Margarida Portela - Military Historian
Feeding the troops – some eating habits of the Portuguese fighters during the Great War.
Margarida Portela (HTC - NOVA/FCSH, CH - FLUL & CINAV - EN)
Presentation made at the conference “Para a mesa: produção, transformação e distribuição alimentar nos séculos XIX, XX e XXI" [To the table: food production, transformation and distribution in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries], February 23, 2017.
I can probably start by stating the obvious: feeding one’s army is very important. There will be no army, no morale and no esprit the corps without proper food and a strong military health service. And a good logistical plan, of course. But, for the Portuguese troops, during their presence in the Great War theaters, this rarely happened. What was the outcome? One that we will be able to observe, establishing the appropriate differences between the various war fronts. And where were the Portuguese war theaters? In Africa and France, with different mindsets and chronologies – and marked contrasts for the diet itself!
In the African Front
Let us begin with the African Front, where the “adventure” would start with the journey to Angola or Mozambique. As some soldiers recalled, this voyage was made “in the belly of a great ship”, with severe lack of conditions and food difficulties. This was totally mind-blowing for some experienced militaries, already involved in the Portuguese African campaigns of late 19th century. Portugal was an «Africanist nation», with colonies in different parts of the African continent. But this chaos still happened anyway, mainly between 1914 and 1916, because Portugal had never sent so many soldiers to Africa.
​
Along the way, the military contingents were increasing in size – but the logistical machine was not improved. Conditions became appalling, while these boats left Lisbon carrying loads of supplies, chosen for its long-time tradition in feeding the nation and its military. The result could not be worse as, in the end, they had no resistance to high temperatures, aboard or inland.
​
Before those highest Portuguese military ranks started to understand that some things were better left out of tropical heat, Portuguese ships carried out sending military rations that included salted codfish, chorizo or canned sardines, side by side with tons of vegetables, fruits and fresh meat. The journey was long, especially for the expeditionary forces destined to Mozambique. And only some of these vessels had freezers that, due to its high maintenance, would undoubtedly stop working. So, in the end, with or without freezers, tons of supplies were always thrown overboard, when vegetables were not as green as they were, and meat became tainted in green and blue, due to natural decay.
​
Portuguese troops heading to Mozambique at the Santa Apolónia pier, September 1914
Arquivo Fotográfico CML - Catálogo Portugal e a Grande Guerra, 2015.
When these men finally arrived to their finally destination, they usually had nothing prepared. This was tremendously obvious in Mozambique, where the military campaign lasted until 1918. There was no food, and no “greeting party” for those arriving. Just the opposite, as substantial problems were just getting started! Logistical difficulties increased considerably after they go ashore, so as the number of sick soldiers, because of high temperatures and lack of conditions (including the nutritional ones). These resulted in reduced battalions and threatened the Portuguese military efficiency. And, in only two or three months, military contingents were easily reduced to a third of its strength – with most of these men sick or dead, without seeing one single enemy. In the end, malaria, typhoid, dysentery or syphilis took its toll, but starvation and thirst were no better for these already weakened men.
​
Most of the Portuguese memories produced on the African front are filled with hard to read references to illness, hunger and thirst. Even doctors like Américo Pires de Lima stated that some soldiers came from their expeditionary journeys suffering from acute deprivation. Meanwhile, the products that arrived would be frequently rotten, as they kept sending salted codfish and chorizo to soldiers with insufficient water to drink. Even condensed milk, that doctors used in the treatment of the sick and wounded, arrived full of mold and, therefore, incapable of being used – mainly because it was hastily produced in Lisbon and poorly stored since the beginning.
​
For the months to come, the wine was sour as vinegar, and beans, lentils and other products kept arriving rotten or filled with maggots. And the common soldier was faced with an almost total absence of flours or grain to produce bread, as well as shortages of coffee, sugar and milk, basic daily products that were now missing from their common diet. Sometimes some solutions could be found among the native inhabitants. “Buy local”, as some of them wrote in their diaries. But local goods could be decent… Or not that good, as most of them despised local food, like African meats, porridges and flours. Strange animals could be hunted, like gazelles, boars, giraffes and even hippos. Fish and eggs could be catch of bought from African residents – at super inflated prices, of course. But, let´s face it: indigenous production was never regarded as a perfect solution, and only the truly desperate would really go for it.
José Joaquim Ramos, Tropas de África. Marcha.
[African Troops. Marching], Museu Militar de Lisboa
We must also remember that several expeditions were conducted by the Portuguese, with soldiers walking countless miles under the African sun. No fresh water available, and no fresh meat, vegetables or fruits. Nothing more than some stiffed dried biscuit, some black-eyed peas and beans, some potato soup and some wild animal meat to go with it. All done with water from rivers and ponds filled with bacteria that weakened their bodies and troubled their souls. Those men knew that they should boil it, to drink and use for food preparation, but they were too tired to do it properly. Sometimes they would even take live cattle in these expeditions, but usually the animals were, as we would consider nowadays, «fat free». Some soldiers wrote in their war memoirs that these animals were so skinny that the bones could be seen through the skin. And most of them were filled with parasites – or, even worst, suffering from acute Tuberculosis.
​
But, of course, we can also establish some shocking differences between the Portuguese highest military ranks and common soldiers on the ground. Because, for those who could stay in cities like Luanda – or in military camps located in places such as Palma, Pemba or Mocimboa da Praia – money and status resulted in a wider possibility of acquiring a variety of products from South Africa (that soldiers wouldn't even dare to dream of). This included bottled water – that generals, colonels and majors used to brush their teeth – spiritual wines, fresh fish and meat, vegetables and fruits (like lemons, so important to scurvy prevention). Diaries and memories of low-ranking soldier stated that the difference was overwhelming! So much that frequently provoked anger and frustration among those who could not afford it!
In Flanders Fields
The same thing could easily happen in France. And memoirs from those days, written by man like Jaime Cortesão, André Brun, Augusto Casimiro or Raul de Carvalho, are filled with details of that “nutritional reminiscence” perceived by the Portuguese in the Western Front.
​
Portugal and Great Britain had agreed that the English would give the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps (PEC) a ration that would include bread or biscuit, meat or corned beef, jam, cheese, sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, condensed milk, dried vegetables, potatoes, butter, pickles, rum, tobacco and matches. Portugal would provide the wine and coffee, refusing the good old “British Tea”.
​
The Portuguese, sometimes known as “Pork and Beans” or, better still, “Pork and Cheese” – for their fine but considered exaggerated taste for those high fat products – despised these rations, with the infamous corned beef, the orange jam, the unused mustard or the pickles, filled with vinegar and so hard to swallow. And spent time remembering what they regularly ate in their homeland, like goat or lamb meat, cheese and “aguardente”, a white spirit said to be much better than brandy. We must remember that most of these men came from rural Portugal, where products such as chorizo and other salted meats, carrots, onions, garlic, and salted codfish with potatoes were accompanied by good wine and lots of virgin olive oil. As a result, British rations were often partially unused, or simply thrown to the garbage by these unsatisfied “customers”.
​
Pão e queijo numa trincheira portuguesa. [Bread and cheese at the Portuguese Trenches]
​
Valois Album
Production and delivery also suffered great changes during the war and even the British had troubled times getting everything they needed to feed the British Expeditionary Force (BEF). This meant that, at times, they faced problems sending what PEC needed. And local markets, given the harshness of war, were experiencing the same logistical problems. And therefore, they were not the solution for acquiring those missing items.
​
This meant that, for all combatants, those troubled years where even harder in the trenches. And this included PEC, sent to Flanders fields in 1917. What would a man, raised in rural Portugal, and accustomed to work in the great outdoors, thought when, for the first time, was given a cold ration? What were their considerations when he saw hot food brought to the trench lines for the first time? Was he prepared to eat what could sometimes be produced in nearby kitchens, always on the move? For there was no possibility of establishing a real kitchen on the frontline. The fire, smoke and structural exposure to the enemy forbade this at all costs. What was the mindset of this peasant soldiers, fighting a war that, so many felt was not their own…
​
Troubled by their own mental war, these soldiers would sometimes receive a thick soup, made with lots of beans and some cabbages, and tried to minimize their hunger by stealing potatoes in a nearby farm. Or a chicken, that would probably be missed by those hungry French peasants that lived in the rear, for they too had nowhere else to go. And why not grow some cabbages near the trenches? While missing salted codfish, of course, and that good Portuguese olive oil.
​
These situations frequently happened in the frontlines, turning those miserable lives more miserable than ever. As for other combatants, away in hospitals, convalescent depots or military camps, there were canteens and other places where one could eat better, take a shower and have a good shave. For that, there are plenty of images in the newspapers of comrades getting together around a table, with a bottle of wine in some improvised spot, near a farm or depot. Images that filled the minds of those in the Homefront, relieving their suffering with this “war propaganda”. Still, this was not that common for the ordinary soldier, more a commonplace for Portuguese high military ranks, that had the opportunity to organize dinner parties with wines, champagne, meats and sweets, and lots of products sent by their families. And bought, of course, by considerable amounts in Paris and other cities – and in canteens opened only for those officers.
​
A chegada da sopa quente. [The arrival of hot soup]
​
Valois Album
Some striking examples can be found in war diaries. For instance, Raul de Carvalho – a hematologist who worked in both the Portuguese and British military health services in France – got a bit feverish after his typhoid vaccine. In result, during the first night, as he was very thirsty and had no water in his room, situated in a French villa, some miles away from the entrenched zone, he resorted to champagne to quench the so much felted dryness of his palate. But we can also recall the words of another Portuguese officer, Maia Magalhães, in a letter to his beloved wife: yes, in the end of that dreadful Winter, he found strawberries! An amazing find, as he immediately bought a box of those splendid juicy fruits, as extraordinary as the amount of money he paid for them. And he even grumbled that, considering what he paid, he was probably being robbed!
So, in France, as in Africa, there were also major differences found in what an officer could eat, and a soldier could endure for lunch! And a huge contrast from the frontline to the rear, from the trenches to those military camps, away from “no man´s land”. Although this could be seen in so many other aspects, the accusations were very clear regarding food and beverages: one could eat and drink better in the rear, in hospitals and depots, and in some military camps. That would be particularly visible if one was an officer, for they could easily escape, with superb efficiency, from trench lines life. Those serving in the frontline areas, with some low military rank and stationed in some trench, buried in mud, dirt and water, had no conditions of eating and drinking properly, stating that a grown-up man, in only one week, could easily lose 8 or 9 pounds.
Maybe, as a conclusion, we can state, among other details, that:
-
The Portuguese African war theaters were substantially different from those of the Western Front. In Africa – and mainly in the Mozambique campaigns – all that surrounded the Portuguese military personnel, from transportation to heath care conditions, from food to evacuation, was as dreadful as it could be. Nevertheless, we must remember there is similar information recovered in statements made by British soldiers in Africa, recalling similar problems, such as logistical difficulties on getting food and clean water during some long expeditions. But the truth is that, in some moments, total chaos prevailed in Mozambique. A turmoil that resulted in a huge number of casualties – including deaths – of Portuguese fighters who died due to disease and problems arising from the poor organization and supply of their military camps.
-
Being in France was, as far as food and beverages, way better than being in any Portuguese African front. But there were also discrepancies between what an officer had to endure and what lower ranks could eat or drink. For the first could buy exquisite delights and treats, and the others would be lucky to eat some proper hot meal. And there are differences, of course, between the frontline, where we could find those dreadful trenches, and the rear, where convalescent depots, hospitals and other logistical apparatus where situated. So much that, in some situations – as with BEF or the French expeditionary forces – PEC officers also feared this could be the spark that could lead to major dissatisfaction – or even rebellion – among their soldiers.