G'day Colin,
its enthralled me for years also, but without an ending it’s getting "%^&$#@"
your comment on: " dismissed from the King's Service".
1: I am 90% sure that he joined the British Permanent Army given the documents found in his AIF records
2: I could never understand how he would just walk up to another Army establishment and say here I am employ me.
3: The new job would want to see his AIF Commission, Wouldn't they..... ?
4: They would then say why aren’t you fighting with your own mob......? wouldn't they.....?
But, maybe as someone else has said previously, maybe he was a Mason, maybe he had mates in the British Army, who would turn a blind eye, Officers were in demand, especially experienced ones. They might have said who cares!!! Grab the bastard and use him up as cannon fodder
And lastly, maybe he just lied a little, made a new name up, fronted up with some contrived evidence that we don't know about and bluffed his way through He'd been a Salesman, a Captain, and If I’m not mistaken had "the gift of the gab" like my grandfather his brother....!!
When I see the documents used as Official in 1917 and then know that he was in a position to get these original new documents and then say what he liked on them and or then go back to them and edit them to say or mean something quite different. (ie) change his name, or have friends that might do it for him, then it might be quite understandable and possible.
This situation for a basic soldier would be difficult, but all of us who have held senior positions in Organisations know ways around the normal or legal or proper methods..... If you know what I mean. So, a Captain with contacts could arrange almost anything if he was desperate enough.
Off course, this is all conjecture at this point and all of this might end up being a unsolvable mad riddle
This matter has been researched over and over again by me and others, in many different ways. The fact that I'm opening it up to RootsChat is an example of another way for me/us to find out new facts a different way. The normal methods haven't worked. Working through the Military Archives using the normal methods hasn't worked, the normal documents attribued to an Officer arn't where they should be and there is ample evidance that they should be available.
I dispatched aletter to the Historical Records section of the UK MOD last night, with enough rope to either hang me or pull Albert back up out of the French mud, lets hope they might find something
One last thing here: you have had the chance to read his GCM, yes he was Court Martialled, as the paymaster said other officers took sums of money advanced from their wages and as for AWOL, it appears this was a pretty normal practice. He didn't take a pot-shot at the King or run from a battle. I wouldn't have a problem with hireing him, but then I'm an Aussie and pretty easy going about rules and regulations, "a rule breaker and not a rule maker"
Cheers
ian
