March 17th, just a week after the decisive Japanese victory at Mukden. If not reporting to the Japanese, it is certainly possible that he was reporting to a number of senior officers who were embedded with the Japanese (and Russian) forces as observers. They included: Ian Hamilton, who commanded the British Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli; James Haldane, in charge of the 6th Army in the First World War; and, on the American staff, Pershing and Douglas Macarthur.
On the way to deliver his messages, or on whatever mission he was engaged, Lieutenant Roland Graham just disappeared. The most probable explanation is that he was killed by bandits who were roaming the chaotic region, or possibly he came across Russian troops who had become separated from the main body after Mukden. It's very unlikely that he met and fell in love with a Chinese peasant girl, and went on to sire a progeny of blue-eyed Chinese children, though that would make a nice fairy tale.
Afterwards
Helen Graham never found her son, or discovered what happened to him. She returned to Somerset, and died in 1931, at The Old Manor in Stawell, near Bridgewater. That adventurous gene did not die with her. In 1929 her son, Robert, by then a retired Royal Naval Commander, sailed to the then-remote Faroe Islands with his own daughter, another Helen. In 1934 he embarked on a solo crossing of the Atlantic, a voyage recorded in his book 'Rough Passage'. Daughter Helen had expected to accompany him, but he decided it was too risky, a decision she found hard to accept, so much so that eventually she made the voyage herself, in the company of her own son, in the year 2000, when she was 88 years old. In 2002, Helen Tew was runner-up to Ellen Macarthur as Yachtswoman of the Year.
One final name to cover is that of Allan Dowdeswell Graham, George Roland's father. If Helen had the adventurous gene, then what can one say of Allan? The son of a Bengal Artillery Lieutenant-Colonel he appears to have opted for the easy life. He resigned his Holy Orders, and lived the life of a gentleman in London, and in the family house at Cossington in Somerset. But in 1888 he founded the Invalid Children's Aid Association, saying, "Poverty is bad enough, God knows, but the poor handicapped exist in a living hell". He sold the family house, Cossington House, to raise funds for the charity, moving into some converted cottages which he renamed Cossington Park. That house is still there, still owned by his descendants, and the charity still exists, now known as ICAN, and working with children with communication problems. Roland Graham may have disappeared, but his family did not.
TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF GEORGE ROLAND GRAHAM LIEUTENANT, 112TH N.I. INDIAN ARMY BORN 17TH APRIL 1884 ELDEST SON OF ALLEN D. GRAHAM OF COSSINGTON HOUSE WHO WHILE ON LANGUAGE LEAVE IN CHINA DURING THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR OF 1904-5 LOST HIS LIFE TRYING TO REACH THE JAPANESE ARMY IN MANCHURIA MARCH 1905. "WHY DID'ST THOU LEAVE THE TRODDEN PATHS OF MEN TOO SOON AND WITH WEAK HANDS THOUGH MIGHTY HEART DARE THE UNPASTURED DRAGON IN HIS DEN?"
COMMENT ON THIS STORY ON FACEBOOK
Sources
Photos
Russian Cavalry under reconnaissance Mission during the Battle of Mukden - P. J. Collier & Son (1904)
St. Mary's Church, Cossington - by Ian Rix, from geography.org.uk
Military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_attachés_and_observers_in_the_Russo-Japanese_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War
http://inchbrakie.tripod.com/abookofthegraemes/id66.html
http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/is/IS475.pdf - this is a paper by Ian Nash , "China and the Russo-Japanese War", 2004
Geneology
Edward Walford "The-county-families-of-the-united-kingdom", 1919
'Rough Passage', Robert Douglas Graham and M. Helen Graham (1934, republished Sheridan House, 2005)
www.ancestry.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1476489/Helen-Tew.html
ⓒ Jon Dewhirst January 2014
Russo-Japanese War, Manchuria, 1905
Lieutenant George Roland Graham, 112th Native Infantry, Indian Army
St. Mary the Virgin, Cossington, Somerset
The Man (and woman)
If, now, in 2016, a woman in her sixties was to announce that she was going to travel through Northern China, alone, with no definite route, there would be consternation in her family, understandable concerns about safety and health. Interesting, therefore, to speculate on how Helen Sophia Graham's family reacted to her decision to do just that over a century ago, in 1905. Manchuria, as North-East China is known, had just then emerged from a bloody war, and a few years earlier had been a stronghold of the Boxer Rebellion, but Helen would have argued that she had a good reason; she had, literally, lost a son.
Overall it is fair to say that up to that point Helen had suffered a degree of grief in her life. The daughter of Henry Pyne, a London barrister, she had married, in 1865, Edward Grenfell, a Rugby schoolmaster. Two years later their infant first child, Edward, died. Two more sons were born in quick succession (Arthur Pascoe and Harold Granville), but in 1870 Edward himself died, and Helen returned to her parents. In 1878 she remarried, to Allen Dowdeswell Graham, a wealthy ex-clergyman who had resigned Holy Orders, and they had 4 children: Helen Miller (born 1880); Irene Marguerite (1882); George Roland (1884); and Robert Douglas (1887). In 1897 Irene died, and in 1905 news arrived that Roland had gone missing in Manchuria, where the Russians were at war with the Japanese. By July of the same year Allen was dead, and Helen was left in Somerset with daughter Helen. Of her three other children, Arthur was in India working in forestry, and Harold and Robert were in the Royal Navy. It was at this point that Helen decided to go searching for her missing son.
But why was Roland Graham, an Indian Army officer, a Lieutenant with the 119th Native Infantry ostensibly in China on a language course, attempting to reach a Japanese army in Manchuria which was fighting a war in which Britain was not involved?
The Background
Manchuria was officially Chinese territory, with Chinese administration, but since the defeat of the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 Chinese power had been weakened greatly, and the Russians were tending to please themselves in the region, focusing on developing Port Arthur, at the end of the Liaodong Peninsula, as a major harbour for their Pacific Fleet (Vladivostok, further north, was always iced-up in winter). By 1904 the fleet was established in Port Arthur (now Dalian), and the Russians had begun construction on a railway line to link the port with the Eastern end of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The Chinese were against the railway, but could do nothing to stop it. The Japanese were opposed to Russian expansion in an area in which they had significant strategic interest, and they could do something.
The main Japanese concern involved the integrity of Korea, which although nominally independent was under Japanese control, and which lies to the east of the Liaodong peninsula, and to the south of Manchuria. They were concerned about the threat of Russian encroachment into Korean territory were Russia to become entrenched in Manchuria, and they were worried that Russian control of Manchuria would prevent future linking of the Korean railways with the Chinese system.
After a year of fruitless negotiations the Japanese launched a pre-emptive strike on Port Arthur, damaging badly a number of battleships, and bottling the fleet up in the harbour. Meanwhile a Japanese army landed in Korea and marched into Manchuria, so that by the end of the year they were preparing to attack the main Russian forces in Mukden (now Shenyang).
Britain's involvement?
The explanation of Lieutenant Graham's disappearance may lie in the way in which Britain was drawn into involvement in a conflict in which it was, strictly, neutral. If Britain were to maintain its naval supremacy in the region, it did not want the Russians to have access to an all-year round port; it therefore favoured Japan in the argument, but did not wish to become involved militarily. However, the situation was complicated by the possibility of German involvement from the German Eastern Navy base further south at Tsingtao (now Qingdao), involvement which would probably be on the Russian side. To dissuade such German involvement the British signed an alliance treaty with Japan which stated that Britain would stay out of the war unless another nation allied itself with Russia, in which case Britain would ally itself militarily with Japan. Part of that alliance treaty meant that Britain and Japan shared intelligence about the Russians, and I suspect that this is where Roland Graham comes in.
The Indian Army had a listening station in China, monitoring wireless and telegram communications, so it seems reasonable to assume that Roland had been posted there, rather than sent on some nebulous language course. It is certainly plausible that he was attempting to convey information to the Japanese forces in the field, as he was last seen on March 17th, just a week after the decisive Japanese victory at Mukden. If not reporting to the Japanese, it is certainly possible that he was reporting to a number of senior officers who were embedded with the Japanese (and Russian) forces as observers. They included: Ian Hamilton, who commanded the British Expeditionary Force at Gallipoli; James Haldane, in charge of the 6th Army in the First World War; and, on the American staff, Pershing and Douglas Macarthur.
On the way to deliver his messages, or on whatever mission he was engaged, Lieutenant Roland Graham just disappeared. The most probable explanation is that he was killed by bandits who were roaming the chaotic region, or possibly he came across Russian troops who had become separated from the main body after Mukden. It's very unlikely that he met and fell in love with a Chinese peasant girl, and went on to sire a progeny of blue-eyed Chinese children, though that would make a nice fairy tale.
Afterwards
Helen Graham never found her son, or discovered what happened to him. She returned to Somerset, and died in 1931, at The Old Manor in Stawell, near Bridgewater. That adventurous gene did not die with her. In 1929 her son, Robert, by then a retired Royal Naval Commander, sailed to the then-remote Faroe Islands with his own daughter, another Helen. In 1934 he embarked on a solo crossing of the Atlantic, a voyage recorded in his book 'Rough Passage'. Daughter Helen had expected to accompany him, but he decided it was too risky, a decision she found hard to accept, so much so that eventually she made the voyage herself, in the company of her own son, in the year 2000, when she was 88 years old. In 2002, Helen Tew was runner-up to Ellen Macarthur as Yachtswoman of the Year.
One final name to cover is that of Allan Dowdeswell Graham, George Roland's father. If Helen had the adventurous gene, then what can one say of Allan? The son of a Bengal Artillery Lieutenant-Colonel he appears to have opted for the easy life. He resigned his Holy Orders, and lived the life of a gentleman in London, and in the family house at Cossington in Somerset. But in 1888 he founded the Invalid Children's Aid Association, saying, "Poverty is bad enough, God knows, but the poor handicapped exist in a living hell". He sold the family house, Cossington House, to raise funds for the charity, moving into some converted cottages which he renamed Cossington Park. That house is still there, still owned by his descendants, and the charity still exists, now known as ICAN, and working with children with communication problems. Roland Graham may have disappeared, but his family did not.
TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF GEORGE ROLAND GRAHAM LIEUTENANT, 112TH N.I. INDIAN ARMY BORN 17TH APRIL 1884 ELDEST SON OF ALLEN D. GRAHAM OF COSSINGTON HOUSE WHO WHILE ON LANGUAGE LEAVE IN CHINA DURING THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR OF 1904-5 LOST HIS LIFE TRYING TO REACH THE JAPANESE ARMY IN MANCHURIA MARCH 1905. "WHY DID'ST THOU LEAVE THE TRODDEN PATHS OF MEN TOO SOON AND WITH WEAK HANDS THOUGH MIGHTY HEART DARE THE UNPASTURED DRAGON IN HIS DEN?"
COMMENT ON THIS STORY ON FACEBOOK
Sources
Photos
Russian Cavalry under reconnaissance Mission during the Battle of Mukden - P. J. Collier & Son (1904)
St. Mary's Church, Cossington - by Ian Rix, from geography.org.uk
Military
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_attachés_and_observers_in_the_Russo-Japanese_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War
http://inchbrakie.tripod.com/abookofthegraemes/id66.html
http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/is/IS475.pdf - this is a paper by Ian Nash , "China and the Russo-Japanese War", 2004
Geneology
Edward Walford "The-county-families-of-the-united-kingdom", 1919
'Rough Passage', Robert Douglas Graham and M. Helen Graham (1934, republished Sheridan House, 2005)
www.ancestry.co.uk
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1476489/Helen-Tew.html
ⓒ Jon Dewhirst January 2014