The renewed debate about the legacy of 1916 has served, among other things, to remind us yet again of the greater cataclysm engulfing Western Europe around that time. For me that "world war" has a personal resonance because of a strange story - typical of countless others, no doubt - that finally reached some kind of closure in recent weeks.
Many years ago my mother gave me a German military wallet. It had been handed to her uncle, Bernard Forde, who served in the Royal Medical Corps during the first World War, by a 19-year-old German soldier, wounded, captured, and seemingly facing death. Over the years, I showed the wallet to various people with the idea of returning it to Germany and the dead soldier's family; but I never managed to get very far in this venture - until last summer, when a neighbour called Konrad Ecker entered my husband's life and mine. On hearing the fragmentary history of the wallet, Konrad offered to try to find its owner's surviving connections, if any.
He started his search with great enthusiasm, contacting the German Red Cross in Munich to discover that the Red Cross in Germany dealt only with post-second World War cases. Konrad had figured from the contents of the wallet that Herr Esser had been born in Krefeld (close to Duesseldorf in the Rhine-Ruhr Area, famous for steel production). The Red Cross told him that this particular area of Germany had been heavily bombed in the second World War and most archives were destroyed.
Disheartened, but still determined, Konrad persevered in his quest. Through the Internet, he was able to make contact with the registry office in Krefeld, and October 6th last year it sent him an unexpected reply: Herr Joseph Esser had passed away in Montabaur (Hesse in the Frankfurt area) on September 2nd, 1985. Konrad was dumbfounded. He had to read and re-read the e-mail. Joseph Esser had died in the first World War, hadn't he? Was this the right Joseph Esser? And if so, how did he survive the war in which we thought he had died?
The registrar gave Konrad a hint in his e-mail: that he should look up the registered death certificate for Esser to see whether he had any living relatives. Konrad e-mailed the registry office in Montabaur, keeping his fingers crossed. The registrar, Herr Kanz, replied that Herr Esser's daughter was still living in the municipality of Montabaur. What a result! Disbelief all round.
Herr Esser's daughter, Irmgard, now 80 years old, did not want to get in touch with Konrad or myself directly, as she was afraid the story was a hoax and she, understandably, doubted our intentions after all this time. Irmgard indicated that she would accept her father's military wallet only through the mayor of the town she lives in.
So, on December 20th last year, I handed Joseph Esser's military wallet to Konrad who finally took it, from Dublin, home to Germany. I included a covering note in English outlining how her father's wallet had come into my possession. As instructed by Irmgard, Konrad posted the package to the mayor of her town.
On January 4th both Konrad and I received a letter of thanks in German from Irmgard. One can only imagine the emotion she must have felt on receiving her dead father's wallet so long after the first World War more than 20 years after his death at the age of 90, in 1985. For her, the most interesting items in the wallet were the two cards from another German soldier, also aged 19, who did perish in the war. In the cards, this soldier is saying goodbye to his parents as he was going to meet his death.
Speaking to Irmgard since her letter to me in January, she told me that the relatives of the dead soldier still live at the same address to which he wrote the postcards in 1914. She has posted them on to his family but, as yet, has heard nothing back. She also told me that her father had had his leg amputated in English captivity. Believing that he was dying, he had given his military wallet to the doctor looking after him - my great-uncle Bernard, asking him to return it to his family.
I decided to find more about Bernard. Through the Royal College of Physicians here in Dublin, I discovered that he was born in Duleek, Co Meath on April 23rd, 1865 and became a doctor at the Royal University of Ireland in 1886. Unable to find work in Ireland, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in Britain in 1890 and saw three years's service in the Boer War. His younger sister - my grandmother, Kathleen - joined the Queen Alexandra Nurses' Corps and served in the same conflict. Bernard was present at the siege of Ladysmith and received the Queen's Medal with three clasps and the King's Medal with two clasps. Kathleen stayed on in South Africa, marrying Alfred Coster, my grandfather, an English gold prospector, in 1902.
Having made lieut-colonel in 1912, Bernard was mentioned in wartime dispatches, and was awarded the Companion of St Michael and St George from King George V in 1915.
On retiring to Dublin he took upon himself the education of his niece Alice, my mother, in South Africa. He paid for her to further her education in Ireland after she had taken a Masters of Science, through Afrikaans, in Johannesburg. Alice came to Ireland in 1927 to study medicine, qualifying in 1932.
Bernard, who remained a bachelor, died on June 18th, 1939 at his Dublin home, aged 74, and was buried in Duleek. His colourful regiment dress uniform is now in the care of the National Museum.
Why he never returned Joseph Esser's military wallet to Germany remains a mystery to which we will never know the answer.